Community development research suggests that positive partnerships and connections between groups can result in stronger, more resilient and productive communities. Despite community connections featuring increasingly at a curriculum level in countries such as Australia and New Zealand, research is only beginning to explore the nuanced processes…

For decades, reform has been a persistent issue in urban schools. Research suggests that urban school reforms that are connected to equitable community development efforts are more sustainable, and that principals play a pivot role in leading such efforts. Yet, limited research has explored how urban school principals connect school reform with…

Purpose: Improving urban schools of color and the communities where they are located requires leadership that spans school and community boundaries. The purpose of this study is to understand how principal and community leader actions support urban school reform along with community development at two community schools in the urban Midwest and…

Preparing students as 21st century learners is a key reform in education. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills developed a framework that identifies outcomes needed for successful implementation of rigorous standards. The Dual Language (DL) program was identified as a structure for reform with systems and practices which can be used to prepare…

Since its establishment in 2003, the Japan Council on the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD-J) has paid close attention to informal learning processes in community-based efforts to promote local sustainable development. ESD-J carried out two projects to collect information on and visualise community-based ESD practice: the…

A community school is a place and a set of partnerships between the school and community resources. The community school strategy integrates academics, health and social services, youth and community development, and civic engagement to improve student learning and to develop stronger families and healthier communities. This report presents a…

Roderick Watts and Omar Guessous of Georgia State University conducted exploratory research to investigate the link between math and civic engagement. Their research is based on an evaluation of the Young People's Project (YPP), a national program that recruits, trains, and deploys high school and college Math Literacy Workers for mentoring middle…

Despite increasing interest in the role of community involvement in school improvement, few studies have examined motivations for, or results of community partnership development in high schools. To fill this gap, the authors conducted case studies of three high schools with successful community partnerships. The authors found that case high…