Critical peace analysis of the political economy of ‘urban education’

Canton, Ohio serves as the case in this critical peace analysis of urban education. The article navigates multiple overlapping sectors that impact the political economy of education in urban centers, including city planning, housing policy, school funding, taxation, economic development, and education reform. With historical issues of redlining and other racially discriminatory city policies, Canton represents a microcosm of other metropoles across the nation. While education in these spaces is impacted by many factors, policies prescribed by the political economy take focus here through a critical peace lens. This article argues that urban educational inequality is produced through the interaction of racialized economic structures and hegemonic ideological formations. Critical peace analysis offers a unique lens that considers the ways in which the institution of school has not only perpetuated structural violence but has also played a key role in reproducing inequalities. Critical peace education, then, emerges not as the primary object of analysis, but as a counter-hegemonic praxis capable of naming, resisting, and transforming the structural and cultural violence embedded in urban schooling.