COMMUNITIES TEACHING GUIDE

Introduces a rigorous comparative dimension to the study of Jewish civilization and culture

Scholars and policymakers increasingly call for evidence-based, prevention-oriented, and community-driven approaches to improve public health and reduce youth crime, substance use, and related problems. However, few functional models exist. In Communities that Care, four leading experts on prevention describe one such system to illustrate how communities effectively engage in prevention activities. Communities That Care (CTC) is a coalition-based prevention system implemented successfully in dozens of communities across the world that promotes healthy development and reduces crime rates for youth. Drawing on literature from criminology, community psychology, and prevention science this book describes the conditions and actions necessary for effective community-based prevention. The authors illustrate how effective community-based prevention can be undertaken by describing how the CTC prevention system has been developed, implemented, evaluated, and disseminated across the U.S. and internationally. Communities that Care shares invaluable lessons about the implementation and evaluation of community-level interventions and establishes a set of best practices for anyone seeking to engage in and/or evaluate effective prevention efforts.

Inequality in American Communities is an empirical study of inequality in U.S. communities and its impact on individual Americans. The data for this study come from sample surveys in six American cities differing in size and region. In each survey, male heads of households were asked about attributes that ranked them in the system of inequality and about a variety of attitudes and behaviors that might be affected by their ranks. The analyses seek to determine how social rank affects various attitudes and behaviors and compare these effects from community to community. Comprised of 12 chapters, this book begins with an overview of theoretical assumptions about community stratification, with particular reference to how a person's life is shaped by his position in a local structure of inequality. The discussion then turns to patterns of social stratification in six cities: Columbus (Ohio), Linton and Indianapolis (Indiana), and Yuma, Safford, and Phoenix (Arizona). The distributions of various rank variables, such as income and education, in these cities are described, along with the ways in which they are related to form systems of inequality. A basic model of the processes of stratification is also presented. The remaining chapters explore the consequences of social rank and cover topics ranging from social participation and political ideology to anomia and intolerance. This monograph will be of interest to sociologists.