Poverty and unemployment aren't spread evenly across cities or regions, but rather are concentrated in disinvested urban neighborhoods and rural communities around the country. These communities are home to the nation's most vulnerable children and families. Despite some signs of improvement in economic conditions for families in the United…

This booklet was created to help communities (especially in Minnesota) to build community partnerships through community education. Such partnerships are needed in order to identify and meet community needs that are no longer being addressed by the Federal Government. The booklet is organized in three sections. The first section outlines the need…

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) increasingly is being used to study and address environmental justice. This article presents the results of a cross-site case study of four CBPR partnerships in the United States that researched environmental health problems and worked to educate legislators and promote relevant public policy. The…

Schools cannot succeed without collaboration with parents and the community. Defining community education as active community involvement in the education of children, this booklet describes aspects of community education. Community education, the booklet points out, can take place at physical locations such as formal school buildings, which lie…

Guidelines and ideas for creating successful school/community projects are provided in this handbook. Organized like a cookbook, the book contains 43 chapters by individual contributors who take a community-based approach to education, in which the schools are the pivotal institutions of a community. The first section outlines the roles, or…

In a foreword to this document, David Mathews, president of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, describes in what ways effective communities are different from ineffective ones. Following an introduction, a section on school use suggests that most schools offer nothing to adults without children, so it should be no surprise that many adults are…

This "Civic Index" is intended to help communities evaluate and improve their civic infrastructures, as well as look at the issues and find approaches to dealing with them. The 10 components of the Civic Index serve as a description of the types of skills and processes that must be present for a community to deal effectively with its unique…

To help increase leader effectiveness in planning and implementing local action projects, the booklet presents discussion and examples of the nature and characteristics of planned community action leading to community development. The booklet first explains why leaders should be involved with community action and then gives abstracts of seven…

This book describes the mindshift that is the key to successful community capacity building and to the development of social and economic structures that nurture local sustainability. Its focus is how the development of community, through community capacity building, connects, animates, and informs citizens. Chapter I introduces community building…

A guide for community leaders, extension staff, and community or rural development practitioners outlines the evolution of a regional training model for community-based problem solving in rural areas experiencing economic decline. The paper discusses the model's underlying concepts and implementation process and includes descriptions of four…

The report presents case studies of 7 community action projects which were undertaken by New York communities with populations under 10,000 and which show how local leaders can improve the quality of life in their communities. The report describes the background, initiation, expansion, implementation, consequences, and highlights of the projects,…

In view of the national attention that has recently been brought to public school improvement, a list of suggestions is presented in the form of leading questions to guide communities in assessing the quality of their local schools and in promoting beneficial change. The evaluative questions touch on a wide range of issues: school financing…

This booklet offers a set of guidelines for developing a community-based coalition dedicated to improving the education of at-risk minority students. The guide offers and is organized around the following nine-step plan for the development and implementation of strategies to mobilize a community: (1) "the initiation: build core support"; (2)…

This handbook describes the roles that parents, tribal governments, law enforcement personnel, courts, schools, and health care and social service providers play in alcohol and substance abuse intervention and prevention in Indian communities. It explains the legal responsibilities each group has and actions community members should expect the…

Since its founding in 1983, The Jefferson Foundation has engaged increasing numbers of Americans in study and discussion of the U.S. Constitution. Through participation in Jefferson Meetings on the Constitution citizens will come to a fuller understanding of how the Constitution was made, why it designed the national government the way it did, and…