Teachers in the 'Hood: Hollywood's Middle-Class Fantasy

Asserts that the urban-high-school film genre (in which a classroom of socially troubled, low-achieving students is transformed by the singular efforts of an outside middle class teacher or principal) reinforces the "culture of poverty" thesis, representing the fantasies that suburban middle class America has about life in urban high schools and the ease with which problems could be rectified by a middle class outsider. (SM)