Urban Education: Challenges and possibilities

Urban education needs a set of conceptual tools that go beyond the simple description of particular urban phenomena, give due acknowledgement to macro-level forces, and also explore local variations in urban contexts that have the potential to expose local possibilities for action. This chapter articulates a newly synthesised discursive conceptual argument about what urban education might mean and how such an argument should become a central way of understanding some of the similar and yet distinct dynamics of education in urban contexts. In essence the broad argument developed in this chapter details a theory of the urban that appreciates the global dynamics of urban processes but does so through a historically and locally understood and articulated sense of place. Such thinking is then embedded in our critique of much of the urban education research literatures and is exemplified through an exploration of our thinking with regards to a recent empirical study of young people’s educational aspirations in two urban contexts in Wales, a constituent country of the United Kingdom. Building on our exemplified theory of urban education developed in the chapter we then explore in brief and schematic ways how such thinking might contribute to the challenges and possibilities of education in Central Asia documented in this book. We do so by focusing on educational pathways to labour market transitions in city of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan as particular case in point. In summary the chapter argues for the importance of foundational urban theorising, appropriately contextualised, as a way of understanding the social, economic and cultural foundations upon which young people and urban schooling operate.