Metropolitics

Girls-Only Sport

Antoine Bréau & translated by Oliver Waine — 2023-05-26T05:00:00Z

Against a backdrop of gender inequalities at school, an experiment in the field of physical education shows that sports classes in single-sex groups allows students room to maneuver in relation to gender norms, albeit without completely eliminating them.
Internationally, in the face of continuing gender inequalities in schools, co-education in schools is once again being debated. In various countries (Canada, South Korea, Australia, United States), the return of single-sex schools is

- From the Field / Switzerland, sport, inequalities, gender segregation, gender, youth, non-mixity, school

Migration and Inequalities: The Importance of Social Class

2021-11-19T06:00:00Z

Since the 1990s, Anne-Catherine Wagner's research has focused on migrants from the most affluent classes in society. In this interview, she returns to the notion of international capital, which she used in her work to shed light on inequalities relating to mobility, particularly in her pioneering survey of “expat” executives in France.
Where does your interest in upper-class migration come from, and what do you see as the contribution made by work on this subject?
When I began my PhD

- Interviews / mobility, expatriation, globalization, social class, upper classes, migrants, immigration, migration, school, education, inequalities

Understanding School Closures in Chicago: A Review of Eve Ewing's Ghosts in the Schoolyard

Ryan M. Good — 2019-12-17T06:00:00Z

Eve Ewing's Ghosts in the Schoolyard portrays recent school reform efforts in Chicago through the eyes of those devastated by the imposition of “choice” and “market discipline” in public education.
The great deceit of marketized education reform—and the mass school closures such reforms produce in communities like Chicago's Bronzeville—is the suggestion that the introduction of choice and market discipline can undo histories of racism that have systematically disadvantaged communities of

- Reviews / United States, Chicago, race, racism, school, education, education reform

Why School Securitization Fails. Lessons from Morrill and Musheno's Navigating Conflict

Andrés Besserer Rayas — 2019-10-08T05:00:00Z

Navigating Conflict describes how pupils are able to address conflicts on their own, and how school securitization policies undermine these efforts.
“Every day when I walk into the campus, I am greeted by uneasy stares and nervous shouting reminding me to make sure I do not have keys or a belt or anything that may alert the metal detector,” a high-school student declared before the New York City Council Budget and Oversight Hearings in March of 2019 (Make the Road New York 2019). She spoke as

- Reviews / school, education, conflict, securitization, security, United States, ethnography

Migrants' Occupation of Lycée Jean Quarré: The Refugee Cause and the Cause of a Neighborhood

Isabelle Coutant & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-11-16T06:00:00Z

The flows of migrants seeking refuge in Europe since the summer of 2015 have led to temporary settlements—legal or otherwise—in various urban locations. What is the impact of their presence on individual neighborhoods and relations with local communities? A study by Isabelle Coutant on the occupation of a disused high school in northeastern Paris sheds light on these impacts and the associated expressions of solidarity, engagement and tension that emerge.
In the summer of 2015, the

- Essays / France, immigration, refugees, public space, working-class neighborhoods, collective action, Paris, proximity, neighborhood, migration, sociabilities, RESF, hospitality, politics, school, migrants, engagement, occupation, local action, asylum

The Educational Fortunes of Children of Immigrants in France

Mathieu Ichou & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-07-06T05:00:00Z

How can the attainment gap between children of immigrants and children of native-born parents be explained? While some underline the role of an implausible “culture of origin”, Mathieu Ichou shows that differences in academic achievement are linked above all to social origin, and in particular to the social positions occupied by immigrant parents both in their host country and in their country of origin.
Despite many nuanced contributions from sociologists, the theme of academic failure among

- Essays / immigration, culture, children, education, school, social class

The Everyday Activism of Chicago's Public High-School Football Coaches

Lawrence Johnson — 2018-03-13T06:00:00Z

For several generations, high-school football programs have been an important part of the social fabric in economically challenged Chicago neighborhoods. Sociologist Lawrence Johnson, himself a former player in the Chicago Public League, draws on in-depth interviews with coaches and players to conclude that policies being pursued by city officials in the name of educational choice and reform are ripping this fabric apart.
A tearing social fabric
Ebony Magazine published an article in 1963

- From the Field / Chicago, sport, education, school, education reform, social networks, high-school football, football coaches, school restructuring

“Harriet Jacobs didn't learn to read and write so that she could get an A”

C. Ray Borck — 2016-05-03T05:00:00Z

Confronted by school systems that persistently reproduce race- and class-based educational inequality, how can individual poor students of color navigate their own educational paths to realize self-actualization, engaged learning, and scholastic success? Urban ethnographer C. Ray Borck shows how one school in Brooklyn is teaching students to harness their historical disenfranchisement and cultural strength for educational achievement.
Poor youth of color are more likely to attend struggling

- From the Field / New York, race, education, Brooklyn, school, culturally competent curriculum, critical racial awareness, public education, educational inequality, racial pedagogy, Brooklyn schools

How Children Cope When Home is a Hotel

Erwan Le Méner & translated by Christina Mitrakos — 2016-02-05T06:00:00Z

Emergency housing in social hotels is affecting a growing number of families in the Paris region. How does this experience impact the lives of children? What are the consequences on children's relationship to space, on how they grow up, and on how they learn, make friends and play? Erwan Le Méner shows how school plays a central role in stabilizing an otherwise precarious situation.
---- Series: Children in the City Today, one in five people experiencing homelessness in the Paris region are

- From the Field / France, Paris region, housing, children, public policy, sociabilities, vulnerability, homelessness, precarity, vulnerable housing, emergency accommodation, social emergency, social hotel, school