Outlines six steps for building local coalitions aimed at stopping community dioxin exposure. Discusses the dangers of dioxin exposure and the advantages of coalition-building. (LZ)

Claims that current environmental education curricula seem to have little effect on behavior. Proposes a service-oriented curriculum addressing the same information, but emphasizing application of the knowledge into action in the community. (KS)

The Communities in Crisis project in Manchester, England, trains volunteers to undertake community improvement. The activities of a tenants' and residents' association illustrate the empowerment through education of individuals as community activists. (SK)

The Police Neighborhood Resource Center is a collaboration among police, educators, and social services to accomplish crime reduction in high-risk areas. Residents increase problem-solving skills and community-police relations improve. (SK)

The conventional leader-follower concept implies that some are leaders and others are not. Leadership involves anyone and everyone who takes steps to move a community. Too many problems cannot be solved without an engaged community. (SK)

Clarifies the value-laden meanings of "community" in community work discourse. Centers on the concepts of Gemeinschaft (community), Gesellschaft (association), and Bund (league or federation). Examines the insights of community studies and the practice of community work within the Judeo-Christian value system. (SK)

Examines the socially constructed, arbitrary nature of maps and the limits and possibilities of this form of representation, focusing on Appalachia and Appalachian Studies. Describes "low-tech" and participatory mapping strategies that may be used by communities to produce their own representations of place, useful for…

Discusses the Maury River Alliance (MRA), a cooperative program developed at the Washington and Lee University that involved local colleges, high schools, government agencies, and conservation groups. Addresses the connection between land use and water quality with a creative merging of technical, social, and educational aspects of local watershed…

During the summer of 2006, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and union officials announced that the Pico Union area of East Los Angeles would soon be home to the Belmont Zone of Choice (BZC). The BZC encompasses the Belmont High School attendance area and will include up to 10 Belmont Pilot Schools, each with a targeted enrollment of 400…

Context: Multiple national agencies and organizations recommend that women age 40 years and older have an annual screening mammogram. Women who are poor, less educated, lack a usual source of care, and reside in rural Appalachia are less likely to have had a recent mammogram. Purpose: To increase use of mammography among a rural Appalachian…

While drunk driving has become widely recognized as a serious social problem with deadly consequences, no systematic research has been undertaken to identify the principal components of service delivery programs offered by citizen action groups in the drinking and driving movement. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), founded in 1980, now has a…

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…

On April 15, 1964, two black Mississippi civil rights leaders filed a petition with the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to deny the license renewal of the Lamar Life Broadcasting station, WLBT-TV, in Jackson (Mississippi). The petition was based on a monitoring study which had revealed that the programing on WLBT-TV provided moderate to…

Theorizing in adult education has been primarily concerned with questions of social philosophy which contribute little to improving the quality of professional activity. This essay suggests a rationale and strategy for developing a research based body of theory, indigenous to adult education and of practical utility to practitioners. Central to…

In this book, originally presented as the third series of H. Rowan Gaither Lectures in Systems Science at the University of California (Berkeley), are examined the contributions that systematic analysis has made to decision making in the government's "social action" programs--education, health, manpower training, and income maintenance. Drawing on…