Public schools located within urban environments are a critical component of a larger social network in their communities, with important reciprocal interactions occurring across settings. This is especially important for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), as integration and alignment of home, community, and school…

Theoretically, increasing family resilience, may contribute to an increase the resilience of communities. However families in South Africa experience challenges to their resilience, often owing to a variety of historic, socio-economic, and political factors. Research and intervention planning that attempts to ameliorate the effects these factors,…

The purpose of this article is to provide an introduction to asset mapping as a systematic approach to facilitating increased family and community involvement in comprehensive school physical activity programs (CSPAP). It includes a brief summary of the literature related to the importance of family and community in children's physical activity…

Almost everyone is familiar with the African saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." However, there are very few "villages" that actually engage in this practice. The educational assets of the village include the knowledge of neighborhood residents, the clubs, groups, and associations that are citizen-based learning…

The Community Based Learning (CBL) Certificate and the Civic Honors Program provide unique opportunities for students to receive college credit for their civic participation. The authors describe these programs and the historical and administrative changes at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, which created an environment for their development…

Sara McAlister, in her article "Why Community Engagement Matters in School Turnaround," in this issue (p35-42) of "Voices in Urban Education," lays out the strong research base showing that family and community participation is a crucial resource not only for individual student achievement, but also for catalyzing and…

All corners of the media are scrutinising David Cameron's "Big Society", from every conceivable angle. While the concept has caught the public's imagination, the greater challenge of fleshing out what the Big Society will actually offer and require of communities is unfinished business. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations…

This article addresses the design and application of a hotline to promote broader community-wide participation in a public school evaluation. Evaluations of community resources such as public schools present evaluators with challenges from the perspective of promoting stakeholder involvement. Although many evaluation stakeholders are readily…

Increasing community involvement in out-of-school time programs can yield significant benefits to programs and the students that they serve. Community partnerships have the potential to meet a wide variety of needs, from improving participant recruitment and attendance to contributing volunteers or other resources to programs. This research brief…

Gardens are complex and require a variety of skills. Gross- and fine-motor activities, science concepts, language and literacy development, math, and community involvement are all part of the preschool gardening project the authors describe. They list gardening books for children and suggest container gardens for urban school settings. The authors…

More and more communities are rallying together to solve their own problems. These broad-based initiatives are illustrations of the international healthy communities movement. The healthy communities movement emerged from the World Health Organization in 1986 and has quickly spread across the globe. A cornerstone of the movement is the Ottawa…

Describes the SOS (Sharing Our Selves) learning Network, which is a made-for-extension system of community learning. Elements of the network are discussed: (1) community learning and development activities, (2) community resource index, and (3) cost effectiveness. (CT)

Discusses the role of the museum as a community resource in humanities education for the public schools. Describes several teacher workshops involving use of the museum to enrich the classroom's current humanities curriculum. (DS)

Parent-teacher associations can take advantage of resources offered by many other organizations to develop interesting and educational programs. A listing of several national and local groups to contact for information is given. (DF)

Offers guidelines for planning fund raising events for small public libraries, with examples of activities that have been used successfully. Areas discussed include involving librarians and trustees as fund raisers; group discussion activities to encourage brainstorming; developing strategies based on community resources; and capital fund drive…