Narratives from 3 presenters at the closing session of the 2013 Engagement Scholarship Consortium Conference demonstrate that higher education institutions and communities can forge deep and sustainable relationships to address the "wicked problems" in their countries and communities. University leaders in Nigeria described how students…

The university aims to form professionals through transmission and dissemination of knowledge, therefore, the Extension, as a tool of the universities, has a major role contributing to improvements in the learning and teaching process. The Extension projects are extremely important for The Federal Technological University of Paraná (UTFPR), since…

In online learning environments, tutors have several problems to carry out their activities, such as evaluating the student, knowing the right way to guide each student, promoting discussions, and knowing the right time to interact or let students build knowledge alone. We consider scenarios in which teaching and learning occurs in online social…

This paper is intended to share the results of the assessment of the use of the Online Work Community (OWC), developed in the Moodle technology that was used as an instrument to facilitate the educational and operational processes, intended to share problems and proposals for solution among the 470 members of the development teams, made up of…

An exploratory study designed to analyze the evolution of neighborhood movements in Rio de Janeiro City (Brazil) focuses on actions related to the struggle for public schools. The effort seeks to determine the degree of political autonomy of the neighborhood associations and the nature of the educational demands and their relationship with the…

Noting that early childhood development is the foundation for basic education across the life span, the first chapter of this report discusses the benefits of early interventions for individuals and society and justifies the basis for programs which aim at meeting the basic learning needs of young children. It also suggests several questions which…

A study examined the religious radio listening habits of Brazil's indigenous population. Subjects, 46 linguists (under contract to the Brazilian government to educate the population) who worked with 32 different Brazilian tribes, completed a 16-item survey. Results indicated that: (1) 13-20% of adult Brazilian Indians have access to a radio; (2)…

Current educational policy in Latin America has been aiming to include community participation in a wider spectrum as part of decentralization reform. Much of the rhetoric of these policies seems to originate from neo-liberal policies of State modernization carried out under the auspices of international organizations. Based on a critical review…

Following an analysis of the literature on the operation of institutions within society and of the school as an institution, this exploratory study examined Brazilian students' perceptions of school and life in light of school's structural aspects, such as bureaucratic organization and social/political functions. The orientations of Pierre Erny,…

Two studies evaluated cross cultural perspectives of children's moral and ecological reasoning as well as values about nature. The first study was conducted in Houston, Texas, with an inner city black community. Subjects were 72 children from impoverished families. The results suggested that the serious constraints of living in an inner-city…

Since the mid-1970s, participatory research (PR) has provided an alternative approach to those development systems that rely on outside experts and implement predetermined solutions. PR empowers disadvantaged people by recognizing them as co-researchers working together to gather information and implement solutions to their problems. This paper…

The concept of physical and chemical change is far from being the clearest and most self-explanatory concept in the world. If a number of chemists are asked to define physical and chemical change, there may well appear to be a fair degree of uniformity in their answers, until a few examples are suggested. When chemists are asked to place a variety…

Brazil's education of its emerging middle class is compared in this paper with the U.S. community colleges' education of their middle and lower class constituency. First, introductory comments argue that, just as there are stratified technological levels within the labor market, levels of knowledge can also be distinguished, pointing to access to…

This study examined a Preparatory Course for Blacks and the Economically Disadvantaged (PBED) in a poor area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The PBED is an alternative educational project that offers regular classes on evenings and weekends using volunteer labor, donated space, and contributions from students who can afford it. Case studies were used…