C. Wright Mills would be a friendly critic of service learning, acknowledging its benefits for providing students with experiential learning opportunities to connect personal troubles with social issues. Yet he would be critical of service-learning practices that perpetuate institutional power inequalities and that do not advance the social change…

Presents a case study of an innovative school-based health and mental-health project that prevents early school failure. Attributes program success to social work development of broad-based partnerships involving families, schools, communities, and public-policy officials. Describes school/family partnerships that form the core of the model. (RJM)

Toward the end of the of the twentieth century, the idea that young people are social actors gained increasing predominance. Since then, there has been a growing recognition of young people's ability to understand and contribute to forming their environments. In this article, the authors discuss the state of youth participation in the United…

In 1972, OE sought a means whereby communities might be helped to mobilize their own financial and human resources to respond effectively to their own drug problems and perhaps provide mutual help to one another. The search for a feasible strategy led to the establishment of the Help Communities Help Themselves (HCHT) Program. The principal…

Describes how an elementary school Scarecrow Festival evolved from a school-wide art activity into a community-wide project. A materials list for scarecrow construction is included. (AM)

Numerous reasons exist for using a classroom-community model with severely/profoundly handicapped youth, including skill generalization, reinforcer sampling, awareness by nonhandicapped people, appropriate role models in the community, elevated teacher expectations, parent expectations, demonstrations of competence by students, and facilitating…

Describes how mothers in Medford, Oregon organized a Storytelling Guild, began to tell stories in schools and libraries, developed a Storymobile, and organized a three- day Children's Festival of storytelling, dance, plays, puppetry, arts and crafts and other activities. Argues that storytelling is a valuable way of improving parent/child…

Major elements of independent living programs for the severely disabled are described, existing programs are cited, and a hypothetical program model is offered. (SBH)

Examines the role that the public library plays as a center for community activities, as a civic building, and as a representative of government. Examples of these roles in California communities are given, and sources of income and funding problems are addressed. (Contains 10 references.) (LRW)

This article is a reflection of English teaching in Chiclayo, Peru, at a not-for-profit cultural center. It starts with a brief explanation of the authors' desire to help transform the community through English teaching. The article then explains the concept of civic education and offers a three-tiered approach that has been designed to help the…

In recent years, the need to advance the number of individuals pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields has gained much attention. The Montgomery County/Virginia Tech Robotics Collaborative (MCVTRC), a yearlong high school robotics program housed in an educational shop facility in Montgomery County, Virginia, seeks to…

This article presents the experience and emotional responses of the two authors and the content of the Writing Workshop Manual that they created for the Caretta Community Center in McDowell County, West Virginia. Their technique shows not only the contrast of their private and public personas but also some of the outsider/insider dialogue that…

Pastoral del Nino is transforming children's lives in rural Paraguay. Part of Pastoral Social (Catholic Social Services), Pastoral del Nino's primary focus is to bring "vida en abundancia" (the abundant life) to families by ensuring that mothers survive childbirth and children reach their first birthdays. In addition, the organization…

This article argues with a literature review that a simplistic distinction between strong and weak evidence hinged on the use of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the federal "gold standard" for generating rigorous evidence on social programs and policies, is not tenable with evaluative studies of complex, field interventions such as…

Social enterprises are businesses with primarily social objectives that reinvest their surplus in the community rather than seeking to maximise profit for shareholders. However, there is a debate regarding the drivers and the role of the social enterprise, the outcome of which is expected to have serious implications for the future of the…