As the civic role of higher education attracts renewed critical attention, the idea of engagement has come to the fore. Civic engagement, as espoused in many institutional missions, encompasses a diversity of goals, strategies and activities. Latterly, these have included particular approaches to teaching and learning. This research examines the process of embedding a civic engagement dimension within the higher education curriculum in Ireland. I use the term ‘pedagogy for civic engagement’as a generic term for a range of academic practices –variously referred to as ‘service learning’or ‘community based learning’–which share an explicit civic focus. Academic practice serves as the central focus with attention to pertinent aspects of the prevailing context. Using a multi-site case study conducted in the spirit of naturalistic enquiry, I examine four cases of this curriculum innovation, drawn from the university and institute of technology sectors in Ireland, with unstructured interviews and documents as the main sources of data. I interrogate the underpinning rationale for ‘pedagogy for civic engagement’–as gleaned from the literature, the policy context and the case studies –exploring implicit conceptions in relation to knowledge, curriculum, civil society, community and the purpose of higher education. The study draws its empirical data from those responsible for implementing this pedagogy –the ‘embedders’–and a range of other actors. Interviews were carried out with academic staff, project directors, educational developers, academic managers and leaders. Key actors from the national policy context and from the international field of civic engagement also participated in the study. Four orientations to civic engagement are identified, revealing the multifaceted rationale. I explore the process of operationalising the pedagogy and the factors impacting on academics’capacity and willingness to embed it. While the study does not directly examine the experience of students and community partners their role within the process, as perceived by academic staff and others, is problematised. The implications of the putative unresolved epistemology of this pedagogy are explored in light of how participants conceive of and practice it. Academics’ambivalence about the place of values in higher education emerges as a theme and the issue of agency recurs. I explore how the pedagogy may be conceived of in terms of the teaching, research and service roles of academics and consider how it may be positioned within an institution. Opportunities for alignment are identified at a number of levels from constructive alignment within the curriculum to alignment with national strategic priorities. I explore the unrealised potential of the Irish National Framework of Qualifications –specifically the ‘insight’dimension –as a means of enabling and legitimising the pedagogy, in light of the prominence afforded to the principle of subsidiarity in Irish higher education policy. The localised way in which these practices have been adopted and adapted underlines the significance of context and culture. ‘Pedagogy for civic engagement’as a concept and as a practice challenges a range of assumptions and traditional practices, raising fundamental questions regarding the role and purpose of higher education –and not just in contemporary Ireland.

Twenty percent of Canadians do not speak English as their first language. This is the highest reported proportion of non-native English speakers to comprise Canada’s national demographic in 75 years (Statistics Canada, 2011). Factoring into Canada’s classrooms, this demographic contrasts sharply with a public school professoriate comprised mainly of white middle class females (Bascia, 1996; Cone, 2009; Cooper, 2007; Gambhir, Broad, Evans, Gaskell, 2008; Hodgkinson, 2002). The resulting gap that exists culturally and linguistically between many of Canada’s teachers and many of Canada’s most vulnerable students is cause for concern, especially in regards to the low level of achievement many ESL students experience in the classroom (Watt & Roessingh, 2001). Despite a discourse steeped in advocacy and empowerment, there is little agreement on how to most effectively prepare preservice teachers to work with diverse learners (Cochran-Smith, 2001; Ladson-Billings, 2001). There is however, a general consensus that preservice teachers need experience working with diverse populations in order to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to assist minority students to reach their full potential (Goodlad, 1990; Phillion; Malewski, Sharma & Wang, 2009). My research attempted to address these gaps by investigating how incorporating community-based learning (Dallimore, Rochefort & Simonelli, 2010) into a teacher education course informed preservice teachers’ understandings of ESL learners, their lives, and ultimately, the pedagogical approaches necessary to most effectively support them. Subjugating the needs and perspectives of community members in community-university partnerships is a criticism recycled throughout the discourse on community-based engagement (Bortolin, 2011; Giles & Cruz, 2000; Howard, 2003; Stoecker & Tryon, 2009; Vernon & Ward, 1999; Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2000). For this reason, this research sought to pay particular attention to the principles of reciprocity in community engagement, as well as how community partners experienced the partnership. Data was collected from students, community partners, and the instructor and analyzed using a qualitative, open-coding approach to inform a holistic understanding of how all participants experienced the project, how community members could be incorporated as co-educators in a teacher education course, and how assumptions of student participants were challenged. The findings suggest a number of advantages to participants in participating in a community-based learning experience, ways to improve the design and implementation of community-based courses, and recommendations for future research. These directions include assessing and challenging existing attitudes and assumptions about ESL learners by practicing teachers by looking at projects that bring community partners and school-based practitioners together to encourage reflection on these attitudes and assumptions. / Graduate / 0530 / 0745

The present study examines the extent to which blacks are segregated in the suburban community of Coconut Grove, Florida. Hypersegregation, or the general tendency for blacks and whites to live apart, was examined in terms of four distinct dimensions: evenness, exposure, clustering, and concentration. Together, these dimensions define the geographic traits of the target area. Alone these indices can not capture the multi-dimensional levels of segregation and, therefore, by themselves underestimate the severity of segregation and isolation in this community. This study takes a contemporary view of segregation in a Dade County community to see if segregation is the catalyst to the sometime cited violent response of blacks. This study yields results that support the information in the literature review and the thesis research questions sections namely, that the blacks within the Grove do respond violently to the negative effects that racial segregation causes. This thesis is unique in two ways. It examines segregation in a suburban environment rather than an urban inner city, and it presents a responsive analysis of the individuals studied, rather than relying only on demographic and statistical data.

No description available.

Although social workers are frequently part of interdisciplinary teams in health care and community settings, interdisciplinary training is often lacking in social work education (Berg-Weger & Schneider, 1998). This article describes a study of the effects of an interdisciplinary community-based experiential course preparing new health care professionals for work as part of interdisciplinary teams. The interdisciplinary curriculum was established for a summer course taught in 2006 by faculty from five disciplines: social work, nutrition, medicine, nursing, and public health. The course, Quality Improvement in Rural Healthcare, which focused on health literacy in people with a diagnosis of diabetes that live in northeast Tennessee, provided a model environment for learning interdisciplinary teamwork. Evaluation of this course found that social work students displayed a statistically significant increase in positive attitude toward interdisciplinary teamwork. Course strengths, weaknesses, obstacles, and opportunities for curriculum improvement are elaborated.

Introduction: In 1996, East Tennessee State University (ETSU) reinforced its historical commitment to multidisciplinary community engagement by developing a graduate level community partnerships program in the Division of Health Sciences. While the university's earlier health partnership efforts relied primarily on curricular innovation, the approach to graduate health professions education was to seed a series of curricular enhancements and interdisciplinary, community-based learning experiences and service into traditional curricula. This paper presents the experience of one school in crafting a regional network that became the basis of a division-wide graduate level teaching and learning initiative. Innovations and Evaluation: Carefully selected planning and implementation techniques enabled multidisciplinary practitioners and community members from across a 20-county region to participate with university faculty in training ETSU learners in community-based medical care. By year four of the project, curricular "enhancements" were institutionalized in over five departments across the Division and engaged 1160 medical residents and graduate learners in a give - get model of health education. Programme evaluation methodology was collaboratively defined and documentation of programme effort and outcomes regularly reported and strategically reviewed. Conclusions: Programme evaluation demonstrates mutual benefit to community and university. Faculty involvement in programme activity increased fourfold and community involvement in training of health professions graduate learners increased threefold by year four. Educational innovations were adopted into traditional curricula, thousands of hours of clinical services were provided to underserved communities and the university-community team forged by network links continues to promote multidisciplinary interests through joint public policy endeavors.

Traditional models for public health professional education tend to be didactic, with brief, discrete practica appended. National reports of both practitioners and academicians have called for more competency-driven, interdisciplinary-focused, community-based, service-oriented, and experientially-guided learning for students across the curriculum. East Tennessee State University began its own curricular revisioning in health professions education nearly 2 decades ago with a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, emphasizing competencies development through community-based learning in community-academic partnerships. This article describes 3 examples that grew from that initiative. In the first example, students in multiple classes delivered a longitudinal community-based employee wellness intervention for a rural county school district. BS public health students conducted needs assessments and prepared health education materials; MPH students conducted health assessments and worked with school wellness councils to deliver client-centered interventions; DrPH students supervised the project and provided feedback to the schools using participatory methods. In the second example, MPH students in a social-behavioral foundations course used experiential learning to investigate the region's elevated cancer mortality ranking. Following meetings with multiple community groups, students employed theoretical constructs to frame regional beliefs about cancer and presented findings to community leaders. One outcome was a 5-year community-based participatory research study of cancer in rural Appalachia. In the third example, MPH students in a health-consulting course assessed local African Americans' awareness of the university's health and education programs and perceptions of their community health issues. Students learned consultation methods by assisting at multiple regional African American community meetings to discover issues and interest that resulted in the organization of a regional African American health coalition, multiple community health interventions, and the region's first health disparities summit. Lessons learned are presented which identify key elements of success and factors that influence adoption of community-based teaching and learning in public health.

Project Senior Art was conceived in answer to the growing need for worthwhile directed activities in our community senior centers and to provide valuable community-based learning experiences for university art students. This intergenerational program recognizes the unique intellectual abilities of older adults and meets the educational needs of senior participants and college art students, providing both creative opportunities for personal growth. Fundamental to the successful development and implementation of the program, and the focus of this study, is ascertaining the experiential art and crafts preferences of the targeted senior adult population. Personal interviews, focus group discussions, and a survey instrument were used to secure the information necessary to plan experiential art activities, recruit student facilitators, and provide the core course content. A high interest in traditional and nontraditional art activities was expressed, with senior adults citing photography, painting, and memory book making as the most preferred media.

The purpose of the study is to determine whether an instructor’s intentional effort to build community in his/her classroom results in a higher sense of classroom community among students. This study also examined what types of community building activities were conducted by each instructor and measured the students’ responses to each different activity. This was intended to establish a preliminary set of best practices for creating classroom community. A two-part questionnaire, including an adapted version of the Classroom Community Scale, was administered to instructors (n=5) and students (n=113) enrolled in two or four unit courses at California Polytechnic State University. These courses were designed to introduce students to their chosen majors. One-way analysis of variance, and two-proportion tests were used to determine the relationship between instructor intentions and student sense of classroom community, and the differences in student sense of classroom community between courses. Findings indicate that what course a student was in was the significant factor in determining sense of classroom community. Additionally, students accurately perceived their instructor’s intent to create classroom community.

This thesis discusses how the restructuring of the UK television industry in the 1980s and 1990s has affected learning and skills development in the sector. It is based on 71 semi-structured interviews with television freelancers and key informants in the industry, and a case study of a small regional independent company developed through semi-structured interviews and three months of participant observation. To investigate the current learning and skills development mechanisms, this thesis engages with community-based learning theories. These are discussed in relation to industry characteristics such as commissioning and independent production and labour market realities related to freelance work and educational provision. The findings reveal that the traditional on the job learning mechanisms within communities of practice are challenged under the new structural context characterised by unrestricted entry and progression and short-term projects within an uncertain employment context. Commercial pressures affect both the access to learning opportunities and the learning experience, mainly because of the lack of legitimate and gradual experiential learning possibilities, short-term involvement in the industry under pressures to perform. The thesis also discusses the realities of the work in a small regional independent production company as well as its benefits and limitations as a venue for community-based learning. This thesis concludes with several policy recommendations which address some of the main challenges to the sustainable skills development in UK television. These recommendations subscribe to the need for introducing legitimate traineeships, entry rules and detaching learning from the commercial pressures in the sector.