Community Education for Social Justice

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

   PDF

2. Encountering Social and Community Education

   • Cameron White

   Pages 1-5

3. Establishing Community

   • Sabrina Marsh, Susan Mccormack, Cameron White

   Pages 7-12

4. Considering Community

   • Christine Beaudry

   Pages 13-22

5. Place-Based Education

   • Karen Lescure, Christina Yaman

   Pages 23-31

6. The Classroom and Place-Based Education

   • Samantha Manchac

   Pages 33-43

7. Agents in Neighborhood Communities

   • Andrea Barela

   Pages 45-51

8. Pedagogy of the Disabled

   • Bernardo Pohl

   Pages 53-59

9. Issues in Internationalizing Education

   • Liping Wei, Cameron White

   Pages 61-66

10. “The World is a Big Sack of Mystery”

    • Amy Mulholland

    Pages 67-76

11. Place-Based Education in Alaska and Texas

    • Matthew Q. Bounds

    Pages 77-86

12. The Art of Community

    • Cavan Leerkamp, Leslie Gauna, Bianca Carpenter

    Pages 87-101

13. Global Classrooms

    • Cameron White

    Pages 103-110

14. Using Primary Sources to Understand Local History

    • Barbara Morgan-Fleming, Reese Todd

    Pages 111-119

15. Experiencing Social Education as Community

    • Sabrina Marsh

    Pages 121-133

16. Teacher Education and Community

    • Amy Mulholland, Cameron White

    Pages 135-144

What is community? How important is community in the 21st century? Where might the idea of community “fit” in education and schooling, teaching and learning? These are the questions and themes embedded in this book. The general critique is that community is an add-on in our schools and often is dismissed as a result of the individualistic and competitive nature of schooling today. Our focus is to provide critical investigations as to the possibility of community – and that we need community now more than ever!
 
The concept of community education brings many ideas and issues to mind. Related themes include place-based, field-based, environmental, service learning, and outdoor education. Each has its own more narrow focus with community education perhaps an umbrella term than encompasses them all. Nevertheless, the suggestion here is that instead of community education serving as an extension or add-on to traditional approaches, it should be the focus of all education.
           
What is often missing in teaching and learning are contexts and connections than make education meaningful. Community education engages participants in problem and issues-based approaches to the local community, thereby facilitating that local to global link. Instead of compartmentalized subjects, integrated approaches use what students and the community know or understand to develop further questions, solutions, or even problems. Community education offers efficacy in that it provides opportunities for collaboration in addressing local issues and problems. It enables the community to become the classroom, thus ensuring a more long-term connection to active rather than passive endeavors as citizens.

• Community Education
• Global citizenship
• Social Justice

• University of Houston, Texas, USA

  Cameron White

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