The Urban Review

, Volume 41, Issue 3, pp 201–221 | Cite as

“You Feel Like You’re in Your Second Family”: Spinning a Relational Web in Middle School

Article
First Online:

Abstract

This article looks closely at the ways in which administrators and teachers at an urban middle school worked to create a relational web; that is, a system that supported multiple connection points across the school community. As such, it illustrates and analyzes four strands of this web including codes of practice, grouping strategies, organizational structures, and discourses of diversity. Taken collectively, these strands helped to develop and sustain relationships within and across the school, and worked to define the character of the school. Because of the opportunities that become possible through the enactment of such a web, I argue that it can play a critical role in creating an asset-based school community. This article is based on ethnographic data collected over a year and a half (2001–2002), including interview and focus group transcripts with administrators, teachers, and students; fieldnotes taken during class, meeting, and free times; and curricular and administrative materials gathered from across the school.

Keywords

Urban schools School relationships Assets 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the MMS school community for their generous spirit. I would also like to thank my reviewers and colleagues who provided helpful comments on this manuscript.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2008

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.School of EducationUniversity of DelawareNewarkUSA

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