Community Involvement in a Place-Based Program for Hawaiian High School Students

Abstract

This study examined the development of community involvement in a place-based high school program for at-risk youth. Teachers and community members founded the program to address concerns about low achievement and high dropout rates among Native Hawaiians. In addition to funding, community members provided program development, supervision of students' servicelearning, cultural consultation, political support, and teacher and curriculum development. Collaborations were sustained by open communication, the development of a common set of values among a diverse group of people, and flexibility of community members' schedules. Challenges to community involvement included a lack of support from school leadership, teacher burnout, and occasional interpersonal conflicts.Since 1999, we have participated in the development of a place-based educational program in a rural public high school in Hawai'i. The program began at a grassroots level by teachers and community members who were disturbed by the high dropout rate and low achievement among youth in their area, the majority of whom were of Native Hawaiian 1 ancestry. The founders felt that a focus on local concerns and Hawaiian Studies in general would promote school engagement among more Hawaiian students. As we describe, one of the characteristics of place-based education is a mutual involvement of community members in education and students in community affairs. Since its conception in 1995, community organizations have been involved in the Hawaiian Studies Program (HSP), and at one point over 15 such organizations participated. The purpose of this article is to describe the development of community involvement in the program, including how and why community members became involved and what sustained and diminished their participation.Request for reprint should be sent to:

Untitled

“…The important thing is that most teachers prefer to teach the way they are used to. In relation to relationship between schools and communities, an increasing challenge that they have to overcome, especially schools in rural areas and low-income schools is the fact that teachers do not live in the same community as learners who belong to such context (Yamauchi and Purcell, 2009). These differences can hinder an attempt to build successful relationship and collaboration activities.…”

“…6. Social and political aspects, especially the policy on testing of education levels that has a direct effect on learning curriculum management (Yamauchi and Purcell, 2009) as it is the central standard of the country, enabling schools to experience difficulties in learning management.…”

How can non-verbalized emotions in the field be addressed in research?

“…The situation in the school was heated and there had been serious confrontations between teachers and villagers during schooldays, and the overall emotional atmosphere in school was tense. I was interested in the reasons behind the conflicts, expecting to find that they could be eased with critical pedagogy (Freire [1972] 1982; Giroux and McLaren 1989;Giroux 2001;Giroux et al 2001); intercultural approaches (Räsänen et al 2005;Hayden et al 2007); and place conscious education (Gruenewald 2004(Gruenewald , 2005(Gruenewald , 2008Meichtry and Smith 2007;Yamauchi and Purcell 2009;Resor 2010). I expected the teaching staff not to be adequately aware of these approaches.…”

Towards sustainable structures for neighbourhood development?

“…From a health perspective participation has been shown to have a positive impact on people's health (Berkman et al, 2000;Liljeberg, 2005;Parry et al, 2004;Wallerstein and Duran, 2006b;Yassi et al, 2003). In terms of implementation outcome, citizen involvement and participation increase the chances of an implementation being successful (Yamauchi and Purcell, 2009;Klijn and Koppenjan, 2000). The democracy argument for citizen participation is normative and based on the assumption that the more the number of people that are involved in decision making, the greater the degree of democracy that is achieved (Geurtz and Van De Wijdeven, 2010).…”