Norming suburban

In this qualitative study, I explore 17 novice teachers' beliefs about teaching in urban schools. I seek to understand the various ways in which teachers encode racial discourse by using the terms urban and suburban. Findings indicate that these teachers understand teaching in urban schools as difficult because they associate it with teaching deficit-laden students. These understandings were stated in contrast to how participants generally viewed suburban teaching and suburban students. Specifically, they used suburban students as the normative reference group to which urban students were negatively compared. This phenomenon of norming suburban explains how these teachers use suburban students and teaching as a lens through which they make sense of urban students and teaching. The teachers in this study normed suburban in three main steps: First they attributed behaviors, values, and beliefs to their students based on their urban-ness and suburban-ness. I refer to these perceived behaviors, values, and beliefs as cultural resources. Second, teachers assigned these cultural resources either a positive or negative value. Third, by juxtaposing one group against another, teachers set u