While levels of civic engagement among undergraduate students in the United States have increased, understanding how applied learning experiences might facilitate or hinder promotion of civic attitudes, or personal importance of social and political involvement, can provide insights for both faculty and student affairs practitioners. Using…

Researchers endorse the integration of community engagement (CE) into higher education as a way to improve the relevance of education, address community needs, and forge university-community partnerships (Zlotkowski, 1996). CE can help create stronger ties between universities and their communities and provide students with experiential learning…

Despite the increasing popularity and appeal of youth volunteer abroad (YVA) programmes, powerful critiques are emerging. While these programmes tend to promise much in the way of global ethics and global citizenship in youth participants, they often neglect to seriously interrogate the one-way movement of people from the centre to the periphery…

This newsletter describes the features and cites potential obstacles to implementation of high school student community volunteer services for credit programs. Specifically, it documents the genesis of the Students Offering Service (SOS) in the Pasadena (California) Unified School District for the purpose of demonstrating the importance of such…

Connecting students to reading and writing means connecting them to real-world readers and writers. Writers' Day at one Pennsylvania middle school was established to bring regular working professionals (not authors or poets) from the community to school to share how writing is used in their professional and personal lives. All participants…

Archeological work at a pre-Columbian Taino ceremonial area in the Virgin Islands National Park is enhanced by volunteers through the park's friends organization. Partnering with volunteers fosters greater awareness, involvement, educational opportunities, and funding by the community and businesses. Almost all local schools participate, as do…

Maintains that many educators have recommended that public school students need to develop social action skills and participate in community service programs. Discusses student volunteer participation in community food service programs. Provides recommendations for teachers about developing such programs. (CFR)

During the 20th century, the involvement of communities in education has deteriorated, and the school and the community have evolved into separate worlds. This chapter describes ways in which a typical high school has increased its interactions with its own community. Those interactions have two dimensions: to bring the community into the school…

This book espouses service learning as an important and integral part of school for students. It stresses the positive benefits to be gained from service learning, as well as the good the activities do for the community. It notes that service learning should be used to promote a sense of civic responsibility and pride in students. It also promotes…

This publication describes over 100 activity-oriented programs in which students learn through a combination of direct experience and associated instruction or reflection. Students are involved in cross-age tutoring, community services, on-the-job work experiences, foreign or domestic travel with an organized group, political campaigns, field…

Winning essays on rural school/community cooperation written by elementary, middle, and high school students recommend community volunteering to raise money, improve school appearance, and help with student supervision; building on the strengths of rural life; revitalizing rural communities through economic development; increased experiential…

This survey reviews types of environmental monitoring as well as the general aims of the organizations who sponsor volunteer monitoring programs for school and community groups. These programs address educators' interest in involving students in authentic science experiences and provide interdisciplinary activities that link schools and…

Describes Green Chimneys School, a New York multi-service residential agency for emotionally disturbed children and their families. Describes how Green Chimneys opens its campus to the community with help from an advisory board. Notes advantages of community involvement and addresses 13 issues that can arise with community involvement. (SB)

Verbal learning does not prepare adolescents for a society which expects students to graduate as adults from secondary school. This is obvious when one sees how often adolescents are excluded from adult activities and responsibilities. Experiential learning can provide students with a link between academic content and the self-confidence adulthood…

Suggestions for starting or improving youth participation projects are presented for staffs in a broad range of agencies--Red Cross, YMCA/YWCA, Boy and Girl Scouts, alternative community-based programs, and government agencies dealing with youth. Two central concerns are greater involvement of young people already in contact with youth-serving…