ABSTRACT
The story of urban education is often presented as one of crisis: tales of disruption, stories of children running riot, accounts of young people failing to achieve basic skill levels. But this is only part of the reality. While the concentration of social and economic disadvantage in urban contexts can have damaging effects on children’s beliefs about learning, and on their experience of education, there is a buzz and sense of possibilities in many of our city schools not found elsewhere. The children and young people are lively, resourceful and creative. Many of our city schools are places where teachers want to stay, not necessarily easy places to work, but exciting and rewarding ones.
