This comparative case study examines two out-of-system education programs created by Black community organizers during the 2020-2021 school year. Applying a unique framework based on the Black radical imagination, I examine how the communities experienced these programs and the potential of the programs to shape advocacy and local policy reforms.…

Contemporary rural social movements bring diverse interest groups and stakeholders together at the local scale in the pursuit of common visions and goals, often against the backdrop of an external threat. The challenge for a movement's leaders is to negotiate and design a rural agenda that resonates with this complex constituency. One way to…

Reveals that while the accessibility to information of influential members of a community was high and generally similar for all sources, certain types of information were more accessible through some sources than were others. (FL)

Reports the comments of directors of 11 large urban public libraries regarding the external roles of library directors, i.e., local politics, constituency building, and fund raising. The libraries represented are Chicago, New York City, Queens Borough, Los Angeles, Dallas, Boston, Denver, Cleveland, St. Louis, Atlanta, and Philadelphia. (two…

Reports the results of a survey of high school newspaper advisers that revealed a lack of newspaper coverage of issues not directly related to the school; discusses four reasons cited for narrow coverage: lack of staff motivation, lack of time and skills, administrative censorship, and previous publication by the local newspaper. (GT)

A study summarized the voting patterns to form a political profile of Texas teachers. A questionnaire was sent to 500 teachers who were members of the Texas State Teachers Association in 1983. General information was collected on nineteen characteristics of teachers, including such categories as sex, marital status, place of birth, place of…

A poll of 1,933 voters in two counties that passed school bonds and two that did not examines voter perceptions toward school bonds. The factors linked to passage were that the number of students was growing, that most students would benefit, and that the dollar amount of the bond issue was reasonable. (SLD)

Two unrelated studies investigated issues in newspaper journalism. The first, a replication of an earlier study, examined whether the priority given by newspapers to reporting local news was warranted. Respondents in three areas of the country were asked to rate their interest in various types of news on a five-point scale. Results indicated that…

The 1989 defeat by voters in Fremont (California) of the nation's first measure to fund child care services at the local level provides valuable lessons for generating public support for child care services. Information was gathered from interviews with 23 city policymakers and administrators, from campaign materials, and from participant…

In June 1976, telephone interviews were conducted with members of 297 randomly selected Jacksonville households by the Florida State University Communication Research Center to provide Florida public television broadcasters with information for developing programming plans which deal with current local issues and needs. After giving information…

The pamphlet analyzes registration and voting behavior among college and university students. When the voting age was lowered to 18 in 1971, it enabled almost 13 million young people to vote. Over four million are students. Although voting patterns vary among and within campuses, some trends can be identified. Registration rates for students are…

A study examined differences in the language of direct mail advertising used by political campaigns at different levels--national state, and local. Seventeen direct mail fund-raising political campaign letters were content analyzed with Wiseman and Schenck-Hamlin's typology of compliance-gaining techniques, language style and readability. The…

Research on schoolboard and city council elections over a 60-year period in Santa Barbara, California, indicates that the community made roughly simultaneous changes in policy direction in both political areas. The study examines the effects of common ideologies or values on electoral issues and candidates as well as the role of elections as…

Public schools in America are often at the center of controversy over conflicting values and interests. This paper explores three areas of conflict that surfaced in a Virginia community as it shifted from an appointed to an elected school board. The first section explores the three areas of conflict: (1) conflict over what is taught in school; (2)…