The Community in America

The Community in America PDF Author: Roland Leslie Warren
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cities & Towns
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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The Community in America

The Community in America PDF Author: Roland Leslie Warren
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cities & Towns
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description


Bi America

Bi America PDF Author: William Burleson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317712609
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Gain an in-depth understanding of the unique struggles of the bisexual community! “To me the gay and straight worlds are exactly the same; equally limited, judgmental, and bourgeois . . . just mirror images of each other. I truly like and overlap with some of the gay world, but my roots refuse to take hold there and grow. Unfortunately, my well-established roots in the straight world are simultaneously shriveling and dying too, leaving me feeling extremely unstable.” —“Cool,” a bisexual woman involved in a support group There are at least five million bisexual people in America, generally invisible to straight society, the gay community, and even to each other. While the vast majority of these five million live within the straight or gay world, there are a few who have formed a community of their own. Bi America: Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an Invisible Community offers an inside look at the American bisexual community and gives an understanding of the special circumstances unique to being bisexual. The book takes the reader to bi community events from picnics, to conferences, to support groups, to performances in order to expose the everyday trials of the bisexual community. Bi America includes very personal stories that let the voice of everyday bisexuals be heard through interviews, the “Bisexual History Project,” in which ten bisexual people tell their life stories, and the “Online Support Group,” a group of about 75 people who meet in cyberspace to talk about their lives and challenges. The book also includes the findings of a 2002 survey of about 300 bisexual people conducted via the Internet, an appendix that offers a concise list of resources for further study and personal enrichment, and an unabridged transcript of the “Bisexual History Project.” Get the answers to these questions in Bi America: What is bisexuality? Is there a bisexual community? What is the culture of the bisexual community? What are commonalities and differences between the experiences of bi men and bi women? What is the special relationship between the bisexual and the transgender community? How have bisexuals and the bi community been affected by HIV/AIDS? What is the future of bisexual activism, if any? and many more! Bi America is a fascinating resource that exposes the challenges, struggles, and triumphs of bisexuals in America. Bisexuals, especially those newly coming out, can use this book to help understand their identity, and family members and friends seeking some insight into the unique circumstances faced by their loved ones will also find it helpful. This book will interest those concerned with the sociology of deviance or with subcultures in general. It is also appropriate for undergraduate sociology and cultural anthropology, as well as feminist studies and LGBT studies classes. This book offers one of the few accessible, nonacademic looks at this unique and interesting community. Visit the book's Web site at http://www.bi101.org

Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated

Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated PDF Author: Robert D. Putnam
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1982130849
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description
Updated to include a new chapter about the influence of social media and the Internet—the 20th anniversary edition of Bowling Alone remains a seminal work of social analysis, and its examination of what happened to our sense of community remains more relevant than ever in today’s fractured America. Twenty years, ago, Robert D. Putnam made a seemingly simple observation: once we bowled in leagues, usually after work; but no longer. This seemingly small phenomenon symbolized a significant social change that became the basis of the acclaimed bestseller, Bowling Alone, which The Washington Post called “a very important book” and Putnam, “the de Tocqueville of our generation.” Bowling Alone surveyed in detail Americans’ changing behavior over the decades, showing how we had become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and social structures, whether it’s with the PTA, church, clubs, political parties, or bowling leagues. In the revised edition of his classic work, Putnam shows how our shrinking access to the “social capital” that is the reward of communal activity and community sharing still poses a serious threat to our civic and personal health, and how these consequences have a new resonance for our divided country today. He includes critical new material on the pervasive influence of social media and the internet, which has introduced previously unthinkable opportunities for social connection—as well as unprecedented levels of alienation and isolation. At the time of its publication, Putnam’s then-groundbreaking work showed how social bonds are the most powerful predictor of life satisfaction, and how the loss of social capital is felt in critical ways, acting as a strong predictor of crime rates and other measures of neighborhood quality of life, and affecting our health in other ways. While the ways in which we connect, or become disconnected, have changed over the decades, his central argument remains as powerful and urgent as ever: mending our frayed social capital is key to preserving the very fabric of our society.

Redesigning America’s Community Colleges

Redesigning America’s Community Colleges PDF Author: Thomas R. Bailey
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674368282
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
In the United States, 1,200 community colleges enroll over ten million students each year—nearly half of the nation’s undergraduates. Yet fewer than 40 percent of entrants complete an undergraduate degree within six years. This fact has put pressure on community colleges to improve academic outcomes for their students. Redesigning America’s Community Colleges is a concise, evidence-based guide for educational leaders whose institutions typically receive short shrift in academic and policy discussions. It makes a compelling case that two-year colleges can substantially increase their rates of student success, if they are willing to rethink the ways in which they organize programs of study, support services, and instruction. Community colleges were originally designed to expand college enrollments at low cost, not to maximize completion of high-quality programs of study. The result was a cafeteria-style model in which students pick courses from a bewildering array of choices, with little guidance. The authors urge administrators and faculty to reject this traditional model in favor of “guided pathways”—clearer, more educationally coherent programs of study that simplify students’ choices without limiting their options and that enable them to complete credentials and advance to further education and the labor market more quickly and at less cost. Distilling a wealth of data amassed from the Community College Research Center (Teachers College, Columbia University), Redesigning America’s Community Colleges offers a fundamental redesign of the way two-year colleges operate, stressing the integration of services and instruction into more clearly structured programs of study that support every student’s goals.

Small-Town America

Small-Town America PDF Author: Robert Wuthnow
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691165823
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 518

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Book Description
A revealing examination of small-town life More than thirty million Americans live in small, out-of-the-way places. Many of them could have joined the vast majority of Americans who live in cities and suburbs. They could live closer to more lucrative careers and convenient shopping, a wider range of educational opportunities, and more robust health care. But they have opted to live differently. In Small-Town America, we meet factory workers, shop owners, retirees, teachers, clergy, and mayors—residents who show neighborliness in small ways, but who also worry about everything from school closings and their children's futures to the ups and downs of the local economy. Drawing on more than seven hundred in-depth interviews in hundreds of towns across America and three decades of census data, Robert Wuthnow shows the fragility of community in small towns. He covers a host of topics, including the symbols and rituals of small-town life, the roles of formal and informal leaders, the social role of religious congregations, the perception of moral and economic decline, and the myriad ways residents in small towns make sense of their own lives. Wuthnow also tackles difficult issues such as class and race, abortion, homosexuality, and substance abuse. Small-Town America paints a rich panorama of individuals who reside in small communities, finding that, for many people, living in a small town is an important part of self-identity.

The Quest for Community

The Quest for Community PDF Author: Robert Nisbet
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684516366
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
One of the leading thinkers to emerge in the postwar conservative intellectual revival was the sociologist Robert Nisbet. His book The Quest for Community, published in 1953, stands as one of the most persuasive accounts of the dilemmas confronting modern society. Nearly a half century before Robert Putnam documented the atomization of society in Bowling Alone, Nisbet argued that the rise of the powerful modern state had eroded the sources of community—the family, the neighborhood, the church, the guild. Alienation and loneliness inevitably resulted. But as the traditional ties that bind fell away, the human impulse toward community led people to turn even more to the government itself, allowing statism—even totalitarianism—to flourish. This edition of Nisbet’s magnum opus features a brilliant introduction by New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and three critical essays. Published at a time when our communal life has only grown weaker and when many Americans display cultish enthusiasm for a charismatic president, this new edition of The Quest for Community shows that Nisbet’s insights are as relevant today as ever.

American Communities

American Communities PDF Author: William Alfred Hinds
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Collective settlements
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Look Homeward, America

Look Homeward, America PDF Author: Bill Kauffman
Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
In Look Homeward, America, Bill Kauffman introduces us to the reactionary radicals, front-porch anarchists, and traditionalist rebels who give American culture and politics its pith, vim, and life. Kauffman limns an alternative America that draws its breath from local cultures, traditional liberties, small-scale institutions, and neighborliness. There is an America left that is worth saving: these are its paragons, its poets, its pantheon.

American Communities

American Communities PDF Author: Kenneth R Schneider
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595338933
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 616

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Book Description
American Communities centers upon a critical missing dimension of modern progress: an organizational equivalent to the corporation. The concept rests upon unified, integrated, socially beneficial community living that is comparable to a cruise ship on the inside and opens to a spacious recreational environment like a country club on the outside. This new Community "corporation" serves its members who control its services and programs, from health care and education to commerce and cultural programs. Its social spaces, built around interior plazas and promenades, offers efficient yet casual opportunities for community members to associate both freely and formally in a vast array of member behaviors. This community achieves a grand harmony of spaces and programs with closely, yet spaciously, organized facilities serving most daily needs of its members. The compactly organized spaces are necessary to achieve human-scale efficiency and casual interactions. The most critical principle is that urban spaciousness is possible only by compact development--what a city should be--which then immensely reduces the need for mechanized transport, especially the space consuming, distance promoting, and congestive nature of costly, wasteful automobiles.

Community Works

Community Works PDF Author: E. J. Dionne
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780815718673
Category : Civil society
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
" America is experiencing a boom of voluntarism and civic mindedness. Community groups are working together to clean up their cities and neighborhoods. People are rejoining churches, civic associations, and Little Leagues. And, at every opportunity, local and national leaders are exhorting citizens to pitch in and do their part. Why has the concept of a civil society--an entire nation of communities, associations, civic and religious groups, and individuals all working toward the common good--become so popular? Why is so much hope being invested in the voluntary sector? Why is a civil society so important to us? This book looks at the growing debate over the rise, importance, and consequences of civil society. E.J. Dionne puts the issues of the debate in perspective and explains the deep-rooted developments that are reflected in civil society's revival. Alan Wolfe and Jean Bethke Elshtain discuss reasons why the idea of a civil society is important today. Theda Skocpol and William A. Schambra offer two opposing viewpoints on where successful voluntary civic action originates--nationally or at the local grass roots. John J. DiIulio Jr. shines a light on the success of faith-based programs in the inner-city, and Bruce Katz studies the problems caused by concentrated poverty in those same neighborhoods. Jane Eisner underscores the extent to which the volunteer sector needs organization and support to effectively complete its work. Other contributors include Bill Bradley, William A. Galston, and Gertrude Himmelfarb. "