On the Front Lines in Urban Education

n an effort to close the sociocultural, socioeconomic, and sociopolitical gaps between White female teachers and urban elementary students, I enlisted the experiences of four seasoned White women teachers to bring a personal and professional voice to their plight as soldiers on the front lines of urban education. This chapter reveals the voices of these four teachers in an urban elementary school setting. Via a formal questionnaire, I compiled a small data pool to conduct a pilot study concerning issues that White women teachers feel are important to teachers who teach in urban schools. The qual- itative data compiled in this pilot study are used to explore (I) what White women teachers believe is important for success in inner-city schools; (2) avenues that will encourage, enlighten, and empower White women to be- come more effective teachers in urban schools; and (3) ways in which White women teachers can smoothly navigate their sociocultural realities and the sociocultural realities of their students, and to give a voice to teachers work- ing in the inner city.