Preparing special educators for the highest-need schools remains an ongoing challenge in urban districts across the United States. One university's collaborative community-based immersive partnership model, with emphasis on service learning, has demonstrated promising levels of impact on candidates' preparation as preservice teachers learning how…

This snapshot describes and reflects upon two case studies of community writing projects between Emerson College and Boston Public Schools. Emerson College students were asked to tutor 10th grade BPS students for the English Language Arts portion of the state standardized assessment. Through both quantitative results and qualitative reflection,…

This paper emerges from an evaluation conducted by the author into the impact of a community-based intervention scheme designed to reduce perceived levels of "anti-social behaviour" amongst young people living in deprived communities. Drawing from this evaluation, the paper discusses the difficulties in assessing quantifiable measures of…

This brief explores the link between rural youths' identification with their community, their self-esteem, and their future plans. The panel study of New Hampshire's Coos County youth offers a snapshot into the dynamics of a population that is developing its identity in a region that is undergoing an identity transformation of its own. Place…

Several acculturation theories note the importance of surrounding context, but few studies describe neighborhood influences on immigrant adaptation. The purpose of this study was to examine relationships among neighborhood immigrant concentration, acculturation, and alienation for 151 women aged 44-80 from the former Soviet Union who lived in the…

The educational achievement and attainment of young people in the United States has been a long-standing issue of concern. While analyses of long-term trend data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that students in the United States have made gains in reading and mathematics over the past few decades, a sizeable…

Health screenings conducted during Special Olympics competitions and games have consistently shown that a significant number of athletes with intellectual disabilities (IDs) were overweight or obese, and surveys have indicated that athletes need more fitness training than they receive from their sport practices. In 2002, Special Olympics initiated…

Given both the importance and difficulty of promoting community-based public health coalitions, their capacity for sustainable action merits systematic examination. The current study addresses this need, focusing specifically on the "relational" dimension of capacity, that is, how relationships both among members and with external actors affect…

Community coalitions (CCs) have labored with some difficulty to demonstrate empirical evidence of effectiveness in preventing a wide range of adolescent problem behaviors. Training and technical assistance (TA) have been identified as important elements in promoting improved functioning of CCs. A reliable, valid, and inexpensive method to assess…

This article describes a series of qualitative and quantitative methods used to test a community-based needs assessment model that is bias free and socioculturally relevant for indigenous populations. Results of a field test involving 100 Hawaiian children are presented, and implications for policy formation are discussed. (SLD)

We examined the service needs of foster families with children who have disabilities. Foster parents in a large Canadian city were asked "What services or supports would be helpful to you?" The responses to this question were edited for clarity and to eliminate redundancies, and sorted into piles of like statements by a group of 15…