Sociology Commons^™

Pushing The Boundaries Of Education: The Implications Of A Youth Development Approach To Education Policies, Structures And Collabnrations, Karen J. Pittman, Michele Cahill

School K-12

In recent years there have been an extraordinary number of proposals for comprehensive and intensive changes in school structure, finance, and administration, one indication that this is a time of unprecedent change for schools. One of the forces driving this intense focus on school change is the growing national concern about youth issues and problems. This paper notes the myriad of add-on programs that compete for space in the school day and takes the position that, rather than being seen as merely additive,education and services should be viewed as interactive, and essential to the formation of new effective strategies for …

Teacher Education And Service-Learning, Robert D. Shumer

Service Learning, General

Suggestions for needed educational reform have been made for some time. Reports from the 1970s condemned the isolation of schools from their communities and the lack of student participation in the educational process (Brown, 1973; Coleman, 1974; Martin, 1974; Gibbons, 1976). Similar claims were made in the 1980s, where lack of active learning led to student passivity and inability to relate classroom learning to life beyond the school (Goodlad, 1984; Boyer, 1983; Carnegie Council, 1989; W.T. Grant Foundation, 1988). In the 1990s there is a continued call for an end to this isolation, primarily through inclusion of experiential and service-learning …

Unmc Economic Impact Study, Jerry Deichert

Publications

The University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) has a major impact upon the economy of the state of Nebraska. More than a learning and research center, UNMC is a major employer and business enterprise.

Geography And Mutual Understanding: "Harvest Of Hope", Marianne Kenney

Curriculum

The "Harvest of Hope" was an interdisciplinary science/geography project that provided students from two different schools and very diverse backgrounds the opportunity to work in a cooperative community service effort. With teacher coordination from both districts involved in the project, students from an inner-city school and a suburban school planted, tended, and harvested crops on unused school prope11y and donated the food to organizations providing resources to the needy. "Harvest of Hope" was designed to aid the needy of Denver and teach high school students about real-world geography issues. Students also gained knowledge of issues inherent in world agriculture and …

Draft Instructional Framework In Service-Learning For Elementary School, Maryland Student Service Alliance

Curriculum

MSSA wants to ensure that all Maryland students can make a difference in their schools and communities by learning to be responsible citizens. We published the draft instructional framework to help teachers develop a broad range of service-learning experiences.

A Proposal For The Michigan K-12 Service-Learning Center, The Michigan Partnership For New Education

Special Topics, General

The Michigan Partnership for New Education, in collaboration with Michigan State University's College of Education and with several partner universities, proposes to establish a K-12 Service Learning Center, headquartered at Michigan State. The Center would:

1. promote the principles and practices of service-learning in the schools in Michigan generally, through a series of activities ranging from building networks and holding conferences to training teachers, shaping policy and coordinating existing efforts. Such activities would, where possible, be collaborative efforts with other service-learning initiatives in the state. In e this regard, the Center would be a catalyst, switchboard, cheerleader and organizer, tying …

The State Of Black Omaha: 1992 - Housing Conditions, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Publications

In 1931, five years after its founding, the Urban League of Nebraska co-sponsored a study of the social conditions of African Americans in North Omaha. Co-authored by T. Earl Sullenger, Professor of Sociology at what was then the Municipal University of Omaha, and J. Harvey Kerns, Executive Director of the Omaha Urban League, the study observed that, "In Omaha, as other cities North and South, the Negro is striving for status .... In spite of obstacles and handicaps he has established social and religious structures which have enriched the city. In this development, the credit belongs to both races- to …

The State Of Black Omaha: 1992 - Housing Conditions: Executive Summary, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Publications

The African American community in Omaha has undergone many changes since 1931. Although there is considerable evidence of progress and some cause for optimism, there also are reasons to be concerned. The State of Black Omaha: 1992 Housing Conditions has not attempted to construct an index of parity in housing, but if the housing data in the preceding section is any indication, it would appear that inequality between African Americans and Caucasian Americans in Omaha may be narrowing for some and widening for many others.

Occasional Paper No. 092-1: Health Care Perceptions Of Nebraska's Urban & Rural Aged, James A. Thorson, F. C. Powell

Publications

Random samples were drawn in Douglas County, Nebraska (N = 196, mean age = 73.8 years), in the counties surrounding Douglas County also served by the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging (N = 104, mean age = 72.4 years), and in eleven of the rural Sandhills counties of Nebraska (N = 200, mean age = 76.6). Participants responded to structured interviews of 169 questions that included self-assessed health status, availability of health care and physician services, costs, attitudes toward health care services, health experiences and beliefs. While the Sandhills respondents were significantly older and had less access to health services, …

Mandated Service And Moral Learning, Robert K. Fullinwider

Special Topics, General

Recently the Maryland State Board of Education added a new condition for getting a high school diploma: students must perform 75 hours of "service." The activities that count as "service" will be determined by individual districts, and may include everything from tutoring younger students and visiting nursing home residents to working with nonprofit community organizations. The new requirement builds on an already existing voluntary student service program supported by the Maryland Student Service Alliance, a public-private partnership. Although some municipal school systems in the U.S. impose similar requirements, the Maryland school board is the first to adopt a statewide policy.

Journal Of The Community Development Society Vol. 23, No. 01, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Publications

The Journal of the Community Development Society (ISSN 001 0-3829) is devoted to improving knowledge and practice in the field of purposive community change. The purpose of the Journal is to disseminate information on theory, research, and practice. The Editor welcomes manuscripts that report research; evaluate theory, techniques, and methods; examine community problems; or analyze, critically, the profession itself. The Journal is published twice each year.

National And Community Service: Challenges And Opportunities For People With Disabilities To Volunteer In America, Glen W. White

Special Topics, General

The recently implemented National and Community Service Act of 1990 calls for Americans of all race, age, ability, and economic status to return to service in their community. To help facilitate this call to service, the National Commission on Community Service has allocated approximately 70 million dollars in grants. The Act focuses on the involvement of youth, including those who are economically disadvantaged and with disabilities. This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities faced by community service program planners and disability organizations, in their efforts to integrate volunteers with disabilities in service to the community. The paper concludes with a …

Designing Computer-Based Writing Tools For Community Action, David Fleming

Special Topics, General

Most word and information processing systems arc designed for either large institutions or individual users. Institutions, of course, have benefitted greatly from emerging technologies. These users cover the spectrum of our economic, political, social, and cultural life: large corporations, banks, insurance companies, government agencies, schools, universities, armed services, hospitals, the media. Individual users have been more recent beneficiaries of technological advances, and the computer has begun to make inroads into the way people interact with one another, manage their affairs, and entertain themselves.

Support For An Outdoor Pool In Papillion, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Publications

This report summarizes findings from a December 1991 telephone survey that was conducted by the Center for Public Affairs Research for the city of Papillion. The survey was designed to determine voter support for the construction of an out-of-doors swimming pool.

Administering Maturity: The Emergence Of Youth Service As A Rite Of Passage To Adult Citizenship, Timothy Dolan

School K-12

Over the course of the 1980s, a literature describing a new lost generation in America has caught the popular imagination, fueled to no small extent by the anxiety of aging baby-boomers over their offspring's fate. One manifestation of particular interest at the policy level has been a growing sentiment by opinion leaders in favor of establishing youth service as both a pragmatic remedy for meeting social needs, and as a rite of passage to bona-fide citizenship status.

National And Community Service: Challenges And Opportunities For People With Disabilities To Volunteer In America, Glen F. White

Disabilities

The recently implemented National and Community Service Act of 1990 calls for Americans of all race, age, ability, and economic status to return to service in their community. To help facilitate this call to service, the National Commission on Community Service has allocated approximately 70 million dollars in grants. The Act focuses on the involvement of youth, including those who are economically disadvantaged and with disabilities. This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities faced by community service program planners and disability organizations, in their efforts to integrate volunteers with disabilities in service to the community. The paper concludes with a …

The Case For Participatory Evaluation, J. Bradley Cousins, Lorna M. Earl

Evaluation/Reflection

Participatory evaluation is presented as an extension of the stakeholder-based model with a focus on enhancing evaluation utilization through primary users’ increased depth and range of participation in the applied research process. The approach is briefly described and then justified from theoretical and empirical bases. The literature on organizational learning provides theoretical support for participatory evaluation stemming primarily from the view that knowledge is socially constructed and cognitive systems and memories are developed and shared by organization members. Twenty-six recent empirical studies were found to support an organizational learning justification of the model. Studies were classified into one of six …

Voluntary Action On The College Campus - From Theory To Practice, Debra Floerchinger

Higher Education

President and Mrs. Bush committed his administration to the promotion of volunteer service in the President's Inaugural Address in January l989. The "Points of Light Initiative" was announced in June 1989 to advance volunteerism and community service on the national level. This initiative created a foundation to promote these ideals.

Eureka! A Yurt! Integrating Mathematics, Cooperative Learning, And Community Service, Jo Anna Allen

Project Summaries

The significance of "Eureka!" in the title derives from the exhilaration of discovery that took place through a project in which a class of sixth graders built a Yurt.¹ There was a "Wow!" sense of awe and achievement akin to completing one's first rockclimb or a thousand-piece puzzle. In the words of many of the sixth graders who participated-" I can't believe we did it!" They built a scaled-down Yurt (see photo], a circular building having walls that slant upward and outward from a round base, with an overhanging, cone-like roof. The roof has a skylight in the middle, …

Differences Among Community Service Volunteers, Extracurricular Volunteers, And Nonvolunteers On The College Campus, R. Thomas Fitch

Higher Education

Students involved in volunteer community service activities display different demographic characteristics and inte1personal values than do other students.

The Omaha Jewish Community Survey Report, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Publications

In an effort to better serve the needs of the Jewish community in Omaha, The Jewish Federation of Omaha initiated a study of service needs in the Spring of 1991. The University of Nebraska at Omaha's Center for Public Affairs Research (CPAR) was retained to conduct the study.

Omaha Effort, The: Findings From A Survey, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Publications

This report summarizes findings from a July 1991 telephone survey. The survey was conducted for the City of Omaha Department of Public Works and focused on Omaha's current recycling program, The Omaha Effort, as well as citizen attitudes toward recycling in general.

An Empirical Models Of Community Strategies For Economic Development, Robert F. Blair

Publications

A Research Project Presentation at Annual Conference Community Development Society in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada July 22, 1991

Incidence Of Functionally Impaired Elderly: Comparing Enoa Samples With A Rural Sample, Chuck Powell

Publications

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once remarked: "To be seventy years young is sometimes more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old," (Cavanaugh, 1990). The comment by Justice Holmes is positive and rests on hope, the hope that we will be healthy in our old age and capable of living independently.

Promoting Youth Development: Strengthening The Role Of Youth Service And Community Organizations, Karen J. Pittman

School K-12

Concern about youth problems is escalating. The volume of task forces, reports, initiatives, coalitions and media specials confirm that there is broad agreement that too many youth are "at risk."

Phi Delta Kappan - Special Section On Youth Service, Joe Nathan, James Kielsmeier

Special Topics, General

This Special Section on Youth Service features: The Sleeping Giant of School Reform; School-Based Community Service: What We Know from Research and Theory; Project Service Leadership: School Service Projects In Washington State; Gadugi: A Model of Service-Learning for Native American Communities; Citizenship, Service, and School Reform in Pennsylvania; Community Service Learning And School Improvement in Springfield, Massachusetts; Community Service and Civic Education; SerVermont: The Little Initiative That Could; and National Service and Education for Citizenship.

Improving Public Education In Nebraska, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Publications

In 1990, the Greater Omaha Chamber of Co=erce created a study group to examine public elementary and secondary education in Nebraska. The study group was composed of representatives of the business co=unity, educators, and members of the Unicameral. Five work sessions were held to listen to experts discuss the approaches being used by other states to improve education, to discuss the applicability of such approaches to our state, and to identify a set of activities that would assure that pupils throughout Nebraska would be able to compete successfully with other young people in this country and around the world.

Community Service And Civic Education, Harry C. Boyte

Civic Engagement

Community service, widely touted as the cure for young people's political apathy, in fact teaches little about the arts of participation in public life. To reengage students in public affairs requires redefining politics to include, in addition to electoral activity, ongoing citizen involvement in solving public problems. It requires a conceptual framework that distinguishes between public life and private life. And it calls for a pedagogical strategy that puts the design and ownership of problem-solving projects into the hands of young people.

Community Service Learning And School Improvement In Springfield, Massachusetts, Virginia Anderson, Carol Kinsley, Peter Negroni, Carolyn Price

Service Learning, General

Calls for changes in the education system continually issue forth from various segments of society. Each outpouring of public concern challenges educators to address the needs of young people and to achieve school renewal. The current literature on school reform advocates an agenda of improvement efforts aimed at creating effective, caring schools that will provide active learning opportunities for students. develop learning communities, expand learning into the community. foster collegiality among staff members, and enable teachers to become "orchestra conductors" in the classroom rather than lecturers. But educators ask, "How can all of this be achieved?"

Turning On Youth To Politics; Beyond Community Service, Harry C. Boyte

Civic Engagement

Studies by the Times Mirror Center ("The Age of Indifference") and others purport to reveal that today's teenagers and young adults view politics with nearly universal hatred and express apathy toward public affairs generally. A little more probing uncovers a more complex set of attitudes. Allan Moyle's film Pump Up the Volume, based in part on workshops with teenagers in New York, reveals a generation not so much apathetic as disgusted with adult hypocrisy, furious at adults' apparent inaction on mounting social problems, cynical about 1960s-style protest and uncertain about what else there is to do. But it is clear …