Leveraging ground-breaking work of Black feminist scholars alongside established techniques of focus group and community-based participatory research, we explain sister-girl talk as a novel method for collecting and analyzing group interview data with Black women. We outline the procedures for consultation, facilitation and preliminary analysis of…

Mission-driven nonprofit organizations sometimes struggle within a cycle of disempowerment resulting from oversaturation of data collection that is reactive to funder demands. In this article, we problematize Community Music School (CMS) data-collection and analysis efforts and discuss alternate approaches to learning about family and community…

This article presents an experiential model for community-engaged research that understands communities as living meshworks of embodied human beings, material circumstances, and affective environments. We first trace how community organizations and academics must increasingly respond to a push for hard data. Using an analysis of a national…

Universities increasingly see community engagement as a means to achieve their mission. In order to assess the impact of these efforts, it is necessary to gather and analyze data from across the institution on community-engaged activities. This article presents a case study of Virginia Commonwealth University's efforts in developing enterprise…

This article suggests that the methodology of community-based action research provides concrete strategies for fostering effective community problem solving. To argue for a community research pedagogy, the author draws upon past and present scholarship in action research and participatory action research, experiences teaching an undergraduate…

Over the past two decades, community organizing has emerged as an effective force for school improvement. In the context of shrinking education funding, stubborn opportunity and achievement gaps between low-income and wealthy children and between children of color and White children, and polarizing debate on school reform, community organizing…

This publication presents information on how neighborhood residents can be involved in collecting needed information about their community which they can use to guide reform efforts. Researchers interviewed people with experience collecting information at the neighborhood level, other researchers, leaders of community based organizations, and…

This paper examines the benefits of merging sociological methods by concentrating on the contribution of field observation prior to the designing of a survey study of black anti-Semitism. (Author)

This book presents hands-on information on how to plan, administer, and analyze opinion polls. Guidance is also offered on how to make this strategy accessible to public interest groups. Several examples, checklists, warnings of possible pitfalls, and lists of material and human resources occur throughout the chapters. Major sections address the…

This document presents a method, developed by the Institute for Child Advocacy [ICA], (a community based project which seeks to upgrade the quality of children's services in South Central Los Angeles) of using problem solving with community residents and agencies. This method of problem solving, previously used in a study of children being…

This document discusses the unique features and philosophy of the community college, and ways of maximizing community and college interpenetration. The central section of the report deals with the role of needs assessment in community education. The concept of needs assessment espoused herein stresses continuation and community participation as…

A study done for the National Community Education Advisory Council to assess programs funded under the Community Schools Act is presented in an introduction and three parts. Study goals, as defined in the introduction, are to describe the organization and operation of community education projects of local educational agencies, state educational…