Education in Urban Spaces: False Notions About Solutions and Little Attention to Social Justice

Abstract

In this critical essay, we explore how overriding media and political frames have constructed education in urban spaces as a "problem" in ways that make possible the framing of neoliberal education reforms as solutions. We juxtapose neoliberalism with theories of social justice to show how social justice theories would lead to deeper understandings of education in urban spaces and different possible solutions. To push back against the current lack historical understandings of schools and people in urban spaces through neoliberal frameworks and discourses, we explore how the "right to the city" (LeFebvre, 1996) has been denied to those living in urban spaces centering the case and history of Chicago. In the end, we argue that social justice has been neglected in the discourses, policies and practices of education in urban spaces.