UEP Spring 2016 Symposium

Thanks to all who participated, attended, and helped produce this conference.


The Inner City School: Inequality and Urban Education

Greenberg Conference Center, Yale University

April 22, 2016 9:00am – April 23, 2016 5:00pm


Thursday, April 21st

6:30pm: Welcoming Reception

The Study at Yale Hotel

Friday, April 22nd

7:45am: Shuttle from Hotels to Greenberg Conference Center


8:00am: Breakfast at Greenberg Conference Center


9:00am: Welcome

Elijah Anderson, Yale University; Philip Smith, Chair of Sociology, Yale University; and Benjamin Polak, Provost, Yale University

9:30am to 10:30am: Inequality and Education: An Overview

Sean Reardon, Stanford University

“Urban Schools: Race, Income, Segregation, and Unequal Educational Opportunity”

Commentator: William Julius Wilson, Harvard University


10:45am to 12:15pm: The Social Context

Cid Martinez, University of San Diego

“Responding to Violence, Keeping the Peace: Interracial Relations between Black and Latino Youth Gangs”

John Hagedorn, University of Illinois, Chicago

“Gangs and Institutional Change”

Waverly Duck, University of Pittsburgh

“Beyond the Prison to School Pipeline: Surveillance in the Everyday Lives of the Poor”

Nikki Jones, University of California, Berkeley

“The ‘Good Girl’ and the ‘Ghetto Chick’: Policing Gender in the Inner-city School”

Moderator: Andrew Papachristos, Yale University


12:30pm: Lunch: Carlos Javier Ortiz’ Photographic Slide Show


1:30pm to 2:45pm: Ethnographic Portraits of Inner City Schools

Carla Shedd, Columbia University

“Policing the Public (Schools) in an Unequal City”

Vani Kulkarni, University of Pennsylvania

“Left in the Doorway: How school choice deepens the ambiguous identity of inner-city youth”

Luke Anderson, Blackstone Academy Charter School

“The Charter Schools, A Tale of Two Cities: Chicago and Providence”

Moderator: Mira Debs, Yale University


3:00pm to 4:15pm: School to Prison Pipeline

Harold Dean Trulear, Howard University; Melanie Snyder, Lancaster County Reentry Management Organization

“School to Prison and Reentry: A Quantitative Story”

Kathleen Nolan, Princeton University

“Urban School Discipline, Policing, and the Criminalization of Youth of Color”

Patricia Maloney, Texas Tech University; Duke Austin, Cal State, East Bay; Saun Juhi Verma, Rutgers

“The School-to-Prison-to-Deportation Pipeline in Six American Cities: How Students, Teachers, and Administrators Navigate Educational Opportunity in the Context of Surveillance”

Moderator: Tracey Meares, Yale University


4:15pm to 4:30pm: Break


4:30pm to 6:00pm: Student Narratives

Rodney Walker, Yale University,

Formerly ACE Tech Charter High School Student

Mardia Cooper, Colby Sawyer College,

Formerly a North Lawndale Prep student

Charles Doneghan, University of Illinois,

Formerly a North Lawndale Prep student

Moderator: Luke Anderson, Blackstone Academy Charter School, formerly a teacher at North Lawndale Prep


6:00pm to 7:15pm: Families, Aspirations, and Outcomes

Vivian Gadsden, University of Pennsylvania

“The Gender and Racial Politics of Urban Schooling”

Shaun Harper, University of Pennsylvania

“Family-Focused Findings from NY Black & Latino Male High School Achievement Study”

Scott Brooks, University of Missouri

“‘Rocket Man’: Doing Life and Basketball in South Philadelphia

Moderator: Vida Maralani, Yale University


7:15pm: Reception


7:30pm: Dinner and Keynote Presentation

Matthew Desmond, Harvard University

“Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City”

Commentator: Scott Brooks, University of Missouri


9:30pm: Shuttle from Greenberg Conference Center to Hotels


Saturday, April 23rd

7:45am: Shuttle to Greenberg Conference Center


8:00am: Breakfast


9:00am: Welcome Summary and Prospectus, Elijah Anderson, Yale University


9:30am-11:00am: The French Connection: State of Education in Urban France

Jean-Michel Chapoulie, Université de Paris 1

“Schooling in France: From Organizational Inequality to Informal Inequality”

William Kornblum, CUNY

“La Visitation: Inequality and Education in Marseille”

Celia Bense Ferreira Alves and Michel Nguyen Duc Long, Université de Paris 8

“Beyond Diversity: Working at Breaking Inequalities in a French Suburban Senior High School”

David Lepoutre, Université de Paris X

“Street Culture and Social Control in Two High Schools in Working-class and Immigrant Neighborhoods”

Moderator: Henri Peretz, Université de Paris 8


11:15am: Coffee and Snack Break


11:30am to 12:30pm: Principal Narratives

Tim Bouman

Principal, North Lawndale College Prep

Kyleen Carpenter

Principal, Blackstone Academy Charter School, Providence

Abie Benitez

Principal, Columbus Family Academy, Brooklyn

Moderator: Julia Rozanova, Yale University


12:45pm: Lunch and Keynote Presentation 

Edmund Gordon, Yale University and Teachers College, Columbia University

“Assessment in the Service of Learning”


2:00pm to 3:15pm: Urban Schools: The Most Promising Approaches?

Michelle Fine, CUNY Graduate Center

“Structural Violence/Radical Possibilities: Re-imagining Public Education for Racial, Immigrant, Educational and Labor Justice”

Michael Klonsky, DePaul University

“Rethinking School Design: Making Schools Smaller, Safer, and More Equitable”

Jerry D. Weast, Montgomery County

“Confronting Urban Education Challenges: Sequencing Change from the Bottom Up and the Top Down”

Moderator: Gerald Jaynes, Yale University


3:15pm: Break


3:30pm to 5:00pm: Public Policy and Urban Education Reform: Solutions

Gloria Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin, Madison

“‘Makes Me Want To Holler:’ Refuting the ‘Culture of Poverty’ Discourse in Urban Schooling”

Jim Lytle, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania

“Inner City School Reform: Takeover, Turnaround, or Deconstruction”

Charles Payne, University of Chicago

“Doing the Impossible: Meaningful Reform in Urban Schools”

Odis Johnson, Washington University, Saint Louis

“Pre-K to Prison Technologies in Policy and Practice”

Moderator: Matthew Hughey, University of Connecticut


5:00pm: Closing Remarks

Elijah Anderson, Yale University