With today's world of accelerated progress and change, the skills to solve problems, think critically, communicate effectively, and manage lives in a healthy and productive manner are essential for people to flourish in the 21st century. The study's purpose is to explore the role of educated-neighborhood programs for achieving the necessary life…

Young children of color experience daily messages, explicit or implicit, that they are not as good as White children. These encounters act as barriers to African American children's positive racial identity development. This paper presents findings from a feasibility study of a program to infuse a community with positive messages about African…

This study uses ethnographic methods to generate an understanding of college students' experiences participating in an immersive service-learning program located in an urban, high poverty neighborhood. While living in the community, students learned from organizers and participated in activities designed to build relationships that enhanced their…

There is a strong link between citizens' quantitative literacy abilities and their financial prosperity. This study applied a social justice perspective to describe families' personal flourishing within the context of numerical, mathematical, and financial literacy (NMFL) education. Four families participated in a weekly community program with…

This article is derived from a larger study of the Family Learning Network (FLN) which evaluated the effectiveness of school and community agency partnerships in enhancing student engagement. In particular it describes how photo elicitation methodology was used with 8 year old primary school children in three schools to discuss their views of the…

According to the California State Department of Justice there were 182,000 reported cases of domestic violence in 1988 that required police intervention. This descriptive study, an explorative evaluation survey, examined 47 shelter programs in California to determine what components are essential to a shelter's effectiveness in facilitating…

The effectiveness of the community board in the mental health system specifically and in human service systems generally depends, to a large extent, on how the board's role and scope are defined and how its organizational structure and staffing procedures are developed. The development of community boards should be based upon the premises that (1)…

This paper describes a tool-and-result methodological approach to the practice and evaluation of an urban community development and gardening project with homeless youth. Over 9 months, at least 40 homeless children and teenagers were involved in the program, and approximately 15 were core participants. The paper critically examines the role of…

Primary prevention is a major concern in psychology, but data regarding intervention effectiveness, particularly effect sizes (ES) appear to be lacking. A thorough literature search of Psychological Abstracts, community psychology journals, and textbooks yielded 47 primary prevention articles, 22 of which were data-based, and none of which…

In the San Francisco Bay Area (California), community agencies and organizations routinely use teenagers as mentors and teachers of peers and younger children. Despite the literature indicating that teens should derive many benefits from these roles, agency staff have observed teen teachers who appear frustrated, bored, or disengaged, or who have…

Community-based organizations that worked effectively with urban youth were found to resemble experiential education programs. The finding was remarkable because the organizations did not identify themselves as places where experiential education took place. A study of four organizations examined ways in which they help youth to become more…

Follow-up data are often a neglected part of the evaluation of community programs. Yet, they should be an essential part of the information input to the process of judging effectiveness and whether or not the program should continue. This paper presents follow-up data on a juvenile diversion program which has been operating in a small Western…

Primary prevention strategies (prevention at the community level) for disadvantaged populations are discussed. A number of factors in Canadian society have placed additional stress on many poor and working class families. These include issues of housing, unemployment, lack of education, and social changes with adverse effects on the disadvantaged.…

This paper suggests that community psychology may be going through an identity crisis because of its lack of empirical demonstrations of community intervention effectiveness, and an ecologically valid intervention research base. Although the majority of research in community psychology has used an individualistic paradigm that conceptualizes…

Describes the history of early childhood education in India from the 1890s to the present. Presents current programs ranging from Integrated Child Development Services serving over 10 million children to small, innovative programs in local communities, noted for flexibility and responsiveness to local needs. Examines findings from innovative…