Literacy is a pivotal aspect of education and critical for economic development as well as individual and community well-being. Innovative programming that taps into culturally relevant local resources can increase literacy and strengthen social-emotional skills. This article describes the work of LitWorld, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that…

The Learning Exchange was established by the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1999 in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES). The challenge has been to create a shared space for learning exchanges between two very different communities: a research-intensive university and an inner city area most commonly depicted as a place of hopelessness.…

This chapter explores the use of powerful pedagogies such as service-learning, cultural immersion, and community-based research to enhance leadership development. Four key principles are presented that describe how leadership educators can facilitate community-based learning in a way that creates an optimal learning environment for students, while…

One of the central tenets of the neoliberal world view is that there is no alternative to market-based societies with their focus on competition, individualism, and the abandonment of social safety nets and environmental protections. This vision has become the new common sense. As neoliberal policies and practices have spread across the planet,…

The article describes a community organizing course that was as dynamic as community organizing itself. By employing a combination of teaching approaches, community organizing philosophy, and pedagogical and andragogical techniques for student training, the course challenged students to discover their beliefs and the role of the community and the…

Authentic service learning in city schools helps students work toward important change in their own communities. Students are able to face and address issues that have an immediate impact on their neighbors and themselves. Two examples from Chicago neighborhoods illustrate how powerful the concept is: Students worked with a community organization…

This article describes a model of civic engagement based on four key community organizing practices, created at Occidental College and implemented since 2001. The foundations of this model do not include confrontation, mass mobilization, or demonstrations--tactics commonly associated with the term community organizing. This model, instead,…

We need to complicate current accounts of critical pedagogy by examining how educational institutions beyond traditional classrooms have served progressive movements. One example was the Sea Island Citizenship Schools. By examining the latter's history, we also become better aware of how the education-related work of the American civil rights…

Social change on behalf of the disadvantaged in a neighborhood or community can be achieved through various types of change agents, models, and approaches. One of the most effective models was developed by Saul Alinsky, a well-known American community organizer, and it was this model that provided the theoretical framework for the development of…

Includes "The Case of Western Europe: Integration and Change in the EEC--The Fortress and the Excluded" (Conroy); "The Case of Eastern Europe: Why Community Development Still Has to Find a Role in Hungary" (Tausz); and "The Case of the Third World: People's Self-Development (Rahman). (SK)

In 2002, Sierra Leone, a small country on the west coast of Africa, emerged from a brutal civil war that had lasted 11 years. It claimed 20,000 lives and displaced well over one million people, who either fled into neighbouring Guinea or Liberia or survived in the forests, swamps, and mountains. The devastation caused by rebel campaigns of…

The author discusses the growth of community action in Northern Ireland and the significance of adult education to further social change during a time of conflict. He describes two different approaches to community education: adult education as the "education arm" of the activist movement, and adult education as a general community…

Describes history, organizational problems and activities of Paraguay's Asociacion de Agricultores de Alto Parana (ASAGRAPA) and Programa de Ayuda Cristiana (PAC), farmer organizations. Details how cotton production losses forced farmers to invent new, varied markets, turning subsistence crops (peanuts, corn, and rice) into cash crops, while…

Conventional anti-poverty efforts have failed because they have not created the structures for the poor to help themselves, and they are designed and controlled by people outside of the affected communities. Introduced in 1968 by the National Association of the Southern Poor, the Assembly is a non-political structure that organizes community…

Efforts to link colleges with many community-based, grass-roots organizations are described. Three partnership models are discussed: the comprehensive, the limited, and new entities (colleges created directly by or on behalf of community-based organizations). Specific examples are provided. (MLW)