Illustrates historically and politically how geography and ethnicity melded together to provide the foundation for a community consciousness that ultimately evolved into a unique form of community organization in Chicago's Back of the Yards neighborhood. Examines how external structures, internal arrangements, housing patterns, and ethnic patterns…

Recent expansion of media coverage of early childhood issues and increased funding for early childhood programs are due in part to deliberate efforts to increase public engagement in efforts to improve the lives of young children and their families. This brief describes recent early childhood public engagement efforts and outlines lessons for…

A study circle is a group of diverse members of a community who meet with a facilitator to find common ground for solutions and actions. The Study Circles Resource Center proposes a program of Community-Wide Study Circles to talk about student success and develop ideas for action in the community and schools. This brochure provides a rational for…

This book presents current thinking on the topic of community service programs for youth. Combining theory and research with descriptions of innovative programs and specific recommendations for program design, the volume outlines an approach to service learning that engages youth not only in helping others but also in critical reflection and the…

When community groups assume stewardship of underused properties and turn them into recreational spaces, park agencies can save money on overhead and construction. Three stewardship projects in New York State, involving a playing field, gardening areas, and a historical restoration, are described. Criteria for successful projects are included. (PP)

A Gathering of Waters is a community-based art and activism project to raise awareness that the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo is a desperately endangered river, connect communities dependent on the river, and galvanize those communities into action. Activities provided actual and symbolic experiences of river water for American Indian, Hispanic, Anglo, and…

This paper presents data from two in-depth studies to illustrate the importance of community involvement and staff development for improving schools. The first case study describes how community political action in a school district in southwestern Ohio spurred school reform. In "Riverside," a pseudonym, the black community sought to…

Guidelines and ideas for creating successful school/community projects are provided in this handbook. Organized like a cookbook, the book contains 43 chapters by individual contributors who take a community-based approach to education, in which the schools are the pivotal institutions of a community. The first section outlines the roles, or…

This booklet is designed to help people in Maine communities organize on a local level to address one of the main goals of the America 2000 program, that all children will start school ready to learn. The booklet suggests that this goal is more complicated than it first appears and that its meaning can vary, depending upon the perspective from…

An attitude change campaign using an interpersonal and mass media strategy for agenda-setting could be used to elicit community understanding of child-abusing parents from a therapeutic rather than a punitive perspective, thereby improving the handling of this social problem. An outline of such a campaign would include phases of surveying the…

This training model and accompanying a handbook (see related note) are based on the University of Georgia Rural Women Project, a two-year leadership training project which tested the model in Morgan County, Georgia, and had some success in developing effective community problem solving with the rural black community in that county. The following…

This booklet is one of eight developed both as resource guides to assist Wisconsin public schools in offering quality reading instruction and as models for improvement where there is a need for change. This second booklet presents the concept of community education and stresses the need for community involvement in education in implementing Right…

A second quarterly report describes activities of the Syracuse Educational Policy Research Center's two-year analysis of educational satellites and telecommunications. Visits to Rocky Mountain, Appalachian and Alaskan sites are described. Activities of other nations are reviewed and summarized. Preliminary staff work and analysis for the final…

The publication outlines procedures to insure youth involvement in planning, operating, monitoring, and evaluating Youth Development Programs (YDPs) which provide educational, employment, leadership, and other experiences for disadvantaged youth. The programs are funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity through local Community Action Agencies…

This document reports on Phase II of a major project designed to study how school systems respond to the educational needs of the socially and economically disadvantaged. The report presents the Local Community Control model as the most effective means to change the school board's typical non responsiveness to the needs of the educationally…