This article explores the politics of literacy in late colonial Sudan. Drawing upon hitherto untapped archival sources in English and Arabic, it focuses on two key questions: What were the purposes and uses of literacy in the eyes of colonial authorities? What means were used to spread literacy skills among Sudanese people? Positioning these…

On the basis of a three-year study of the role of popular education in local development processes in Sweden (2006-2008), this paper sets out to outline the role of popular education as a development actor in rural and urban contexts. Two different scenarios and approaches are discussed. One is the role of popular education in rural areas, which…

Purpose: Although knowledge transfer is generally conceived as a two-way process in which knowledge is transferred to and from the knowledge source, research has tended to focus on the first part of the process and neglect the second part. This study aims to examine the feedback loop and how knowledge is transferred from the knowledge receiver to…

The purpose of this study was to describe and evaluate an intervention used to train neighborhood leaders about community organizing and to enhance leadership skills. A mixed-method design was used which included (a) a pre- and posttest assessment of 83 participants, and (b) qualitative descriptive interviews of 33 participants. Over half of the…

This paper examines the university-industry-government relationship as a mechanism for enhancing the efficiency and competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The case of a community enterprise producing dried banana products in the north of Thailand is used to demonstrate the significance of the Triple Helix model for business…

This paper explores the use of "learning circles" as one form of knowledge production in social action research. It reports on a project that used learning circles as a setting within which to increase the engagement of people living with low income in developing strategies for the reduction and elimination of poverty in Canada. It…

The paper argues that access to public infrastructure plays a crucial role on the presence of private schools in a community, as it could not only minimise the cost of production, but also ensure a high return to private investment. Results using community, school and child/household-level PROBE survey data from five north Indian states provide…

This paper critiques the notion of community capacity building (CCB) and the way it is increasingly being invoked in social policy as a way of tackling disadvantage. The paper argues that CCB and a number of its derivative terms are not as straightforward as they appear. Superficially, CCB presents as a useful way of approaching school and…

In this resource sheet, Dr Higgins examines child abuse and neglect in Indigenous communities from a societal perspective: applying a community development framework to understand effective strategies for reducing risks and enhancing children's safety and wellbeing. To be effective, strategies to address the problem of child abuse in Indigenous…

About 60% of Nigerians live in rural areas with poor access roads and health facilities, near-absent communication media, unemployment, alienation and disempowerment by the political leadership. This scenario has excluded the rural Nigerian from meaningful participation in development action. A bottom-up participatory approach to…

This article sets Dorothy Bass' Christian practices movement in critical dialogue with U.S. Latina/o popular religion in order to explore ways that these distinctive sets of practices could enrich one another. Then, it focuses on "shaping communities" as a Christian practice and correlates it with the U.S. Latina/o popular religious…

The study is situated within a national youth organisation called the Australian Air League Inc (Air League). We examine the recent progress of the Air League in South Australia, starting as a loose network of volunteers engaged in a sporadic array of activities, to become a learning community that worked collaboratively and then developed further…

There is extensive research literature addressing the impact that the college experience has on students, linking the campus environment to their persistence and graduation, satisfaction, sense of community, academic and social integration, and academic performance. Researchers have yet to fully address the connection between students identifying…

In spite of engagement and efforts to bring about gender equality in Swedish universities, gender division paradoxically appears in both old and new degree programs and academic disciplines. In recent years there has been a tendency for higher education students to enrol in degree programmes rather than in single subject courses. Due to the…

In Europe and in America there is a growing recognition of the need for theory, research, and applied programs that contribute to both community and youth resiliency. This article seeks to build on previous theory and literature to provide a conceptual framework for understanding the mechanisms for linking community and youth resiliency. Included…