Community-based learning in urban settings as a model for educational reform

Abstract

This article presents a broadened perspective on educational reform in urban settings to include sites of the “extracurriculum” in urban African-American communities, and invites readers to expand their vision of places where education takes place. Through portrayals of contemporary community-based organizations, the article explores present day non-school contexts where educational initiatives take place outside the academy. Specifically, the article focuses on community-based discourse and literacy practices of African American Vernacular English speaking participants in three community-based organizations and reports on observations during the first three years of a study of the role these organizations play in the participants' evolving uses of communicative skills. It documents some of the complex forms of language and literacy that take place across contexts and cultures for individuals who participate in such programs. Through brief vignettes, readers glimpse into the worlds of the extracurriculum and explore practices for learning that current reform efforts within schools would do well to attend to. The discussion that follows explores how observed learning practices actually ft into a theory of language maintenance for African American Vernacular English speakers. The concluding section focuses on useful insights that practitioners in the social sciences might gain from community-based organizations as we critically consider our role in facilitating educational reform for African American Vernacular English speaking students in urban settings.