In this essay, I reflect on the need for an activist notion of hope as an antidote to the social, political, and educational challenges we face in our current times. I first discuss some of these challenges as well as emergent signs of hope based upon different ways of telling the stories of our present. I then define hope as a way of being and…

In many parts of the United States it is difficult for families, particularly low- or moderate-income families, to be able to afford a suitable home in a transit rich neighborhood with good schools. Neighborhoods with all three elements are exceedingly rare. As a result, people often have to sacrifice one of three elements to make their lives…

"In areas like ours, everything we've ever had we fought for. It wasn't just handed to us," says Anna Hutchison, a community activist and one of the founders of the North Edinburgh Social History Group. For decades, Anna tells the author, the community has had to struggle for the basic amenities others in the city take for granted,…

Local authorities have a strong tradition of supporting communities to help themselves, and this is nowhere better illustrated than in the learning they commission and deliver through the Adult Safeguarded Learning budget. The budget was set up to protect at least a minimum of provision for adult liberal education, family learning and learning for…

This paper engages with some of the specific issues that challenge critical practice. My argument is related to the Carr and Kemmis debate on "staying critical" and to ideas expressed in my current book, "Community Development: A Critical Approach." I refer to critical practice as any practice that has a transformative social justice intention,…

Highlander Research and Education Center, begun in 1932 by Myles Horton as Highlander Folk School, continues to provide adult education for empowerment and social change. Once active in labor organization and civil rights movements, the school now focuses on interrelated issues of economic development and environmental crisis in Appalachia. (SV)

Describes how the University of Pennsylvania embraced the idea that urban institutions have an obligation to help sustain their surrounding communities. Penn's investment of intellectual, financial, and social capital not only created a more vibrant West Philadelphia, but also strengthened town-gown bonds and revived a spirit of activism on…

Schools have great potential as a resource for community action. Drawing on work with two inner city primary schools, the author explains how school ground improvement schemes can provide a vehicle for community education which involve women as key actors in local community development and wider environmental improvement. (LZ)

The author discusses the growth of community action in Northern Ireland and the significance of adult education to further social change during a time of conflict. He describes two different approaches to community education: adult education as the "education arm" of the activist movement, and adult education as a general community…

Indigenous community organizations and organizational federations in Ecuador have moved from dealing with issues of land, civil rights, and cultural identity to promoting culturally appropriate, community-based, sustainable economic development ventures. The need for technical training and the success of Indian-to-Indian job training are…

Profiles Rigoberta Menchu Tum, a Maya-Quiche woman from Guatemala who in 1992, was the first indigenous person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize's youngest recipient, Menchu Tum is using the prize money and prestige to promote the international movement for peace and the rights of indigenous peoples and to contribute to indigenous…

Significant, multisector community partnerships are a prerequisite for sustained, systemwide pre-Kindergarten through college-level educational reform. Like a few others, the University of Pennsylvania is developing higher education-assisted community schools designed to help educators educate, engage, activate, and serve all community members.…

Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl University (DQU), like most American Indian and Chicano efforts, was not created without serious difficulties. During the first stage of DQU's establishment, from 1961 through the early part of 1970, very little positive response took place. Although hundreds of letters and proposals were sent to tribal leaders, government…