Recent Publications by Jody Cohen
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Constructing Race at an Urban High School: In Their Minds, Their Mouths, Their Hearts
Too often, students of color receive little affirmation of their cultural identities at school, and traditional curricula seems only tangentially related to their lives. In this essay from Beyond Silenced Voices: Class, Race, and Gender…
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Inquiry: A Case Study of Charter Development
A case study detailing the development of the Inquiry Charter program formed at a Philadelphia comprehensive high school. This school, located in a low-income neighborhood, was one of three selected for intensive restructuring during the…
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Learning in the Afternoon: When Teacher Inquiry Meets School Reform
This article, published in Chartering Urban School Reform (Michelle Fine, ed., Teachers’ College Press, 1994) describes the Seminar in Teaching and Learning, a researching community of approximately 35 teachers from Philadelphia high schools who meet…
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‘Now Everybody Want to Dance:’ Making Change in an Urban Charter
This chapter examines the Inquiry charter (school within a school) program at a comprehensive high school in Philadelphia. The author finds that the Inquiry Charter has created an environment where students are deeply engaged in…
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The Real Multicultural Curriculum: What Happens When Students Contest Community and Curriculum
This paper, presented at the 1994 Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, considers how the process of creating a student-driven, multicultural curriculum can help address issues of difference and be part of meaningful school reform.…
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Walking the Talk: Teacher Work on the Road to Reform
This working paper explores teachers’ concerns about authority, relationship, and reform, as these arise in an intensive summer professional development workshop.
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Girls in the Middle: Working to Succeed in School
Middle schools are in a position to empower girls through educational reforms that directly address issues of gender equity. This study, commissioned by the American Association of University Women Education Foundation, reports on research in…
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Taking Stock/Making Change: Focusing on Student Voices at AMY Northwest
Taking Stock/Making Change is a series of reports generated during a collaborative action research project in which self-study teams from five Philadelphia schools sought to connect self-assessment to school restructuring. The five case studies each…
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Growing Smaller: Three Tasks in Restructuring Urban High Schools
In this article from Urban Education, the authors offer a framework, derived from five years of research in Philadelphia high schools, to illuminate the vision and labor necessary to make urban high school reform both…
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Homegrown Research: A Guide for School Communities
This work is intended to assist school communities in looking at research and in carrying out their own ‘home-grown’ research projects as a school improvement tool. It begins with materials and understandings drawn from two…
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Critical Literacy and School Reform: So Much to Do in So Little Time
Student voices have largely been absent from the development of school reform efforts. This essay argues for the inclusion of these voices, noting that youths often have important insights into efforts to improve their schools.…