This chapter explores how instructors designed their classroom management strategies in response to the student challenges discussed in their interviews. It is guided by three research questions: (1) How do instructors enact traditional and culturally responsive classroom management strategies in response to challenging student situations? (2) To what extent does instructor use of traditional and culturally responsive classroom management strategies align with action strategies associated with Model I and Model II learning values in the action science literature? (3) From an action science perspective, what consequences do traditional and culturally responsive classroom management strategies have for CUNY instructors’ behavioral worlds?

This chapter explores the pervasive influence of a "white gaze" as it frames the collective action strategies K-12 urban teachers use to manage intercultural differences between themselves and their students, and how those strategies can operate to increase, maintain, or decrease relational distance with consequences for teachers’ cultural learning processes at work. It also discusses some key intrapsychic and interpersonal constraints on teachers’ cultural learning processes at work associated with the intergroup and group dynamics they share in urban schools.

This chapter introduces action science as a novel approach to reconciling the knowing–doing gap presented in the Introduction. It reviews primary goals of this discipline as established in its seminal literature, as well as central tenets and terms in this discipline that are foundational to the analyses featured throughout the book. It also presents evidence that action science is a suitable approach to reconciling this knowing–doing gap, because its central tenets and terms speak to consistent and recurring themes in the extant educational literature. I explain how the ladder-of-inference framework from this literature is used to investigate K-12 urban teachers’ inferential thinking about cultural differences in the literature review featured across the next six chapters.

This chapter reviews information about the demographic and democratic imperatives prompting K-16 educators to reconsider what they do not know about their students’ cultural backgrounds in urban schools and minority serving institutions (MSIs). It highlights the connection between the student–teacher racial mismatch characterizing K-16 contexts in the United States and a coexistent cultural mismatch. It makes an argument that these demographic characteristics present a human capital challenge that ultimately diminishes teacher effectiveness at learning across cultural differences between themselves and their students in urban schools and MSIs. It concludes by modeling this human capital challenge as a knowing–doing gap using a framework from the organizational literature.

Between 2000 and 2020, governments intensified efforts to raise education standards, driven in part by the OECD’s PISA surveys, which exposed stark disparities in national performance. The case study countries lagged behind the top performers, with Germany ranking near the very bottom. As a result, introducing new reforms – or revising previous performance-driven policies – became a top priority. However, teachers’ unions continued to resist these measures, as they placed sharp light on teacher performance, potentially threatening job security.

This chapter examines the extent of educational reform across the case countries. It highlights how Germany, after decades of near stagnation, embarked on major reforms as the government successfully curtailed union influence. In contrast, in Sweden, which had initially embraced significant changes, experienced a slowdown and partial reversal of earlier reforms following the resurgence of teacher union power. England, despite a Labour government, continued to push forward with reforms, as unions remained effectively held at bay. Meanwhile, France saw little change, as unions repeatedly thwarted reform efforts from both the politically right and left.

The chapter further examines how teachers’ unions, having solidified power bases at both the local and EU levels, effectively sidelined competing interest groups, particularly private schools and parental groups. As a result, they maintained a dominant role in shaping education policy, largely insulated from broader public influence.

Chapter 3 investigates the period 1980–2000, a time when governments, with the exception of Germany, inherited comprehensive systems widely seen as inadequate for equipping students with the knowledge and skills needed in an era of rapid globalisation and technological advancement. In response, governments sought to drive higher levels of performance in their education systems, introducing major reforms such as decentralisation, including school autonomy and accountability measures for schools and teachers. However, implementing these reforms proved extraordinarily challenging, as teachers’ unions – now deeply entrenched in the existing institutions – strongly resisted changes at different levels of policy-making venues as these reforms stood to erode their traditional sources of power and material benefits. The chapter demonstrates that in countries where union influence weakened, such as England and Sweden, significant performance reforms took hold, creating opportunities for traditionally marginalised groups from private sectors. Conversely, in countries where unions retained their dominance, such as France and Germany, the education system remained largely unchanged, reinforcing the status quo.

This chapter begins by highlighting three ways in which K-12 urban educators and college faculty working in MSIs experience similar challenges managing cultural differences between themselves and their students from low-income and other minoritized communities. It then segues into the empirical portion of the book, by introducing the study context, as well as methods and materials used to collect the data analyzed in-depth across the following four chapters.

Chapter 2 covers the period from 1960 to 1980 and analyses how teachers’ unions emerged as the most powerful force in education policy, often at the expense of other interest groups – most notably the private school associations and parental groups. The chapter investigates how this shift in influence shaped major education reforms of that era. It explains how governments found it relatively easy to expand secondary education to an entirely new generation, as teachers’ unions stood to gain substantial material benefits. In contrast, governments faced extraordinary difficulties in integrating the selective education systems into comprehensive school types aimed at promoting social inclusion, largely due to strong union opposition. Additionally, the chapter analyses how teachers’ unions, in fierce competition with other interest groups, consolidated and extended their influence at local levels across the case countries and the European Union.

This chapter returns to the cultural psychology literature from which the term "cultural learning" originates, to explore evidence from the previous five chapters that K-12 urban teachers experience three types of cultural learning at work: imitative learning, instructed learning, and collaborative learning. It concludes by reconceptualizing cultural learning as a process of organizational learning, and with the argument that the cultural learning processes urban teachers typically engage in arguably diminish their capacities for acquiring critical cultural competencies.

This chapter summarizes evidence from Chapters 2 through 5 that organizational conditions in urban schools facilitate both single- and double-loop learning amongst K-12 teachers about their students’ lived experiences as racial and cultural minorities in American society. It builds the argument that even where urban teachers may take the initiative to engage in double-loop learning, prevailing cultural and organizational norms in urban schools make doing so nearly impossible.

Chapter 1 introduces the rising power of interest groups in education, provides a brief literature review, and poses the research questions. This is followed by a section on institutional theory and how vested interests fit within this research programme and how this is applied to education policy. The chapter also presents key educational interest groups, their origins and causes, and the different types of mediation systems, detailing the traditional relationships between the state and these groups across the case countries and the European Union. Thereafter, there is a brief section on method and an overview of the chapter structure of the book.