Explores how research can confirm that customer-driven educational-facilities planning actually works. Describes a matrix format for gauging value scores on a school renovation's importance to a community and on how the community believes the building is performing against that value. (GR)

Restorative justice promotes greater accountability, competency, and public safety through community care of juvenile offenders. The Prosocial Communities Solution builds an infrastructure around information sharing, coordinated supervision, and immersion in prosocial activities. Communities horizontally align parents with professional caregivers…

Presents key principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR), discussing the rationale for its use; providing policy recommendations at the organizational, community, and national levels aimed at advancing the application of CBPR; and emphasizing the establishment of policies to enhance equity that would both increase the engagement of…

This study explores how neighborhood context influences participation in local social organization through a multilevel-spatial analysis of residents in Chicago neighborhoods. We construct a typology of community participation based on two dimensions: instrumental vs. expressive motivations for participation and formal vs. informal modes of…

The term 'community arts theatre' is used here to describe theatre created and performed by groups of adults in Telford, Shropshire, a new town in the West Midlands of England. The author, who was the co-founder and a theatre worker at Telford Community Arts (TCA), argues that their work is best understood as grassroots artistic reflections of and…

Participatory action research (PAR) is increasingly recognized as a viable approach to developing relationships with communities and working closely with them to address complex public health problems. In the case of domestic violence research, where ensuring the safety of women participants who are battered is paramount, participatory approaches…

School-based management (SBM) in Thailand began in 1997 in the course of a reform aimed at overcoming a profound crisis in the education system. The present contribution reports on the introduction and institutionalisation of decentralisation and SBM with community participation in Thailand. The data reported here are based on an empirical survey…

The college campus is the natural place for open, lively debate on the important issues of the day. Robust public discourse is elemental to what higher education is all about. But what is the role of college presidents in that debate? Is it limited to merely ensuring an environment in which diverse points of view are welcomed and expressed? In…

This study examines how communities participate in schools across diverse contexts in developing countries and the results attributed to community participation. It reviews evaluations of participatory approaches to education in developing countries to answer two basic questions: 1) How do communities participate in school in developing countries?…

Building the research capacity of the vocational education and training (VET) sector is a key concern for the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER). To assist with this objective, NCVER supports an academic scholarship program, whereby VET practitioners are sponsored to undertake university study at honours', master's or…

Community participation in program decision-making and implementation is an ideal that community and academic stakeholders aspire to in participatory research. This ideal, however, can be difficult to achieve. We describe lessons learned about community participation from a quasi-experimental trial aimed at reducing the uptake of smoking among…

This paper considers the establishment of three alternative programs within a school district over time to explore the assumption that such programs reflect families' preferences and that consumer demand dictates their survival. We examine differences in discourses around alternative programs that relate to the type of program and when, why, and…

The National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) "Long-Range Plan for Fiscal Years 2005-09" (the "Plan") provides an agenda for achieving advancements in applied rehabilitation research that will benefit people with disabilities in the United States. This executive summary describes the purposes and…

Engaging young people as partners in community change is a compelling idea, but translating that idea into effective practice requires focused attention to a range of issues. The principles described in this paper emerged from the commingling of research and practice that occurred when the Forum for Youth Investment merged with Community IMPACT!…

What is the place of the arts in our schools? In a world of high-stakes testing and accountability, can schools "afford" to teach the arts? This "Informed Educator" explores why many who have studied this issue consider the arts to have an important role in the curriculum. Examples of the ways some leaders effectively communicate the benefits of…