Growing recognition by government that social services cannot be for the poor alone has led to a series of laws appropriating Federal funds for services to different categories of clients. The rapid expansion in public spending, however, has created a fragmented system marked by lack of coordination among its components. The impersonality of this…

Draws from hearings and testimony regarding Hispanic experiences with the Catholic Church and Catholic schooling. Highlights Hispanics' feeling of non-acceptance by the church; interest in Catholic schooling; support of biliteracy and bilingual education; and concerns regarding cultural and religious maintenance, family, the law, leadership…

Illustrates changes in the demography, social structure, and educational needs of communities served by community colleges. Considers the changing educational needs of specific community constituencies as new social, economic, and technological trends emerge, institutional responses to these changing needs, and the implications of these responses…

Using Becker's sacred/secular community type continuum and Bailey's concepts of elite/arena council behavior, examined the educational decision making process on the Coeur d'Alene Indian reservation in Idaho. Discusses implications for American Indian education. (GC)

Causes of school violence and possible solutions to the problem are explored. School size, spirit, and climate, and student and teacher attitudes contribute to school security. (JD)

Provides an overview of the following article by Rogoff (PS523071) in terms of its focus and contribution. Notes the article's focus on the proposition that development is a process of transformation through participation in cultural practices, and that changes must be considered at three levels: personal, interpersonal, and community. (BAC)

While working in a one-year position at Grinnell College, I was assigned to teach two sections of Introduction to Gender and Women's Studies (GWS). Although I had never taught in the discipline before, I decided that my course would need a social-justice component in order to ensure that students would understand GWS as both an academic discipline…

When the parents of school age children have significant relationships with their children's schoolmates, a particularly strong school-community relationship forms. Public schools in the United States are best organized to serve such functional, neighborhood communities, which are rapidly disappearing. School reorganization might renew community…

Presents a fictitious dialogue in which a teacher of a college methods course in reading points out to her students that (1) people read for different purposes, (2) reading needs vary from community to community, and (3) teachers should investigate the reading needs of people in their communities. (GT)

Explores the metaphor proposed by T. Sergiovanni (1992 and following) of school as community, an alternative to conceptualizing school as organization. An extended metaphor, which takes into account organizational aspects, is presented that conceptualizes schools as nested communities. This conceptualization is illustrated through the case study…

Describes the cluster system of targeted marketing analysis, which uses geodemographic analysis to develop understanding of communities at the micro level. Characteristics of some types of neighborhoods found in the United States are described and the use of this approach by librarians conducting community analyses is discussed. (CLB)

Suggests that communities, cities, and nations are no longer culturally and ethnically monolithic and examines the possibilities of human fellowships based on faith. Highlights intermarriage, migration, and changes in family structure as sources of complexity, but argues that we must learn how to live together after having crossed traditional…

Since a discourse community may have its membership assigned both on the basis of speech or of writing, it follows that the concept of discourse community needs to be both medium-neutral and unconstrained by space and time. The defining characteristics of a discourse community might be (1) communality of interest, (2) mechanisms for…

Describes the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) project in a mountain region in Switzerland, which is trying to halt depopulation and preserve the environment. Fourteen research units analyze relationships within and among the ecosystem, the economy, and the socio-cultural system. (KC)

Compared and described in this paper are past and present social and political factors which affect the composition, status, and cohesion of urban communities. (EB)