Toxic Schools

High-Poverty Education in New York and Amsterdam

Paulle Bowen

Violent urban schools loom large in our culture: for decades they have served as the centerpieces of political campaigns and as window dressing for brutal television shows and movies. Yet unequal access to quality schools remains the single greatest failing of our society – and one of the most hotly debated issues of our time. Of all the usual words used to describe non-selective city schools – segregated, unequal, violent – none comes close to characterizing their systemic dysfunction in high-poverty neighborhoods. The most accurate word is toxic.

When Bowen Paulle speaks of toxicity, he speaks of educational worlds dominated by intimidation and anxiety, by ambivalence, degradation, and shame. Based on six years of teaching and research in the South Bronx and in Southeast Amsterdam, "Toxic Schools" is the first fully participatory ethnographic study of its kind and a searing examination of daily life in two radically different settings. What these schools have in common, however, are not the predictable ideas about race and educational achievement but the tragically similar habituated stress responses of students forced to endure the experience of constant vulnerability. From both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, Paulle paints an intimate portrait of how students and teachers actually cope, in real time, with the chronic stress, peer group dynamics, and subtle power politics of urban educational spaces in the perpetual shadow of aggression.

About the Author

Bowen Paulle teaches at the University of Amsterdam. A native New Yorker, he lives in the Netherlands.

Reviews

"'Toxic Schools' is an ambitious and original treatment of violence in inner-city schools, distinguished by Bowen Paulle's sophisticated integration of theoretical constructs throughout the discussion of his empirical materials. This highly instructive cross-site comparison will appeal not just to scholars of education and school administrators. And it is relayed in such visceral terms that it will likely appeal to a broad readership as well" – Peter R. Ibarra, University of Illinois at Chicago

"A bare-knuckled, gut-wrenching, and frankly heart-breaking intimate portrayal from an insider teacher-ethnographer who worked for years on the front lines of the violent mayhem of poor urban schools in both the United States and Holland. Like most of his colleagues, Bowen Paulle fails to teach his out-of-control classes, but he dares explain why and how and propose solutions. He opens up the black box of the structurally imposed failure of public education for the urban poor on both sides of the Atlantic, revealing its micro-interactional processes" – Philippe Bourgois author of "In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in EL Barrio"

"Insightful and evocative, 'Toxic Schools' takes us inside troubled schools on both sides of the Atlantic. Bo Paulle's six years of teaching in the South Bronx and Southeast Amsterdam shows. Cutting through stale debates about high-poverty education with detailed, clear-eyed accounts of the lives of teachers and students confronting poverty and violence, he offers a refreshing and highly original perspective on the brokenness of our schools and what can be done to fix them. If you thought you understood the depths of the problem, this book will make you think again" – Matthew Desmond, author of "On the Fireline: Living and Dying with Wildland Firefighters"

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