This paper argues that modernist notions of time, based on ‘knowing’ place, space, community, and family time, must be re-thought to make sense of urban education (Brooke, 2003; Degnan, 2010). By opening up spaces for subjectivities within educational spaces, postmodern understandings of identity can be uncovered (Dillabough 2009). This paper draws on sociology and cultural studies (Williams, 1989; Back, 2005; Willis, 2000) to relate time to longitudinal historical meanings within working class communities. Questioning modernist conceptions of time leads to epistemological questioning of post-colonial encounters (Scheurich and Young 1997). The paper draws on Ricoeur (1980), and his concept of ‘narrative time,’ in analyzing home and family time alongside school time. This two-year ethnographic study explores the impact of three artists working with elementary school children in an ex-mining community well as analyses of the home narratives of British Asian families. The research approach was ethnographic and participatory (Clark, 2010). Ethnographic fieldnotes and visual data collected by participants were coded with participants; participants selected significant episodes for further analyses. The study relied on video and photographic evidence collected by children and digital audio recordings and fieldnotes collected by the researcher. Home data included ethnographic interviews, fieldnotes, audio recordings and video data.