In this article, Michael McAfee and Mauricio Torre reflect on the successes and challenges of the Promise Neighborhoods movement as it works toward education equity, and on what it takes to effect large-scale, sustainable change for low-income communities and communities of color. Together they discuss the Chula Vista Promise Neighborhood project…

Community mobilization is a strategy that organizes a community across sectors for long-term change, and is one way for communities to provide supports for young people to make healthy sexual choices. In the context of teen pregnancy, community mobilization can address the interconnected web of factors that influence teen sexual attitudes by…

The world population has changed spectacularly in the last decades. The growth in life expectancy is forcing a restructure in our policies and, obviously, education. For 2050, there will be 2.000 sixty plus year olds. That is more than 20% of the world population. Besides, discrimination for ageing and, sometimes, abandonment and abuse of elderly…

The Learning Partnership (TLP) initiated a Family and Community Engagement Strategy (FACES) initiative in three Ontario communities to foster active and responsive relationships among community partners and enhanced family engagement in transitions to school. A case study research design, grounded in participatory action research, was used to…

In the wake of the most recent refugee crisis the private sponsorship programme re-emerged in Canada as a just and novel solution to precarious migration. The private sponsorship programme expands the role of civil society in humanitarian resettlement, while simultaneously depicting the programme as a grassroots movement of engaged and active…

Lopez Island is located in the archipelago of San Juan Islands off the northwest coast of Washington State. Breathtaking mountain vistas, sparkling shorelines, forests, and pastoral landscapes filled with sheep and orchards attract many tourists to San Juan County each year. This isolated community can only be reached by traveling on ferries,…

Oklahoma implemented universal pre-K in 1998. It is one of only five states that has or is implementing universal preschool, and for several years has served more four-year-old children than any other state. The organization, Community Action Project (CAP) Tulsa, occupies a unique position in this work. As one of the largest anti-poverty agencies…

Programs in which youth work collectively on an environmental stewardship project may provide social learning opportunities that support social-ecological system resilience and the development of social ties. However, few empirical investigations document the social learning processes that actually occur in these programs. This paper presents a…

This paper focuses on a project developed in Texas that utilizes community organizing strategies to advance childhood food security. With a dual focus on organizing policymakers and local communities, The Texas Hunger Initiative provides an example of an organizing project with the goal of ending childhood food insecurity in Texas.

Our century has unprecedented new challenges, which need creative solutions and deep thinking. Contemplative, deep thinking became an "endangered species" in our rushing world of Tweets, elevator pitches, and fast decisions. Here, we describe how important aspects of both creativity and deep thinking can be understood as network…

It started with a dream: to create a national best practices teaching and learning center that would not only provide the best available care and education to children ages 0 to 5 years old, but would also serve as a model for adult learners and like-minded entities and individuals in the early education arena. Committed to elevating the quality…

Enthusiastic learners acting as community learning champions (CLCs) are scarcely a novelty. There has been a surge of interest in what they have to offer in the last couple of years, thanks in large part to a government programme, which has funded training and support for learning champions through 50 community projects across the country, and a…

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,…

This article reflects on the school's role in the building of citizenship, especially in socially vulnerable contexts. We argue, and try to show, that effective participation in decision-making processes is a key tool to promote conditions that help in social transformation and the formation of active citizenship. We offer a brief description of…

4-H has long emphasized the importance of civic engagement and community service for positive youth development. One pathway to this ideal is youth action research and evaluation. This article demonstrates how participatory youth research and evaluation can lead to the successful implementation of community action projects. It describes the…