Sociology Commons^™

Field Experience And Cooperative Education; Similarities And Differences, Joyce K. Fletcher

Service Learning, General

Of all of the benefits associated with experiential education, those related to student development are of the most interest to educators. Those of us who work with students do not need to be convinced of the positive impact work experience has on participants. Anecdotally we share with one another our success stories - stories of individual students who have grown, matured, gained self-confidence or a new sense of direction and purpose because of exposure to what we like to call the real world. Yet, we recognize that these outcomes are not guaranteed, and that in fact, not all students achieve …

Community-Based Learning: A Study Of A Model Dropout Prevention Program, Robert D. Shumer

School K-12

Dropout prevention is a major concern of school districts throughout the country. In Los Angeles it is estimated that 39% of students fail to graduate from high school. Nationwide, the rate is not too much different, especially in inner city communities where large numbers of Hispanic and African-American youth attend school. While dropout rates have been traditionally high for decades, people continue to ask, why? Many billions of dollars have been spent trying to answer this question and many programs have been developed which attempt to address some of these problems. No one has come up with a comprehensive answer …

Democracy's Next Generation, Donna Fowler

Civic Engagement

A recent study conducted for People For the American Way recommends three ways schools can help students develop the values and habits of responsible citizenship.

Educating For Social Responsibility, Sheldon Berman

Service Learning, General

Schools must help students fight their feelings of powerlessness by developing their sense of community and their confidence that they can make a difference in the world.

Youth Policy: The Monthly Report On National Youth Programs And Issues (October/November 1990), Youth Policy Institute

Special Topics, General

This report features California Gets a "D"; 90% of American Students Don't Pass?; Volunteerism Up; Is Poverty a Reality in America?; and Girl Scouts: Programs Help Youth at Risk.

Student Service Learning And Student Activities -- A Perfect Fit, Deborah Craig

Higher Education

"A thousand points of light ... Lifetime national service ... Be part of the solution ... The volunteer initiative ... Corporate volunteerism ... " These and other slogans have become popularized during the past few years as the "Me Generation" is being replaced by the "We Generation." Yes, volunteerism is once more in vogue, but the issues of the '80s and '90s arc different from those of the '60s. Vietnam and civil rights versus illiteracy and homelessness. Today's issues are less personal for today's typical college students. Very few of them have personally experienced illiteracy or having been homeless. But …

Teaching Twenty-First Century Citizenship: Social Psychological Foundations, Allan R. Brandhorst

Civic Engagement

Effective American (U.S.) citizenship in the Twenty-first century may require a shift in the value orientation which currently characterizes American life. Two components of the American value system are becoming increasingly dysfunctional. American social science, and accordingly the social studies curriculum, has become narrowly focused on an economic model of human decision-making. Such a one-dimensional model of man, because it invalidates by omission justice-based models of decision-making, leaves American society with a reduced capacity for addressing social dilemmas, particularly commons-type problems. Secondly, American cultural life has been dominated by a heavy and one-sided commitment to primary control. Such an imbalance, …

Comprehensive And Integrative Planning For Community Development, Ronald Shiffman, Susan Motley

Partnerships/Community

Over the years, both the public and nonprofit sectors have moved away from comprehensive, community-based planning strategies, lured by "quick fix" of a project-by-project development strategy. Unquestionably, these projects have directly benefited some poor individuals and families. More often than not, however, they do little to increase the economic vitality of the community in which the project is developed. To deal effectively with the issues of community disorganization and poverty and to broaden participation in the community renewal process, we must examine in today's light the originally envisioned community development corporation model and its principles. We need to plan, initiate, …

Social Interactions Of Secondary-Aged Students With Severe Handicaps: Implications For Facilitating The Transition From School To Work, Janis Chadsey-Rusch

Disabilities

The social interactions of a group of 10 students with severe handicaps attending a junior high school campus were described with the use of narrative recording procedures. The students were observed when they arrived at school, during lunch, and when they were engaged in vocational training. In addition, teacher perceptions of behavior were measured, and parents were interviewed regarding their childrens' future vocational opportunities and their social relationships with their peers. The results from this study indicated that (a) these youth of transition age were involved in more task-related than nontask interactions, (b) they were engaged in more interactions with …

Differences In Interpersonal Values Among Students Involved In Volunteer Service, R. Thomas Fitch

Higher Education

A study of college students involved m. community service volunteer activities found that students' interpersonal values differed relative to whether they were involved through religious, Social Greek, or service organizations.

Legal Issues In Combining Service And Learning, Michael B. Goldstein

Special Topics, General

A basic guide to the legal issues involved in programs that combine educational goals with direct involvement in the community - essential reading for any program administrator. The term "school" is used throughout to indicate any educational institution -elementary, secondary, or postsecondary, public or private - which may sponsor a student service-learning program. The term "agency" denotes any public or private community-based organization which may provide work opportunities or training or supervision of students at work sites. Portions of this analysis of legal issues in internships and experiential learning first appeared in Legal Issues Resource Booklet, by Michael B. Goldstein …

Service-Learning Advances School Improvement: A Position Paper From The International Service Learning Initiative, Barbara Gomez

Special Topics, General

The base on which the United States is built is participatory democracy -achieved only when all citizens are included in choice and decision-making. Nothing could be worse for our nation than to have our children feel alienated from the communities in which they attend school. For more than 200 years the rest of the world has been watching our progress, and as we have succeeded they have made efforts to emulate our sense of individual freedom and collective responsibility for governance.

Bringing Old And Young Together, Jane Angelis

Intergenerational

"I just can't get it all done!" It is the classic lament of the teacher stretched too thin by the demands of the classroom. Imagine what educators could accomplish if we only had enough help...

Intergenerational Programs: A Manual For Success, Ramona Frischman

Intergenerational

Although there are always social issues which much be faced by educators and by society, three issues in particular demand attention in the 1990s. Racism, sexism, and a third "ism" - one relatively new to our vocabulary - ageism. Referring to the discrimination against a group or an individual because of age, ageism is most often practiced against members of two distinct groups in our society: those over 60, and those under the ago of 18.

Youth Service: From Youth As Problems To Youth As Resources, Bonnie Benard

School K-12

New Paradigm "Youth as problems, or youth as resources? Communities with problems or communities with resources?" These opening sentences to Reaching Out. a recent book on establishing community service programs for youth, encapsulate a critical issue I see confronting anyone relating to or working with young people, whether as parents, teachers, community folk, or prevention advocates and other helping professionals: the framework or perspective from which we view youth in our society today. Whether we view youth as problems or as resources determines not only our expectations for our youth and our actions towards them, but also the type of …

Training Student Organizers Curriculum (Revised Edition), Michael Zamm, Robert Ortner, Beverly Deangelis

Curriculum

This second edition of the Training Student Organizers Curriculum has been written to reflect the project organizing experiences of students, teachers and staff participating in the Council on the Environment of New York City's Training Student Organizers Program (TSO) since the first edition of the curriculum was published in 1983. We have expanded the lessons/narratives in Part I to include more information on environmental issues and have also added lessons and/or narratives for specific environmental action projects. The "how to's" of project organizing are described, step by step, in specific improvement projects in Part I, and reviewed as a total …

The Civic Mission Of The University, Benjamin R. Barber

Civic Engagement

The modern American university is embroiled in controversy, fueled by deep uncertainty over its pedagogical purposes and its civic role in a "free" society. At times the college establishment seems to know neither what a free society is not what the educational requisites of freedom might look like. Nonetheless, both administrators and their critics have kept busy, for like zealots (classically defined as people who redouble their efforts when they have forgotten their aims), they have covered their confusion by embellishing their hyperbole. They wring hands and rue the social crises of higher education... apathy, cynicism, careerism, prejudice, selfishness, sexism, …

Principals Of Good Practice For Combining Service And Learning, Ellen Porter Honnett, Susan J. Poulsen

Guides

The level of interest and sense of urgency in community and voluntary service grows greater every day. In every community, programs are being designed for participants from kindergartners to the elderly. Is there a set of guiding principles by which service programs can be designed and by which their effectiveness can be judged? Is there a set if ideas which have the potential for deepening and sustaining current movements?

The principles described on these pages reflect the grassroots experience and the thinking of thousands of people, hundreds of programs and numerous national organizations over the last several decades. They are …

Public Talk And Civic Action: Education For Participation In A Strong Democracy, Benjamin R. Barber

Civic Engagement

Civic education programs have always played a distinctive role in the American education curriculum. For the most part, however, civic education has been associated with civic knowledge and the cultivation of a cognitive faculty thought to be identical with political judgement (private judgment on public issues).

Perhaps this has been appropriate to a society which understood democracy primarily as a system of accountability in which elected representatives do most of the actual governing and "citizens" limit themselves to the passive roles of voter and watchdog.

National Service And Student Aid: Myth And Reality, Will Marshall, Joel Berg

Service Learning, General

Do citizens who receive government benefits owe a debt of service to society? That question lies at the heart of the controversy surrounding the Citizenship and National Service Act introduced in January, 1989 by Sens. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Charles Robb (D-Va.) and Rep. Dave McCurdy (D-Ok.). The bill stems from a May, 1988 proposal by the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) that challenges the efficacy and fairness of existing federal student aid programs and proposes instead a "new G.I. Bill" that would award public aid in exchange for civilian or military service to the nation.

Speaking Out For Youth Service: It's Not Just The Thought That Counts, Youth Service America, Nittional Association Of Service And Conservation Corps

Conference Proceedings

Welcome to the Youth Service America conference on national youth service issues and policy. We are gathering in Washington at a time when interest in youth service is high and Congressional action possible. Together, at this conference, we have an opportunity to play a central role in expanding the diversified field of youth service and translating successful youth service strategies into a national policy that will make the ethic of service an integral part of growing up in America.

The Value Of Community-Service Programs, John H. Buchanan

Service Learning, General

When both President Bush and Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts assume leading roles in a new national movement, there is reason to believe that something significant may be happening.

Such appears to be the case with the growing interest in Washington and elsewhere in youth-focused community-service programs.

Fostering Intergenerational Relatiollships For At-Risk Youth, Marc Freedman

Intergenerational

Many at-risk youth are growing up isolated from the range of caring and consistent adult relationships so important for navigating the treacherous course from adolescence to adulthood. An accumulation of research from the social sciences suggests that adult relationships-provided not only by parents. but by grandparents, neighbors and other interested elders-are a common factor among resilient children, who achieve success despite growing up under disadvantaged and stressful circumstances. An important. and not often addressed, question for social programs and policy is whether the circumstances of more at-risk youth could be improved through efforts designed to provide greater access to helping …

National Youth Service: The Proposed Legislation, Robert H. Atwell

Special Topics, General

I'm very happy to be back in sunny Arizona. I was here just a few weeks ago for another meeting, but this week I'm especially glad to be out of Washington, where the weather has been dreary and some of the political debate even drearier.

Because I work in Washington, everybody always wants to know what's really going on in the nation's capital, and why the government can't seem to get anything right. So I thought I'd begin by telling you about something you didn't read in the newspapers, and that's a meeting that took place the other day at …

"Person-To-Person": A Community Service Guide For Youth Groups Visiting Senior Residences, Susan Chandler

Intergenerational

The purpose of this guide is to assist you in the development and implementation of intergenerational projects in which youth groups visit senior adult residences. These "youth in service to elders" projects are designed to meet a variety of needs. Through them, young people learn to give of themselves and their time in a significant and positive way. With our mobile society, young people often do not have the opportunity to spend time with their elders; and as a result are deprived of an awareness of the aging process and of the wisdom which older people possess. Conversely, older people …

The National Agenda, Paul A. Elsner

Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Reciprocity: A Major Paradigm Shift, John A. Calhoun

Special Topics, General

It is not news to the youth-serving community that something new is afoot regarding how we think about and work with youth.

Well known is the stir on the national level: President Bush's YES initiative; numerous pieces of congressional legislation whose proposals range from school-based programs through conservation and urban corps to mandated national service. Locally, projects of various sorts are springing up in schools, youth-serving agencies and in other organizations whose functions impinge on youth.

Not so well known-or fully understood-is a key notion that could well be lost amid the legitimate clamor and enthusiasm for the concept, namely, …

Partnerships: The Community Education Process In Action, William J. Cirone

Partnerships/Community

Partnerships represent such a simple concept, it is amazing that they - and the whole community education process - have taken so long to become widely recognized. The benefits seem so obvious that the real wonder is that we haven't been operating this way all along. Partnerships - and, by extension, community education - are tools that can be used to address many of the problems we face as members of modern society.

Youth Entering Service To America, Yes To America

Civic Engagement

George Bush announced today his proposal for the creation of Youth Entering Service to America, a challenge grant program designed to spur more young people to serve their communities as a continuing androutine part of their daily lives in high schools, college, and after graduation.

Service: Meeting Youth's Need To Be Needed, James C. Kielsmeier, Rich Willits

Special Topics, General

In April 1861, hours after the smoke cleared at Fort Sumpter, the first volunteer military units from the North were organized in preparation for the battle to preserve the Union. They were from Minnesota.

The North Star State is again mobilizing, capturing some of the fresh air of the service movement sweeping the nation, and adding its own populist brand of citizen involvement. Youth service is blooming in America's heartland, and community educators are leading the way.