Community Schools: Setting the Scene

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn at least 55 countries worldwide, from, India to Canada, Russia to New Zealand, and Egypt to South Africa, Community, Schools are being developed. The International Centre of Excellence for Community Schools (ICECS) is a new non-government organization (NGO) established with funding from C. S. Mott Foundation, which is developing actual and virtual networks across the world with practitioners. This article sets out the information this Centre has gathered through its contacts within these networks. It is therefore an article based largely on practical experience as reported by ICECS itself and by partners in several countries with which it has worked during the last 10 years. These networks are becoming communities of learning through which members can share their experiences in identifying the characteristics of Community Schools, the reasons for their adoption, the training and dissemination techniques that encourage wider adoption, and the relationship between the schools and local, regional, and national administrations. Academic analyses of this work are scarce.