Date of Conferral

7-1972

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisor

Leonard D. Cain, Jr., Ph. D.

Abstract

The purpose of this study has been to present a description of an inner-city neighborhood in the Northwest District of Portland, Oregon, and to identify educational needs and opportunities in broad terms. It provides a detailed description of the community, the educational institutions located within the community or utilized by students from the community seeking a high school education, and a community based agency, Friendly House, Inc. Other purposes have been to inventory available community resources, to establish criteria for the purpose of constructing a delivery system to strengthen the effectiveness of existing services, or where necessary to initiate services to meet unfulfilled needs and to idenlify the part that could or should be implemented by the 11 settlement house'' or 11 community center'' in the creation and functioning of this adjunctive model to the educational system. Two primary so1~rces of information were utilized. One source was interviews and conversations with students, parents, educators and related school personnel. The second source was that of t.he participant observer seeking information from the welfare case worker, the public health nurse, the community worker, the ministers, the mailman,. the grocer, the bartender or business man and representatives of the aging population. This body of information was correlated with numerous demographic and social studies compiled by this student, other graduate students, public agencies and the neighborhood organization. One assumption was that educational opportunities in Northwest Portland which were provided by formal educational institutions were utilitarian, goal oriented and extrinsic. This was confirmed with one exception, the Metropolitan Learning Center. A second assumption was that educational opportunities were largely confined to the traditional age for elementary and secondary students with limited offerings to adults and almost none to the elderly. This also was substantiated. The third assumption was that there are elements in the lives of individuals and in the community that are considered outside the purview of what is generally considered as formal education which are in fact educative in nature and which hold intrinsic value. Based on these findings we suggest a neighborhood based model which we call A Coalition of Neighborhood Centers and Services that includes public and private efforts to enhance the quality of life in the inner-city. Friendly House, Inc., as a private voluntary agency, is prepared as a significant channel to bring this coalition into existance by carrying out 1) an enabling role, 2) a participciting role, 3) an implementing role, 4) an interpretative role, and 5) a monitoring role.

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