Legislation over the past two decades has shaped the dominant view of adult literacy as addressing gaps in well-defined, measurable skills. As rural communities face unprecedented challenges, this one-size-fits-all view of adult literacy does not consider the unique local context of rural communities or involve those communities in defining their…

This report was written out of a recognition that there has been little effort to systematically examine the value to anchor institutions of engaging in significant community investment. In the absence of such research, the authors believe that institutions tend to overestimate the costs and risks and underappreciate the potential benefits. In…

The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of a pilot study that promoted productive and capacity-building activities among deprived rural women of Mexico. The evaluation design is observational; 1,278 women are interviewed, and the comparison group is estimated by propensity score matching. The results show a positive impact on the…

The Coeur d'Alene Reservation spans 345,000 acres of mountains and farmland in northern Idaho. Most people on the reservation live in the communities of Worley, Plummer, Tensed, and Desmet. Roughly 50 miles south of Plummer is the University of Idaho's main campus in Moscow. The university is Idaho's land-grant institution, with a statewide…

This study examined how a rural school district and the communities in which the district belonged collaborated on a community development initiative. This dissertation examined the opportunities and constraints rural communities are facing and the role that a rural school system could play in increasing social and economic sustainability of rural…

In the aftermath of the Bosnian war, the country has been challenged with the task of responding to the atrocities that culminated in the killing of thousands of people. Furthermore, the country's resultant political instability and economic underdevelopment have been complicated by the multiple transitions to which it has been subject since the…

In October 2007, Norman Borlaug wrote in "Science" magazine that "more than 200 science journals throughout the world will simultaneously publish papers on global poverty and human development--a collaborative effort to increase awareness, interest, and research about these important issues of our time". Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and…

In the United Kingdom, social enterprise is promoted as a mechanism to capture the supposed innovation and dynamism of the private sector to (amongst other things) wean "Third Sector" organisations off their dependence on grants and to offer opportunities to "empower" socially excluded communities. In this article, we place…

This research study looks at how organizations in developing countries perceive the challenge of building capacity in e-learning expertise. Data was collected on six such organizations, and a range of perceived rationales and constraints were identified. The paper hypothesizes a four-part framework to define the e-learning capacity gaps that these…

New ways of participating in rural communities and in community development have evolved as the structure of rural communities has changed. In some communities, the impetus to redefine and reenergize is strong while, in others, ways to move forward have yet to be identified (Pomeroy 1997). Rural schools serve a vital role in recreating communities…

This article focuses on the potential of free tools, particularly inquiry tools for influencing participation in twenty-first-century learning in science, as well as influencing the development of communities around tools. Two examples are presented: one on the development of an open source tool for structured inquiry learning that can bridge the…

Residents of East Cleveland are fighting to improve the quality of public education and access to vocational opportunities. "White flight" (Frey, 1979, p. 425), economic disinvestment, and ineffective political leadership have led to the disadvantages faced by East Cleveland (Kathi & Cooper, 2005). Nearly 1,200 vacant structures…

The experience in developing a student-led academic journal, the Lincoln Planning Review, to provide experiential learning that links undergraduates in a small professional planning programme directly to research publication is described. A combination of circumstances, including an impending review of the programme by the external professional…

Despite progress in urban teacher preparation over the past 40 years, concerns still remain about transforming programs and practices in order to affect teachers' capacities to work with culturally diverse communities. These concerns include time in course curricula for discussion and reflection on field-based work, adequate supervision in…

The purpose of this article is to argue for a social activist stance in educational leadership that fundamentally addresses social change and human emancipation. This call for social activism is framed within neoliberal, neoconservative, and authoritarian populist discourses in the USA, which to social justice educators and leaders had devastating…