Scholars, practitioners, and proponents of community-university engagement insist that reciprocity, mutual benefit, and peer relationships are essential to creating truly democratic partnerships between campus and community leaders. These same principles are seen as important to creating environments where university students learn democratic…

The author's career experiences--as an impartial observer of community building, as an advocate working from within urban communities, and as a catalyst working from the outside--have given him a unique perspective into the dynamics of institutional/community engagement. "Basically, they have left me with three overriding convictions. First,…

To achieve success in the community, the community educator must understand how power is used by the local power structure and show the community leaders how community education will help their community. (Author/MLF)

An eight-step plan to help new school executives identify the powerful people, groups, and issues in their communities. (MLF)

A study, made of how a southern city school system successfully complied with court orders to integrate, found that social change and innovation in school desegregation were directly attributable to the elitist nature of leadership and decision-making in Southern City.'' (Author/JM)

Community is defined and several methods, ranging from formal research to informal observation, that can be used by a college or university to learn about the community are described. Identifying the influentials in the community is seen as essential. (Author/MLW)

Acceptance or rejection of school policy hinges on the role played by formal and informal groups within the community power structure. Kimbrough's research suggests that formal groups are subordinate to the informal power structure in establishing policy, though formal groups make important contributions to decision-making. Some researchers…

THIS LONGITUDINAL FIELD STUDY EXAMINED THE INFORMAL RELATIONSHIPS BY WHICH SCHOOL ORIENTED LEADERS INFLUENCED THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLICY IN THE EDUCATIONAL ARENA OF AN OREGON COMMUNITY. CONSIDERED WERE 15 BUSINESSMEN AND PROFESSIONALS WHO WERE NAMED AS LEADERS BY MANY OTHERS IN THE COMMUNITY AND WERE ALSO RECOGNIZED AS BEING INFLUENTIAL IN LOCAL…

A CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR STUDYING THE OPERATION OF SOCIAL POWER IN SCHOOL SYSTEMS WAS DEVELOPED ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT A SCHOOL SYSTEM MUST BE UNDERSTOOD IN TERMS OF ITS SUPPORTING ENVIRONMENT. TWELVE DIRECTIONAL HYPOTHESES WERE TESTED TO DETERMINE CORRELATIONS BETWEEN FOUR TYPES OF COMMUNITY POWER STRUCTURES (DOMINATED, FACTIONAL, PLURALISTIC, AND…

A RURAL DAIRY COMMUNITY IN UPSTATE NEW YORK IS THE SUBJECT OF THIS STUDY WRITTEN AFTER 3 YEARS OF PARTICIPATION BY THE AUTHORS IN THE DAILY LIFE OF THE COMMUNITY. THE ANALYSIS INCLUDES DESCRIPTIONS OF (1) THE VARIOUS SOCIAL CLASS GROUPS AND THEIR ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHIES AND SOCIAL ATTITUDES, (2) THE POLITICAL POWERS, BOTH VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE, AND…

Using techniques of the reputational method to study community power structure, this report identifies components of power structure in a Tennessee school district, demonstrates that proven methodologies can facilitate educational leaders' reform efforts, and serves as a pilot study for further investigation. Researchers investigated the district…