African Americans, Gentrification, and Neoliberal Urbanization: the Case of Fort Greene, Brooklyn

This article examines the gentrification of Fort Greene, which is located in the western part of black Brooklyn, one of the largest contiguous black urban areas in the USA. Between the late 1960s and 2003, gentrification in Fort Greene followed the patterns discovered by scholars of black neighborhoods; the gentrifying agents were almost exclusively black and gentrification as a process was largely bottom-up because entities interested in the production of space were mostly not involved. Since 2003, this has changed. Whites have been moving to Fort Greene in large numbers and will soon represent the numerical majority. Public and private interventions in and around Fort Greene have created a new top-down version of gentrification, which is facilitating this white influx. Existing black residential and commercial tenants are replaced and displaced in the name of urban economic development

From Fear to Fluency: How Anxiety Influences ESL Students’ Classroom Performance

This quantitative study examined how foreign language anxiety influenced classroom participation among English as a Second Language (ESL) students at Aklan State University, Banga Campus. Utilizing the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) by Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope (1986), the research investigated four primary components of anxiety: communication apprehension, test anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, and anxiety about comprehension. A total of 43 first- and second-year BSEd English students participated in the study. Data were collected through standardized Likert-scale questionnaires and participation checklists, and analyzed using SPSS Version 16 to determine correlations between anxiety levels and student engagement. Findings revealed that most participants experienced moderate to high levels of anxiety, with classroom participation and fear of negative evaluation being the most significant factors affecting their participation. A statistically significant inverse relationship was found between anxiety and student participation—higher anxiety levels were associated with reduced classroom engagement. Communication apprehension and fear of negative evaluation emerged as the strongest predictors of avoidance behaviors, such as reluctance to speak in class or volunteer responses. Although comprehension-related anxiety was less prominent, it still contributed to overall emotional discomfort. The study concluded that psychological barriers—rather than linguistic ability alone—played a central role in limiting student participation in ESL classrooms. The results underscored the need for emotionally supportive teaching strategies and classroom environments that minimize anxiety and encourage active participation. These findings offer critical implications for educators, administrators, and researchers aiming to enhance ESL instruction and reduce affective obstacles to language acquisition.

Moving beyond Marcuse:gentrification, displacement and the violence of un-homing

Displacement has become one of the most prominent themes in contemporary geographical debates, used to describe processes of dispossession and forced eviction at a diverse range of scales. Given its frequent deployment in studies describing the consequences of gentrification, this paper seeks to better define and conceptualise displacement as a process of un-homing, noting that while gentrification can prompt processes of eviction, expulsion and exclusion operating at different scales and speeds, it always ruptures the connection between people and place. On this basis – and recognising displacement as a form of violence – this paper concludes that the diverse scales and temporalities of displacement need to be better elucidated so that their negative emotional, psychosocial and material impacts can be more fully documented, and resisted.</p

Data Collection and Cross-Section Analyses for Assessing Hydraulic Changes in Natural Stream Channels

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