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Maia Bloomfield Cucchiara, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Urban Education
Dept. of Teaching & Learning

252 Ritter Hall
1301 Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Ritter Hall, College of Education
Philadelphia, PA 19122

phone/fax: (215) 204-8184 / (215) 204-2743
maia.cucchiara@temple.edu

 

 

Education

  • 2007, Ph.D.  University of Pennsylvania.  Education and Sociology

    1997, M.A.  Teachers College, Columbia University.  Elementary Education

    1993, B.A.  Carleton College.  History

Areas of Professional Interest

Sociology of Education

Education Policy

Urban Education

Equity and Access

Families and Schools

Qualitative Research

I am a sociologist of education with a focus on urban schools and communities. My research interests fall into three often-overlapping categories. First, I am interested in urban education policy and particularly in the intersections between policy assumptions and discourses, issues of race and class, and people’s lived experiences. Second, I study family-school relations, with a focus on how class shapes parents’ experiences with urban schools and their children’s education more broadly. Third, I am interested in the impact of urban development and revitalization on public education and the implications for disadvantaged students.  I am the author of Marketing Schools, Marketing Cities:  Who Wins and Who Loses When Schools Become Urban Amenities (University of Chicago Press, 2013).  http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo15112913.html

 

Recent Scholarship

Cucchiara, M.  (2013). “’I want the White people here:’ The Dark Side of an Urban School Renaissance.”  In M. Katz and M. Rose (Eds.)  Reimagining Education Reform.  Philadelphia, PA:  The University of Pennsylvania Press.

Cucchiara, M.  (2012). “’Are we doing damage?’  Choosing an Urban Public School in an Era of Parental Anxiety.”  Anthropology and Education Quarterly.

Cucchiara, M., Gold, E., and Simon, E.  (2011) “Contracts, Choice, and Customer Service:  Marketization and Public Engagement in Education.”  Teachers College Record, 113 (11).

Gold, E., Simon, E., and Cucchiara, M.  (2010).  “The Prospects for Public Engagement in a Privatizing System:  A Case Study of Philadelphia, 2001-2007.”  In J. Rogers and M. Orr (Eds.).  Public Engagement for Public Education:  Joining Forces to Revitalize Democracy and Equalize Schools.  Stanford, CA:  Stanford University Press.

Cucchiara, M. and Horvat, E.  (2009).  “Perils and Promises:  Middle-Class Parental Involvement in Urban Public Schools.”  American Educational Research Journal, 46 (4):  974-1004.

Gold, E., Cucchiara, M., and Simon, E.  (2009).  “Market-Oriented Education Reforms:  The Cost to Civic Capacity in Philadelphia.”  Voices in Urban Education (23):  5-12.

Cucchiara, M.  (2008).  “Re-Branding Urban Schools: Urban Revitalization, Education, and Marketing Public Schools to Upper-Middle-Class Parents.  Journal of Education Policy, 23 (2):  165-179