In the 1970s and 1980s, the social and professional imaginaries of education, sociopolitical conceptions of it, and educational practices in Spain, began to be influenced by certain elements specific to critical popular education, which had developed in Latin America during the "long 1960s." Paulo Freire's work was particularly prominent…

The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) aimed to take a socially critical and transformative approach to ESD through all forms of education. Unfortunately, it mainly focused on formal education and overlooked the informal education that is embedded in the community development process of tackling unsustainable problems…

This paper demonstrates that the phenomenographic methodology -- the study of variations of lived experience -- has the capacity to manage cultural and paradigmatic differences between researchers and participants in cross-cultural research. The process of cross-cultural research presented herein makes a contribution to the existing body of…

This article examines a common problem in higher education--how to create more widespread use of improved practices, often commonly referred to as innovations. I argue that policy models of scale-up are often advocated in higher education but that they have a dubious history in community development and K-12 education and that higher education…

In spite of engagement and efforts to bring about gender equality in Swedish universities, gender division paradoxically appears in both old and new degree programs and academic disciplines. In recent years there has been a tendency for higher education students to enrol in degree programmes rather than in single subject courses. Due to the…

Although efforts to teach peaceful attitudes and behaviors have been documented in many countries, those very institutions centrally concerned with education have proven themselves ineffective in educating citizens to better learn to live together. This paper addresses peace education from the perspective of the Baha'i faith, which has concerned…

This essay explores Eastern Washington University's East Central Neighborhood Partnership Center project, which utilized coordinated community service-learning classes and internships to create a neighborhood revitalization plan in partnership with a neighborhood council and community-based organizations. The author explores the ways in which the…

Social, cultural, political, and organizational characteristics of urban schools that make them difficult settings for teachers are discussed. It is suggested that, while an emphasis on professional community would be beneficial for all students, it is particularly pressing for urban schools where other resources for school reform are limited.…

This article provides an opportunity to look at issues related to capacity building--how the concept has evolved and how it is currently being applied--and a review of the components of effective capacity building in working with individuals and organizations. This is followed by a description of capacity-building projects undertaken by ECDVU…

Current research on the relationship between home, school, and community is reviewed and juxtaposed to perspectives on communities developed by scholars of families and child development, community developers, and urban sociologists. Research findings suggest the importance of learning more about the communities in which family involvement…

This paper addresses the role of distance education as a means for increasing curricular offerings of small and rural secondary schools. Treating distance education as a "technology" risks repeating the same cycle of false hopes and expectations that has historically accompanied the introduction of technology into education. Instead,…