From its beginning in 1885, the Hull House was beacon for social progress and urban reform. Founders Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr recruited talented, passionate partners from diverse fields to address issues from street sanitation to education in Chicago's immigrant communities. Among residents' many projects, their involvement in the…

This qualitative study documents urban youth participation in a community-based out-of-school youth writing program that cultivated participants' dialogues, identities, and writings. The study documents participants' perspectives as contributors and beneficiaries of a neighborhood revitalization effort. Analysis of excerpts from breakout sessions,…

Few innovations have galvanized libraries, schools, and museums like the maker movement. "Makerspaces" are community centers that combine manufacturing equipment with education in a way that lets people collaborate, explore and innovate. In makerspaces, people apply scientific and engineering principles in a hands-on environment to…

Neighbourhood Houses in Australia are spaces of education and learning that cater to and work with adult learners across a lifespan. They are known as fourth sector education providers in the Adult and Community Education (ACE) sector. With a history spanning nearly 45 years, Neighbourhood Houses provide vital education opportunities for adult…

This article examines interview data with faculty teaching in a college-community partnership program for low-income adult students in an urban setting. The purpose of the study was to explore faculty understandings of the diverse learning needs of their students and the perceptions they have of the efficacy of their teaching practices regarding…

Women accompanying their husbands to pursue graduate degrees abroad inhabit complex social locations that have economic, social, and personal implications. This paper draws from a broader study of literacy practices in an informal university centre to focus on the gendered structural constraints and experiences of sojourners to the United States,…

One area that remained off the research radar is that interface between senior centers and learning programs, and hence, their potential to act as community-based learning hubs. Countering such a state of affairs, this article reports on an action research study to investigate the extent that a transformative learning program in a senior center…

Pathways to higher education can appear opaque and unattainable to rural adults, despite the affordances provided by modern broadband and increasing provision of university online learning options. This paper describes an innovative partnership model that connects rural adults to university and technical and further education pathways through…

We explore whether (a) teacher ratings of texts' cultural relevance along various dimensions differ from those of students, (b) these ratings reflect a single construct, and (c) ratings of specific dimensions are related to specific reading outcomes. Fifty African-American students were each administered two text protocols for a total of 100…

In this article, we examine fugitivity and fugitive literacies as they are enacted by transfronterizx youth--young people who cross and experience life on both sides of the border between Mexico and the United States. Through a community-based literacy project located on the border between El Paso, Texas, USA, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico,…

Neighbourhood Houses in Victoria are significant sites of formal and informal education for adult learners. Intrinsically connected to local communities they play an important role in decreasing social isolation and building social inclusion. The focus of this research is on adult learners and adult learning that engages with "second…

This "Futures" column shares insights about men's learning beyond work, based on several decades of research in men's learning in international community contexts. The article focuses' particularly on men who want and need to learn to re-create and broaden their identities beyond their working lives. This practice, well established in…

There exists an abundance of literature on the use of wordless picturebooks in literacy development, yet very little research exists on their use in the South African context. South Africa is facing what researchers have referred to as a 'national crisis of reading'. Only 5 per cent of parents read with their children, as a result, many children…

This article examines pre-service teachers' responses to their experiences with community engagement as a service learning project as part of an introductory Education course at a large, midwestern urban university in the United States. It is typical for students in pre-service Education courses to participate in service learning in schools or…

"Ten in Bed" was a project led by participatory arts organisation Phakama, in partnership with Queen Mary University of London. Over an eight-week period we ran a series of intermedial arts workshops and staged a performance with under five-year-olds and their families at a community centre in Bethnal Green, London. We attempted to…