An ambitious school and community drug education program won community support after the appearance of a controversial school newspaper article featuring an anonymous interview with a drug pusher drew national attention to the problem of drug abuse in the community and schools. (DCS)

Demonstrates how rural news media can be used effectively and without substantial cost for consultation, education, and prevention activities in mental health care. Offers suggestions on packaging free rural mental health activities, lists categories of prevention activities readily accomplished through media, and provides specific rural examples.…

Community Network for Youth Development (CNYD) has served the San Francisco Bay Area for the past twelve years as a youth development intermediary organization offering support, training, and capacity building resources to youth-serving organizations and programs. This report discusses CNYD's capacity-building approach. CNYD has developed a…

Experiences with indigenous people in Mexico and New Mexico illustrate that there are cultural and situational constraints on women's literacy. A participatory demonstration in linguistics in which the demonstrator is largely silent highlights the group dynamics of learning communities that develop in successful literacy and stabilization…

It took 25 years to develop and arrive at a consensus for a standard orthography for the language of the Innu, or Montagnais, who live in Quebec and Labrador. The principal obstacle to standardization came from dialect diversity. An effort at standardizing the spelling system in the 1970s failed because speakers were not ready to let go of the…

The work of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL) in rural education focuses on the intersection between school renewal and rural community development. NWREL's Rural School-Community Renewal Research and Development project aims to develop the capacity of small rural schools enrolling many economically disadvantaged students to…

The Rural Community College Initiative (RCCI) is a national program that supports the efforts of community colleges in distressed rural areas to move their people and communities toward prosperity. RCCI's goals are increasing access to education and developing regional economies. RCCI demonstration sites have produced a wealth of information about…

The Duke Endowment's Program for the Rural Carolinas is a 5-year effort to assist the revitalization of rural communities. Guiding principles of the program are that the rural Carolinas matter, this generation of workers matters, effective community development involves the entire community, solutions must be locally determined, healthy…

Increasing social fragmentation has resulted in human alienation and a subsequent lack of power to achieve. Education must initiate a renewal process by providing a "public space" or a common world in which human beings with diverse backgrounds can integrate individual perspectives toward common action to improve schools and society. (Author/MJL)

Nicaragua's National Literacy Crusade of 1980 has brought impressive results. Through a mass mobilization effort, people of all ages served in 60,000 Sandinista Literacy Units; those who read taught those who could not. This article describes the program's implementation and outcomes. (Author/WD)

Described is the community-wide approach to a unified energy conservation plan for Davis, California. The plan has involved solar technology and use of bicycles as a major mode of transportation. Policy implementation in the form of energy conservation ordinances is reviewed. (RE)

In seeking ways to extend their campuses, institutions should assess the community's needs in relationship to their own goals and purposes. To better serve the community, a college or university must go to the people through publications, electronic media, exhibits, speakers, volunteers, and continuing education. (Author/MLW)

Reports an evaluation study of the Population Education Resource Centers located at 12 universities and their activities to reach college students and, through them, the community with population messages. Discusses perceptions and attitudes changed, curriculum and learning materials, training programs, documentation and dissemination,…

Discusses a concept of community schools that involves the partnership of business, community members, parents, and educators. These schools should offer a multiyear, comprehensive early childhood program that may include preschool and child care, nutrition and health services, parent education and involvement, and child-centered curricula. (SH)

Timber operators, ranchers, corporate timberland owners, environmentalists, state government, and local schools in rural northern California formed an alliance to save the local salmon from extinction. The community's struggle toward consensus was an attempt to abandon the polarization that arises from power struggles. Local nonprofessionals were…