This study presents a unique educational partnership combining the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom Schools Program with a concentrated iteration of civic education via iEngage Action Civics in order to provide an opportunity for a localized curriculum that featured specificity to the urban community demographic. Participants were asked to…

Schools in underserved districts experience pressure to improve achievement outcomes, trapping curricula, teachers, and students in a skills-driven literacy framework, repeatedly reinscribing a racist pedagogy. Although the research community recommends resisting skills-based literacy, researchers often neglect to commit to a research-practice…

Community change approaches have increasingly involved participatory practices in which community members directly impacted by an issue participate in implementing change efforts. However, community participation as a practice and approach does not always include youth participation. Within the field of youth organizing, young people are…

This paper is designed to explore Jeonju City's strategies to build a successful lifelong learning city by analyzing the practices for the Lifelong Learning City Movement (LLCM) and then draw the limitations and needed tasks for building a Lifelong Learning City at the local government level. As Cunningham (1993) pointed out, we found some gaps…

This paper focuses on an ongoing debate in La Crosse, Wisconsin, over recent river drowning incidents involving college-aged men. While some in the community contend the deaths were tragic but unrelated, other citizens argue that the collective set of circumstances points to a series of mysterious murders--perhaps committed by a "River…

Providing an extensive, factual account of the controversy regarding the sale of a television station in Bloomington, Indiana, this paper presents a description of the legal issues involved, discusses the correspondence between the author and the purchasers of the station, outlines the justification for filing a Petition to Deny the transfer, and…

A study examined the different approaches that daily newspaper and weekly newspaper editors take toward letters to the editor. It was believed that (1) editors of weekly newspapers would regard as more important letters referring to the community positively, while (2) editors of daily newspapers would regard as more important letters dealing with…

This paper describes family day care and discusses how it is being used to meet the great need for child care in the Black community. The paper also reviews some of the concerns that affect Black caregivers and suggests some possible ways to strengthen the profession. Issues addressed include: What is family day care? Who are the caregivers? How…

This systems theory study dealt with communication in community consensus building. Elected officials, community leaders, and a sample of citizens in three rural Wisconsin communities were interviewed about community problems. One community served as a control group; the other two communities received feedback reports based on the survey results.…

This paper is a case study of a documentary produced by WHAS-TV entitled "Louisville: Open City?" The purposes behind the documentary are examined, and an attempt is made to evaluate whether these purposes were achieved. More importantly, this paper illustrates the social and political changes which can result when a locally-produced…

A study examined the relationship between newspaper coverage of issues and public concern about them at the neighborhood and community-wide levels in an urban area. It was hypothesized that (1) newspaper coverage of issues would be more strongly related to concern about perceived community than neighborhood issues, (2) newspaper coverage would…

This report describes ELI, a computer-based educational game that gives participants, as citizens of fictitious cities, the opportunity to examine a variety of typical community issues relating to education within the context of broader city and regional problems. After a brief introduction, the game structure is described, including the setting…

A study was conducted in the Washington, D.C., area to test mass media effects in a community controversy. Five possible theories were hypothesized to explain the effects media have on a community: indirect and direct effects, null effects, agenda setting, reverse effects, and reverse agenda setting. During the 16-month test period of the British…

Objective news reporting, in which reporters present but do not evaluate facts, has certain negative consequences. When the convention of journalistic objectivity was adopted around 1900, journalists moved from interpreting and analyzing events to being relatively passive links between sources and audiences. The most troublesome convention of…

Addressed in this speech are police/minority relations problems, particularly the issue of police use of excessive force. References are made to studies and reports on the subject and the difficulty in getting adequate and substantial information on the patterns of occurrence where community friction arising from the use of excessive force is…