Responding to an ongoing disconnect between higher education institutions (HEIs) and contemporary challenges communities face worldwide, universities can become a driving force to strengthen communities' capacity toward innovative solutions to the challenges they face. This article introduces an analytical framework that provides a roadmap to…

Using a framework of care to design experiences in formal or informal learning does two things. It acknowledges intentions of reflective learning through open communication and meets expectations of scholars seeking knowledge within a learning community. This proposed framework was developed from programs involving popular education, community…

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 John Dewey's educational framework, the process and product are inseparable; achieving democratic ends cannot result from undemocratic means. For him, the full humanization of people depended not upon externally imposed curriculum and management systems, but rather on responding to the intrinsic needs, interests, and powers of the individual to…

Started in 1998, the Whisenton Public Scholars program is a collaboration of Joffre T. Whisenton and Associates, the Kettering Foundation, and participating higher education professionals. The program works primarily with faculty and administrators from schools with a mission to serve minority communities (such as historically black colleges and…

The Kettering Foundation is a nonprofit, operating foundation rooted in the American tradition of cooperative research. The foundation seeks to identify and address the challenges to making democracy work as it should through interrelated program areas that focus on citizens, communities, and institutions. Each issue of this annual newsletter…

Calls for revitalization of civic education and civic learning are multiplying, but notions of work as a site of citizenship--for "citizen teachers" or "citizen faculty members," for example--have largely disappeared. This paper begins with an overview of the dominant approaches to civic education and learning:…

Today, the U.S. Department of Education joins the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement, the American Commonwealth Partnership, and the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools in a new national call to action to infuse and enhance civic learning and democratic engagement for all students throughout the American…

Offering lifelong and developmental learning to over 13 million students at nearly 1,200 schools, community colleges in the United States attract a student body with remarkable economic, ethnic, and cultural diversity. They provide students with skills and foundational knowledge upon which successful professional careers and rewarding personal…

Women participating in grassroots community development in Chile received financial aid, training, and technical assistance in housing, repair and community organization. Relationships and gender played a powerful role in community change. However, their experiences illustrated the constraints on local action. (Contains 31 references.) (SK)

Highlights recent early childhood and community development work in rural Kenyan communities. Presents: (1) a brief history and overview of early childhood care and education; (2) examples from the Mwana Mwende community development project; (3) ways in which early childhood development has mobilized the community; and (4) examples of increasing…

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.…

Presents observations and lessons drawn from two years of Kentucky school reform. Implementing the Kentucky School Reform Act of 1990 teaches that reforming schools also requires addressing the ways in which communities raise their children. Community work, with parent and student participation, improves family conditions and political decision…

The Inter-American Foundation (IAF), an independent agency of the U.S. government, funds innovative, participatory, and sustainable self-help development projects proposed and managed by grassroots groups and supportive organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean. IAF also encourages partnerships among community organizations, businesses, and…

In 1977, the Bernard van Leer Foundation began supporting a project in Colombia that had the objective of improving the quality of early childhood care and education in a small village. The Costa Atlantica project offered an approach to development that was based on community organization, social management, participation, cooperation, popular…