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novella keith

Novella Z. Keith,   Associate Professor of Urban Education
Program Coordinator - Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

Ritter Hall 242
1301 Cecil B. Moore Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19122-6091

phone: (215) 204-6940
novella.keith@temple.edu

Education

1981 Ph.D. Rutgers University, Sociology
1975 M. A. Rutgers University, Sociology
1966 B. A. Douglass College, French and Comparative Literature

Areas of Professional Interest

  • School-community partnerships
  • Service learning in urban settings 
  • Participation/democratic theory in urban school reform  
  • Education and development in Third World countries

I am interested in the politics of urban education, particularly as they relate to democratic participation, equity, and difference.  I see service learning and school-community partnerships as possible ways to bridge the boundaries between education professionals and inner-city residents, and improve schools through community building and community development.  I am currently involved in a three-year project (research and practice) to support partnerships among selected Philadelphia schools,  neighborhood residents, service agencies, and the university, through service-learning.

Recent Scholarship

Globalism and difference: Sketches of the political contours.  Invited keynote, "Globalization: Issues and Perspectives" conference.  Trinity College, Hartford, CT, April 2000 (with Nelson Keith).

Hard core understandings: Building bridges with urban youth.  Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, April 2000 (with Richard Cooper).

Whose Community Schools?  New Discourses, Old Patterns.  Theory into Practice (special issue on the Politics of Participation in School Reform), 38(4): 225-234 (1999).

Community service for community building: the School-Based Service Corps as border crossers.  Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 5: 86-96 (1998).

Doing service projects in urban settings.  In Waterman, A. (ed.), Service Learning; Applications from the Research.  Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (1997).

A critical perspective on teacher participation in urban schools. Educational Administration Quarterly, 32(1): 45?79 (1996).

Can urban school reform and community development be joined? The potential of community schools. Education and Urban Society, 28(2): 237?268 (1996).

The Social Origins of Democratic Socialism in Jamaica. 1974?1980. Philadelphia: Temple University Press (1992; with Nelson Keith).