Hope without illusion: telling the story of democratic educational renewal

In this article, the author reflects on his participation in a project in democratic educational renewal in an inner‐city high school in Cincinnati, Ohio in the 1990s. He frames the case study within a number of broader questions in democratic educational research and theory having to do with the need to construct narratives of hope without illusion. Such research narratives, he argues, are rooted in a recognition that culture is contested and thus open rather than determined. Progressive stories open up possibilities for critical reflection and strategic action at various sites, and they cross the borders between ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ accounts. To develop these ideas, he draws on a number of poststructural theorists, including most notably Gramsci and Foucault. He situates the case study within the context of an analysis of the new cultural politics of: corporate‐sponsored school reform, the surveillance and policing of urban youth, and the ‘othering’ of progressives voices in urban education.