Examined effects of Smart Start, a broad-based community initiative, on the quality of child care for North Carolina preschoolers. Found that care quality, as measured by the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale, was significantly higher in 1996 than in 1994. Child care quality in 1996 was related to the number of local quality improvement…

The term 'community arts theatre' is used here to describe theatre created and performed by groups of adults in Telford, Shropshire, a new town in the West Midlands of England. The author, who was the co-founder and a theatre worker at Telford Community Arts (TCA), argues that their work is best understood as grassroots artistic reflections of and…

This article features an interview of Duncan Campbell. He was raised in an impoverished urban environment and went on to become a lawyer and successful Portland, Oregon, businessman. He founded Friends of the Children, a faith-based program, to provide permanent paid mentors for the most disadvantaged children in a community. Unlike more casual…

In this article, I propose a theory of pedagogical praxis. Pedagogical praxis begins with the premise that under the right conditions, computers and other information technologies can make it easier for students to become active participants in meaningful projects and practices in the life of their community and suggests that professional…

This article considers a site of practice that fosters dialogic consciousness, which I suggest is necessary to teaching social justice and diversity of thought in all sites of practice, including schools. Consciousness of one's own perspective taking and the dialogism necessary to foster voice development are grounded in a growing awareness of our…

Like all politics, adult and continuing education is local. Future directions for the field and its national associations should benefit local programs and the adult learners they serve. This column explores features of collaboration that could strengthen educational opportunities for economically disadvantaged adults. The foregoing ideas about…

Americans for the Arts is the nation's leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts in America. Its survey shows that local arts agencies typically serve their communities through programming to the public, services to artists and arts organizations, and developing and managing cultural facilities. Community colleges share many of the…

The Youth Handgun Violence Prevention Project (YHVPP) was conducted in the Denver Metropolitan Area from July 1999 to June 2002. Several factors associated with youth attitudes and behaviors regarding handguns were identified and verified empirically. Interventions were designed to modify these factors and to evaluate their effectiveness in…

Because of the important role played by community learning providers, Premier Ed Stelmach asked Canadian Minister of Advanced Education and Technology to increase support for community education and literacy programs. Community Adult Learning Councils and other community providers of adult literacy and family literacy programming are primarily…

Community colleges in rural environments provide a variety of services. There is a great deal of documentation supporting those services that are academic and economic. The noneconomic and nonacademic results of community college activities, however, have an undocumented yet significant impact on local communities. The current study focused on how…

Context: Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States, yet screening rates are well below target levels. Rural communities may face common and unique barriers to health care, particularly preventive health care. Purpose: To establish baseline attitudinal, knowledge, belief, and behavior measures on colorectal…

This article features StarBright Learning Exchange, a program that provides a cross-cultural exchange between Australian and South African early childhood educators. The program was originated when its president, Carol Allen, and her colleague, Karen Williams, decided that they could no longer sit by and watch the unfolding social catastrophe that…

A prominent leader in the movement towards restorative approaches in juvenile justice presents cutting-edge practices for community service. Such programs balance community safety, accountability for behavior, and development of the competency of youth. This article describes the benefits and challenges of implementing this model and suggests the…

This study examines how communities participate in schools across diverse contexts in developing countries and the results attributed to community participation. It reviews evaluations of participatory approaches to education in developing countries to answer two basic questions: 1) How do communities participate in school in developing countries?…

This study examines whether a community-based physical activity intervention influenced movement in stages of change in physical activity in an adult population, whether any such effect was mediated by psychosocial influences, and whether any such mediations were moderated by sociodemographic or anthropometric factors. The 3-year-long…