People, Land, Arts, Culture and Engagement: Taking Stock of the Place Initiative

This report serves as a point of entry into creative placemaking as defined and supported by the Tucson Pima Arts Council's PLACE Initiative. To assess how and to what degree the PLACE projects were helping to transform communities, TPAC was asked by the Kresge Foundation to undertake a comprehensive evaluation. This involved discussion with stakeholders about support mechanisms, professional development, investment, and impact of the PLACE Initiative in Tucson, Arizona, and the Southwest regionally and the gathering of qualitative and quantitative data to develop indicators and method for evaluating the social impact of the arts in TPAC's grantmaking. The report documents one year of observations and research by the PLACE research team, outside researchers and reviewers, local and regional working groups, TPAC staff, and TPAC constituency. It considers data from the first four years of PLACE Initiative funding, including learning exchanges, focus groups, individual interviews, grantmaking, and all reporting. It is also informed by evaluation and assessment that occurred in the development of the PLACE Initiative, in particular, Maribel Alvarez's Two-Way Mirror: Ethnography as a Way to Assess Civic Impact of Arts-Based Engagement in Tucson, Arizona (2009), and Mark Stern and Susan Seifert's Documenting Civic Engagement: A Plan for the Tucson Pima Arts Council (2009). Both of these publications were supported by Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, that promotes arts and culture as potent contributors to community, civic, and social change. Both publications describe how TPAC approaches evaluation strategies associated with social impact of the arts in Tucson and Pima County. This report outlines the local context and historical antecedents of the PLACE Initiative in the region with an emphasis on the concept of "belonging" as a primary characteristic of PLACE projects and policy. It describes PLACE projects as well as the role of TPAC in creating and facilitating the Initiative. Based on the collective understanding of the research team, impacts of the PLACE Initiative are organized into three main realms -- institutions, artists, and communities. These realms are further addressed in case studies from select grantees, whose narratives offer rich, detailed perspectives about PLACE projects in context, with all their successes, rewards, and challenges for artists, communities, and institutions. Lastly, the report offers preliminary research findings on PLACE by TPAC in collaboration with Dr. James Roebuck, codirector of the University of Arizona's ERAD (Evaluation Research and Development) Program

A Qualitative Study Using Community Cultural Wealth to Understand the Educational Experiences of Latino College Students

The Latino population is the largest minority group in the United States (Quijada & Alvarez, 2006) and has the highest high school dropout rate of any ethnic group (American Council on Education, 2008). If the U.S. is to compete in the global economy, it is important to understand factors that facilitate or hider the academic performance of Latino students. This qualitative study provides rich narratives on how Latino students used community cultural wealth, including knowledge, skills, abilities and networks, to excel in educational settings and overcome obstacles. A total of 15 individuals participated in the study. Findings suggest that Latino students overcome structural and cultural obstacles using various forms of community cultural wealth. In addition, the article provides recommendations based on participant’s experiences and previous research to increase Latino students’ success. It is the hope of the authors that findings from the present study will provide insight into the factors that facilitate Latino student success

Evangelical Friend, Sept./Oct., Nov./Dec. 1993 (Vol. 27, No. 1 & 2)

A Nature Nudge. By Gary K. Fawver, page 2Finding new ways to be present to God\u27s presence Using Sports as an Evangelistic Tool. By Greg Linville, page 6 If you build it - they will come. Listening for the Trumpet. By Walt Everly, page 10When Christmas comes to life Humanizing the Holy. By Darlene R. Graves, page 12Imagination and stories - ways to get inside the Bible How in the World Do We Tithe? By Betty M. Hockett, page 14Even chickens and rice become gifts to God. Regular FeaturesSpeaking the Truth, 4To the Point, 7Friends Read, 8Friends Write, 9Ponderings and Bustlings, 11A Certain Shaft of Light, 16What About Our Friends? 18https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/nwym_evangelical_friend/1258/thumbnail.jp

“You Got To Know Us”: A Hopeful Model for Music Education in Urban Schools

Urban schools, and the students and teachers within, are often characterized by a metanarrative of deficit and crisis, causing the complex realities of urban education to remain unclear behind a wall of assumptions and stereotypes. Within music education, urban schools have received limited but increasing attention from researchers. However, voices from practitioners are often missing from this dialogue, and the extant scholarly dialogue has had a very limited effect on music teacher education. In this article, five music educators with a combined thirty years of experience in urban schools examine aspects of their experiences in the light of critical pedagogy in an attempt to disrupt the metanarrative of deficit, crisis, and decline that continues to surround urban music education. By promoting the lived-stories of successful urban music students, teachers, and programs, the authors hope to situate urban music education as a site of renewal, reform, and meaningful learning. This paper emerged from a panel discussion regarding promising practices in secondary general music with urban youth that took place at the New Directions in Music Education conference held at Michigan State University in October of 2011

Native Artists: Livelihoods, Resources, Space, Gifts

Examines the experiences of Ojibwe artists in Minnesota, including access to training, funding, space, paying markets, and institutional support; discrimination and isolation; and relationships with communities. Profiles artists and makes recommendations

Civic Identities, Online Technologies: From Designing Civics Curriculum to Supporting Civic Experiences

Part of the Volume on Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth.Youth today are often criticized for their lack of civic participation and involvement in political life. Technology has been blamed, amongst many other causes, for fostering social isolation and youth's retreat into a private world disconnected from their communities. However, current research is beginning to indicate that these might be inaccurate perceptions. The Internet has provided new opportunities to create communities that extend beyond geographic boundaries, to engage in civic and volunteering activities across local and national frontiers, to learn about political life, and to experience the challenges of democratic participation. How do we leverage youth's interest in new technologies by developing technology-based educational programs to promote civic engagement? This chapter explores this question by proposing socio-technical design elements to be considered when developing technology-rich experiences. It presents a typology to guide the design of Internet-based interventions, taking into account both the affordances of the technology and the educational approach to the use of the technology. It also presents a pilot experience in a northeastern university that offered a pre-orientation program in which incoming freshman designed a three-dimensional virtual campus of the future and developed new policies and programs to strengthen the relationship between college campus and neighbor communities

High Tech or High Risk: Moral Panics about Girls Online

Part of the Volume on Digital Young, Innovation, and the Unexpected We argue that the current moral outrage and national panic over the risks of victimization faced by girls on the Internet has nothing to do with risks faced by girls on the Internet. Based on historical, cross-cultural, and discourse analyses, we draw four conclusions. Each and every time a new communication technology is introduced, it spurs very public fears on the part of parents and educators, putatively about the effects of that technology on girls' (sexual) innocence. The statistics show that predatory behavior on adolescent girls has a certain profile that has either not changed over the decade since the Internet became popular, or has improved over time. The Internet dangerously unfetters girls' spaces and risks changing our image of what girls can do, and where they can go. This challenges the social order. Girls' masterful use of the Internet also challenges the view that technology is dangerous and an inappropriate interest for girls, and in this sense the moral panic around girls online is a way of policing the relationship between girls and technology

Interactive Food and Beverage Marketing: Targeting Children and Youth in the Digital Age

Looks at the practices of food and beverage industry marketers in reaching youth via digital videos, cell phones, interactive games and social networking sites. Recommends imposing governmental regulations on marketing to children and adolescents

Better Together

Calls for a nationwide campaign to overcome civic apathy and outlines the framework for sustained, broad-based social change to restore America's civic virtue