Background: Participatory architecture can promote dialogue across cultures while working together to create physical outputs. A team of academics with a background in architecture, psychology and health sciences evaluated a participatory architecture workshop in Southern Italy as part of the Crossing Cultures project. The goal was to explore…

This article reveals the nature of actions, discussions and relationships which helped forge school-community partnerships for engaged student learning and wider community participation for students and families living under difficult socio-economic circumstances. Specifically, the article draws upon interviews with key personnel and staff…

The article analyses an innovative scheme for the re-organization of school governance that sought to enhance the voice of community members and contribute towards the improvement of educational achievement. The scheme was located in the north of England, a region characterized by high levels of social disadvantage and low participation rates in…

The challenges of poverty and development have long been regarded in terms of transitive relationships, in which the rich help the poor because the poor are not seen as able to help themselves. This view of the poor assumes they have mainly needs and no assets. With so many people believing this view it isn't surprising that the poor themselves…

This article argues that a commonly neglected dimension in service-learning pedagogy is the consideration of community perspectives in developing these service-learning projects. Areas considered in this study were: (1) Community members' needs and problems, (2) Community members' perceived roles and participation, and (3) Community members'…

We use rich data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey to assess the relationship between mothers' access to social capital via participation in community activities and their children's health. We exploit the advantages of longitudinal data and community fixed effects to mitigate some of the concerns about spuriousness and reverse causality that…

In this article, the author discusses a project that turns residents of some of South Leeds' most deprived neighbourhoods into community researchers and is giving people an opportunity to make concrete, positive changes to their communities. Armed with homemade tools, some coloured pens, and masses of post-it notes, the "Community…

The concept of Self-managing schools involving local community members, teachers and parents with the formation of School Management Committee is gaining ground in Nepal after the world conference on education for all (WCEFA) held in Jomtien, Thailand in the year 1990. Transferring the management of public schools in the hand of willing community…

Although facilitating community participation in disadvantaged schools can be difficult, this article argues that, given the structuring of schooling in contemporary western democracies, it is even more difficult than we might imagine. Drawing on Bourdieu, we attempt to elucidate the complex relations between schooling and socio-cultural contexts…

In view of the many factors threatening the survival, health, and cognitive development of the world's disadvantaged children, both in the United States and in developing countries, the Ford Foundation has begun a new program, called Child Survival/Fair Start, to improve these children's chances. In this working paper, Fair Start's overall…

Participants from India, Korea, Maldives, Nepal, Thailand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia met to formulate strategies and develop alternative methods of teaching multiple classes and educating disadvantaged groups. Activities of the Study Group Meeting included four phases: presentation and discussion of country experiences relating to…

Financial, educational, and political accountability issues involved in the Disadvantaged Schools Program, initiated by the Schools Commission to improve the learning outcomes of children from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds in Australia, are the focus of this paper. Consideration is given to the views of the Commission in its published…