As part of a course considering "American Democracy in Theory and Practice," we took 36 students to Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. During that visit, students observed a community that seeks self-sufficiency and yet proves to be simultaneously responsive to and reflective of American democracy more broadly.…

Among the many notable features of Coos County, New Hampshire, is the region's high level of community engagement and a rich civic culture. Community and Environment in Rural America (CERA) surveys by the Carsey Institute have shown that nearly one-fourth of adults in the community report membership in a civic or fraternal organization, and an…

Edible Connections brings together the media, the public, and food system stakeholders to increase awareness and understanding of the local food system, strengthen connections among stakeholders, and address food system problems identified by a given community. Extension educators have successfully used it to educate about food access, hunger,…

Discriminates between "community architecture" and conventional approaches to architecture. Focuses on community architecture as it relates to the participation of users in their environment, the establishment of partnerships between specialists from different fields, and the evolutionary development of people's environmental needs. (TW)

Operation Rescue is a teacher-initiated and -managed early intervention program to identify and help potential dropouts. The program relies upon establishing one-to-one friendships between at-risk children and volunteers. Cooperation with community groups promotes the goal of "local groups solving local problems." Operation Rescue…

Continuing education, it is suggested, can serve as a key tool in any program of citizen education. The most effective programs should bring together representatives from the community and the college or university. Some examples of effective community-university cooperative programs are mentioned. (MLW)

This report describes an experimental program in which civilians and police officers work as two-person teams, patrolling fixed "beat" areas in selected urban neighborhoods. These teams work in responding to service calls, aiding regular mobile patrols in their duties, deterring criminal activity and civilian victimization, and…

Asserts that community colleges have recreated themselves over the last 100 years in response to the changing American economy. Explains that the new need for community colleges to fulfill the local communities' economic needs calls for renewed civic participation in the colleges. Describes Maricopa Community College District's Civic Participation…

The theme of this journal concerns democracy and citizenship education at universities. An editorial, "The Postmodern Blues" (Bernard Murchland), examines the negative citizen attitudes during the election campaign of Bill Clinton. The five civic education roundtable articles represent two position papers and three responses. The first position…

Control of urban development and preservations of open space have become increasingly controversial issues in recent years. This booklet was prepared to help citizens and local officials resolve these types of issues. It is intended to provide a framework for positive discussions between citizens and local officials, and includes an introduction…

In October 1992, the Water and Sanitation for Health (WASH) Project held a workshop to explore how the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) could incorporate community participation as a core element in projects to improve water supply, sanitation, and other environmental conditions of peri-urban areas in developing countries. The…

Although parents and citizens in each community should be encouraged to participate in the educational policy-making process, it has been shown that public access to school board meetings is thwarted in many subtle ways. To gain information that would help to balance the interests of privacy and public access in every school district, the State…

One of a series of sixteen knowledge transformation papers, this paper presents an educational planning model which incorporates citizen involvement at the local level and provides a more responsive and efficient vocational education system. In the first section techniques are discussed for encouraging community participation, such as general…

The increasing institutionalization of teaching has been a central aspect of educational developments in education in Norway because important teaching functions, previously preserved informally in the home and in the local community, have been gradually replaced by formal education. The school-community network has been weakened because few…

Popular theatre that speaks to the common man in his own language and deals with directly relevant problems can be an effective adult education tool in the process Paulo Freire calls conscientization--a process aiming to radically transform social reality and improve people's lives. It can also serve as a medium for participatory research. Popular…