University-Community Partnerships for Transformative Education

This open access edited volume reports on a unique network of innovative in-school and out-of-school programs, University-Community Links. UC Links connects university faculty and students with young people and their families in diverse communities around the world. Chapters in this volume describe programs in the United States (California) as well as Germany, Italy, Spain, Uganda, and Uruguay. Together, authors craft stories of transformative models of education and what is possible when we bridge educational research and practice. Chapters offer strategies for co-creating learning environments that are innovative, collaborative, democratic, equity-oriented, and fun. By drawing lessons from authors’ collective and local histories, this volume helps to re-imagine educational practices, policies, and programs.

“University-Community Partnerships for Transformative Education is a wonderful collection of situated accounts of the resilient UC Links / 5th Dimension model—the prototype for expansive and sustainable community-university partnerships. Organized around the playful imagination, consequential intergenerational learning, and engaged authentic theory/praxis, we are introduced to a diversity of learning ecologies that are similarly committed to transformative and dignity-confirming learning.” (Kris D. Gutiérrez, OG 5th Dimension PI of Las Redes, UCLA/Moffett Elementary School, Lennox, CA, Carol Liu Chair & Distinguished Professor, University of California, Berkeley)

“For decades, UC links has been growing culturally expansive, playful, and intergenerational learning environments that reimagine university-community partnerships and undergraduate education. This volume helps us understand the deep power these spaces and their stories hold for students, families, educators, communities, and universities. A crucial contribution to the work of educational justice and transformation.” (Shirin Vossoughi, Associate Professor of Learning Sciences, Northwestern University)

“This impressive collection of innovative partnership projects provides a wonderful example of truly transformative design-based educational research answering the call to design for diversity. A wonderful primer for anyone wishing to promote collaborations between universities and their communities as a resource for social justice.” (Michael Cole, Emeritus Distinguished Professor, University of California, San Diego)

“We are very grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the work of UC Links, and for the work represented in this book, especially as it is related to Transforming Systems of Activity Through Expansive Learning: A Journey of Renewal. The work represented in this book are snapshots of the volumes of our collective work over the past 35 years.” (Manny Aguilar, President and Board Chair, La Colonia de Eden Gardens)

“This volume is a must-read for those who want to leverage the power of university-community collaboration to create innovative programs serving youth in historically marginalized communities. Vignettes, testimonials and details of daily work provide intimate portraits of diverse programs in the US and five other countries.  It’s enlightening, optimistic and serves as a valuable resource for others undertaking similar endeavors.” (Richard Durán, Distinguished Professor and Mary E. Brenner, Professor Emerita, University of California, Santa Barbara)

Mara Welsh Mahmood is Executive Director of University-Community Links (UC Links) in the Berkeley School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley and has been involved with UC Links since its inception in 1996. She is the co-author of another book about the UC Links network: A Cultural Historical Approach to Social Displacement and University-Community Engagement: Emerging Research and Opportunities.

Marjorie Elaine (formerly Marjorie Elaine Faulstich Orellana) is Professor in the School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she also serves as the Associate Vice Provost of the International Institute. She directed the UC Links work at UCLA from 2009-2020. She is the author of Immigrant Children in Transcultural Spaces: Language, Learning and Love (a book about B-Club) and Mindful Ethnography: Mind, Heart and Activity for Transformative Social Research (drawing on UC Links teaching). 

John Cano is Associate Director of University-Community Links (UC Links) in the Berkeley School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. He is an educational technology scholar interested in how technology-mediated learning environments can enhance the learning experience of K-12 and higher education students. He also studies student engagement; online education; digital citizenship; intercultural education; and informal learning in after-school settings.