This article examines the New Labour legacy in education, reviews the arguments of "The Pendulum Swings" in the light of contributions to this themed issue, examines early Coalition policymaking, and recommends four principles that should guide the search for a new approach to school improvement. Recent initiatives are found to be a…

The purpose of this study was to explore how connections between families, communities and educators can be facilitated in teacher education courses through the use of playgroups. Barriers to building relationships, as well as the perceived benefits of these relationships to families and pre-service teachers, were also explored. Participants were…

The intent of this article is to follow deconstruction as a way to think about the questions that are currently being asked in Child and Youth Care (CYC). As a graduate student in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria (SCYC), I am challenged to think my position and identity in terms of my location within, or on the…

The environmental and social effects of hurricane-related flooding and the recent oil disaster in southeastern Louisiana, and the current global crisis in world fisheries, are case studies that reveal the need for scientific work that is carried out and disseminated with conscious attention paid to the important relationship between scientists,…

This article describes a 15-month university-community collaboration that was designed to fast-track children out of foster care. The developers of the project initiated resource-oriented "systems facilitations," allowing wraparound professionals and families to come together in large meetings to solve problems and find solutions. Families also…

This article examines an important policy initiative that creates self-sustaining partnerships among community stakeholders, including academic institutions. The Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) model of collaborative problem-solving (CPS) builds community capacity and knowledge while addressing the challenges of toxic pollution…

The focus of this work is community-based participatory research (CBPR) and its relationship to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Using published literature, the authors make the argument that HBCUs are well-suited for this approach because of their origin and history, their community ties, and the commitment of faculty and…

Community-Based Learning and Research (CBLR) provides opportunities for institutions of higher education to achieve their goals of educating students, advancing teaching and scholarship, and meeting real needs of under-resourced communities and nonprofit organizations. By providing successful examples of campus and community partnership, this…

Purpose--The purpose of this paper is to offer an example, for, school administrators and planners, of the cohesiveness of community policies and school design and planning endeavors during the 1980s in Arizona, USA. Design/methodology/approach--The paper reports the results of a qualitative, discourse analysis involving images of the exterior and…

A new genus of district and school improvement models entails partnerships with other organizations and new working relationships with families, community leaders, and youths. The Ohio Community Collaboration Model for School Improvement (OCCMSI) is one such model. It enables partners to leverage family and community resources for learning,…

According to Jacoby (1996), service-learning, officially defined in 1967, is "a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development." Service-learning combines academic study,…

Twenty-seven five-year-olds walk into kindergarten on the first day of school in southeastern Kentucky. On average, nine of those children live in poverty, two were born to mothers who did not complete high school, two were removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect, and fourteen are from single-parent homes: this according to statistics…

Universities, because of their vast human and fiscal resources, can play the central role in assisting in the development of school-centered community development programs that make youth development their top priority. The Futures Academy, a K-8 public school in the Fruit Belt, an inner-city neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, offers a useful…

Strategies to institutionalize service-learning are well documented (Furco 1996; Holland, 2000). Using Kecskes (2009) Community-Engaged Department Rubric we evaluated service-learning institutionalization within a school at a metropolitan campus. As a result, we propose adding an additional dimension, social return on investment. This added…

Policy, financial, and transportation barriers have limited participation in dual enrollment for marginalized (low-socioeconomic, first-generation, and ethnic minority) students in Oklahoma. This chapter presents a collaborative effort by education and community leaders that has successfully eliminated these barriers and increased the number of…