Toward A Sociocultural Context for Understanding Violence and Disruption In Black Urban Schools and Communities

This article examines violence and disruption in a Black urban school and community. The author argues that an unempowering framework of culture has restricted our understanding of violence and other social issues affecting Black schools and communities. From such a backdrop, a sociocultural framework is presented that captures the strain, solidarity, and contemporary emergences that area part of school, American and Black culture, and a part of the context in which violence occurs in Black schools and communities. Broad implications are posited for human service policy, research, and direct practice

Partnerships For Vitalizing Communities And Neighborhoods: Celebrating a Return !

In 1994, ten community and university partnerships joined the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to develop training strategies that would improve social systems and better serve families and neighborhoods. The partnerships and training strategies were to be based on what the Foundation refers to as the assets model - or seeing the strengths and assets of families and neighborhoods, rather than their deficits, as the primary building block for social systems (Parsons, 1997). Called the W. K. Kellogg Foundation Families and Neighborhoods Initiative, Community/ University Partnerships, according to Beverly Parsons, a program evaluator, Funding is provided for sites to demonstrate that partnerships can indeed be formed among community-based organizations and institutions of higher education to work on critical issues in the area of inservice and preservice education (Parsons, 1997, p. 1)

Race and class challenges in community collaboration for educational change

Abstract This article reports the challenges of race and social class in an action research project to facilitate educational change through community collaboration with African American parents, community organizations, and public schools. This project was undertaken in Charlotte, North Carolina to enhance the participation of African American parents in their children's math and science course selection and placement in middle and high school. Focusing on the communities of three high schools and their feeder middle schools, this article reports important lessons and outlines strategic implications for future work in the intersection among African American communities, public schools and education, and universities