Literacy is a powerful instrument to boost the economy in the form of providing positive attitudes and perceptions that can contribute to an improved daily life. Further, it plays an important role in determining the ecological condition, use and uptake of health-care facilities, awareness of different aspects of socio-religious and taboo…

This survey was intended to combat bureaucratic and criminal malfeasance in the system of higher education. Experts in seven federal districts in Russia were asked to determine the attitudes of the population toward higher education reforms in the past two years. Survey data show that Russians are generally not in favor of many of the changes in…

This article is essentially written as two linked parts. The first part considers how space, spatiality and history can contribute to understanding and "doing something about" the sustainability of rural communities. This is done by extensive reference to Soja's (1989 & 1996) space and spatial theorising and selective perspectives of…

Over the span of all of the years that the Levada Center has been in operation, one of the tasks of the research collective has been to analyze the behavior of "advanced" groups whose characteristic way of life, attitudes, and assessments might have the significance, to other strata of the society, of a model, and provide them with an…

Geographical, economic, social and cultural barriers to accessing services in rural areas are widely reported. Less widely discussed are dilemmas posed by individual and community reluctance to address sensitive health issues. This article, focusing on the highly sensitive area of mental health, and employing a participatory action approach,…

The ascendency of neoliberal ideas in education and social policy in the 1980s and 1990s was succeeded in the new millennium by a "new" social democratic commitment with emphases on community empowerment, building social capital and a "whole of government" approach to partnering with civil society to meet community needs. In…

This article sets out to analyze the educational problems facing the Batwa community of Burundi. After explaining the marginal nature of that community in the Burundian context, the article highlights the Batwa's exclusion from school education, from the colonial era to the present. The article attempts to show that, despite governmental adopted…

This study examined the development of community involvement in a place-based high school program for at-risk youth. Teachers and community members founded the program to address concerns about low achievement and high dropout rates among Native Hawaiians. In addition to funding, community members provided program development, supervision of…

To better understand the long-term effects of rapid boom growth, we reexamine four subjective indicators of community satisfaction and social integration in Delta, Utah, which were originally analyzed by Brown, Geertsen, and Krannich in 1989. With 24 years of longitudinal data, we find that within approximately a decade of the boom period three of…

Discusses Finnish legislation concerning young delinquents and a mediation program designed to provide an alternative way to deal with crimes and conflicts and to increase community understanding and tolerance. (RJC)

Community colleges in rural environments provide a variety of services. There is a great deal of documentation supporting those services that are academic and economic. The noneconomic and nonacademic results of community college activities, however, have an undocumented yet significant impact on local communities. The current study focused on how…

Currently principals are involved with a variety of programs offered in schools, such as IDEA, English Language Learners, Title I remedial services, migrant education, and gifted and talented programs. However, there is a growing recognition that gifted students are being poorly served by most public schools. The purpose of this study was to…

The article reports on the findings of a comparative case study of six projects that operated in Israel between 1980 and 2000. The study findings identify characteristics of the programs, the host organizations, and the social and political environment, which differentiated programs that are sustained from those that are not. The findings reaffirm…

Building the research capacity of the vocational education and training (VET) sector is a key concern for the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER). To assist with this objective, NCVER supports an academic scholarship program, whereby VET practitioners are sponsored to undertake university study at honours', master's or…

The nature and function of news in the public life of seventeenth-century New England and the legacy this conception of news left for the development of American newspaper journalism in the eighteenth century are explored in this paper. The paper argues that the origin of American news--its subject matter, style, and method of reporting--is deeply…