The decline in civic participation, dwindling support for social services and deficits in state budgets, has created a climate in which higher education, supported by several policies, has to make a commitment to contribute to the reconstruction and development of society by linking academic programmes to community-based priorities (Campbell…

Our dialogue explores the development of community/university publishing partnerships in the United States through the dual lens of the U.S-based "Students' Right To Their Own Language" and the U.K.-based Federation of Worker Writers and Community Publishers, a national alliance of working-class writing groups. At the conclusion of the…

Michigan State University embarked upon an initiative to explore deliberative dialogue as a tool for addressing community-based contested issues in agriculture and natural resources. Our goal is to assess the extent to which deliberative dialogue can help "bridge the divides" among citizens and professionals and fulfill the land-grant…

The universal belief that poverty is a matter of low income and correctable through economic growth, more jobs, and increased income is precisely why poverty has persisted in the United States and elsewhere. We view the poor as those not yet in the middle class, but it can be shown that not all the poor can join the middle class, even in the…

In the current Overseas Contingency Operation (OCO), families and communities have been impacted by multiple deployments. This is particularly challenging for families that are geographically isolated from military installations and resources typically available near these facilities. Operation Military Kids (OMK) is a national partnership…

America is unique in that participation in sports has historically been linked to colleges and universities under the premise that participation serves an educational function and supplements the mission of higher education. Yet, intercollegiate athletics is seldom discussed in institutional accreditation self-studies, mission statements, or…

In 1992, Congress enacted the HOPE VI program to overhaul the nation's public housing policy. The reform legislation was prompted by a report commissioned by Congress that deemed two-thirds of all public housing "severely distressed." Since the landmark public housing policy was enacted in 1992, the Department of Housing and Urban Development…

On a frigid Martin Luther King Day in 2008, some 800 parents and youth from neighborhoods throughout New York City rallied at St. Paul's Church in lower Manhattan, and marched to the headquarters of the city's Department of Education to launch a citywide middle grades school improvement effort. The rally was organized by the New York City…

Purpose: School connectedness, or a sense of belonging to the school environment, is an established protective factor for child and adolescent health, education, and social well-being. While a comprehensive, whole-school approach that addresses the school organisational environment is increasingly endorsed as an effective approach to promote…

Background/Context: Parent involvement in education is widely recognized as important, yet it remains weak in many communities. One important reason for this weakness is that urban schools have grown increasingly isolated from the families and communities they serve. Many of the same neighborhoods with families who are disconnected from public…

This article shows the possibility of achieving social transformation by applying the triple helix model, which establishes the university's participation and its research centers, the government and its three levels, and the private sector (Etzkowitz, 2002). These three allies have shared the vision and participated during the entire process,…

The Student Literacy Corps of Fitchburg State College, Massachusetts, in cooperation with the surrounding community, implemented a successful literacy program whose primary goal was to nurture and develop literacy opportunities and awareness of cultural diversity for area youth and adults. College students (for whom this is an elective course)…

Many health and education practitioners agree that school-based violence prevention services can counteract the negative effects of violence by offering children access to mental health care. The lessons learned at three sites that implemented such programs in various schools are reported here. Although the sample of sites was small and diverse,…

Based on the premise that school reform efforts must consider the needs of at-risk children, this paper discusses parallel reform efforts that focus on community service. The first part discusses logical linkages between community service and "at-risk" education and describes how Arizona is attempting to formalize these linkages within…

The Annenberg Rural Challenge seeks to create an effective and sustainable rural school movement that actively involves families, communities, and educators in supporting good rural schools in reciprocal relationships with their communities and local environments. Twenty-six projects, involving hundreds of schools and communities, have been…