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Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh has a recorded history of over 400 years, dating back to the Mughal and pre-Mughal era. A large part of the city's rich cultural heritage; both tangible and intangible, lie in the historic core known as Old Dhaka. There are several traditional neighborhoods with close-knit communities that date back two to three centuries. The communities are rich in social capital gained over successive generations of close social network. Based on this strength, a heritage management system has been developed by informal community bodies in Old Dhaka. Old Dhaka's rich cultural heritage deserves to be conserved for the historical continuity of the city. Unfortunately, the top-down conservation efforts undertaken by the Government are highly bureaucratic and have not been effective in conserving the cultural heritage in most cases. This paper explores the importance of local participatory approach of heritage management in the context of Old Dhaka with a focus on the relationship between social capital and informal heritage management in traditional communities. It also explores the key features that generally make the informal heritage management system more effective than the formal approach. Finally, it recommends an appropriate conservation approach to save the cultural heritage of Old Dhaka where there is a balance between intervention by authorities and continuity of local community involvement.

The purpose of this paper is to present a community-led “informal heritage management” of the chini-tikri work of Kosaituli mosque, Old Dhaka, Bangladesh. It critically explores the interrelationship between the craft, existing social capital and informal heritage management.

This paper assesses the existing local policies, strategies and the top-down conservation efforts led by government and identifies the shortcomings. The study uses Kosaituli mosque as a case study as it displays some of the finest surviving examples of the chini-tikri work. Using observation, open-ended interview and focus group discussion as research tools, the study explores the challenges that the craft and craftsman faces, how existing social capital supports the informal heritage management process and the interrelationship between these critical elements.

The results shows two clear issues. First, the informal heritage management system has been continuing to protect and manage the local heritage while fighting several challenges. Second, though they require external support, they want to keep the “community ownership.” The study recommends how the craftsman can be revived through incentives and capacity building to facilitate the survival of the craft with a three-step process: identifying the rare craftsmen, providing them due recognition and transferring the traditional knowledge to the next generation.

No similar prior studies were carried out in Old Dhaka that focus on this subject. This paper can contribute in new policy formation not only for Bangladesh but also will potentially guide other cities that face similar challenges of disappearing craft and craftsman.

The role of macro‐level processes in determining the effectiveness or otherwise of micro‐level initiatives is a theme that is developed in this paper. Based on efforts to tackle division between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland through cross‐community contact, the paper will argue that the structural context within which contact occurs has important implications for the extent to which achievements of particular encounters are extrapolated to the wider community.

The community school is a human engineering laboratory functioning on a broad basis to help people fulfill their basic needs. The basic academic needs of children and teen‐agers are fulfilled to a large extent within the formal portion of the program. Many other needs are fulfilled within the informal portions of the community school program. Much of the experience in the informal program strengthens performance and accomplishment in the academic areas of learning. Adults participate in many learning activities during the informal portion of the school day and obtain service through the school that helps them fulfill their basic needs. The community school takes the lead in involving children, youth and adults (sometimes separately and sometimes all groups combined) in programs that help to solve community problems. When individual learning needs of all age groups are fulfilled and when through united effort community problems are solved, community development will take place on many fronts.

Using a subsidiary of a multinational mining company in Ghana as a case, the purpose of this study is to examine the formal and informal forms and channels of sustainability reporting in the emerging economy’s context.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted amongst managers and employees of the mining company and members of their host community. Based on the interview themes, archival data were extracted from the 2020 Integrated Annual Report of the case company to corroborate the results from the interviews.

The authors found that most of the stakeholders from the host community interviewed were not aware and, to an extent, not interested in formal sustainability reports. In place of that, the management of the mining subsidiary uses informal channels of communication, including meetings and durbars, to verbally engage the local community and their representatives on sustainability matters. Whilst the formal sustainability reports met the internal requirements set by the parent company, the informal engagements were critical for gaining external legitimacy from the host community and other interest groups. Hence, the authors argue that mining companies and their subsidiaries, particularly in developing economies, need to consider informal forms of sustainability reporting alongside the formal channels to engage local communities to address sustainability issues and avert disruptions to their operations.

Sustainability reporting studies have focussed mainly on annual reports published in print or corporate websites, ignoring informal forms of sustainability reporting. This study sheds light on the informal forms of sustainability reporting. This is important as formal forms of sustainability reporting may be less useful for engaging local mining communities in developing economy contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the ways racialization in K-12 mathematics classrooms has narrowed the understanding of mathematical learning for Black children.

Drawing on situated learning theory and funds of knowledge, the authors argue that the social learning context of mathematics classrooms has limited the understanding of what Black children are capable of mathematically. The authors suggest that as a community of practice, mathematics classrooms may be marginalizing Black children, as well as other students of color, by devaluing their community-based knowledge and ways of knowing.

The extant literature portrays Black children as struggling in mathematics; however, this research is overwhelmingly conducted based on school performance measures. Yet, if one looks beyond the classroom to Black children's homes and communities, a plethora of mathematical knowledge tied to cultural and community practices may be found. As such, Black children who struggle in mathematics classroom may be experiencing misalignment across contexts, rather than a lack of mathematical knowledge altogether.

This paper has implications for classroom practice, particularly teacher ideologies pertaining to community-based knowledge. The authors urge mathematics education researchers and practitioners to look beyond the classroom, as community-based mathematical practices may provide more insight into students’ mathematical capabilities. These implications are particularly important for educating students of color, who often experience a subpar classroom education.

In this paper, the authors provide a critical lens to situated learning theory, pushing mathematics education research to examine the underexplored topic of Black children's out-of-school mathematical practices.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the validity of community organisation as part of the systemic model. Based on the systemic model of community crime, it is perceived that community networks are negatively correlated with victimisation. The authors consider an alternative interpretation, suggesting that these conceptual relationships can run opposite to the directions shown in the systemic model. The crime rate itself may change residents’ perception of neighbouring behaviour and informal control.

This hypothesis is tested using a multigroup analysis of the community organisation across a sample of victims and non-victims in a Malaysian neighbourhood.

The authors find that property crime affects ethnic relations among the residents, where the non-victims perceived higher levels of ethnic relationships compared with the victims. The results show that configural and metric invariance are fully supported, while scalar and structural invariance were partially supported, suggesting that the items measured may be robust across cultures and that the factor loadings appeared to be equivalent across victims and non-victims. Non-victims perceived significantly higher informal control and closer ethnic relations than victims.

The paper provides a new direction of the systemic model, whereby victimisation could affect residents’ size of friendship networks and perception informal control.

The purpose of this paper is to examine informal social control, vigilantism, and bystander intervention with reference to the Real-Life Superhero (RLSH) movement/community.

This is a qualitative case study in which an in-depth semi-structured interview was conducted with a member of the RLSH community.

This paper conceptualises RLSH activity as a novel approach to informal social control and bystander intervention, whilst revealing the inaccuracy of the media-imposed “vigilante” stigma attributed to RLSHs.

Clarifying the goals and methods of RLSHs as striving to be pro-social and law-abiding in nature creates an avenue for dialogue between RLSHs and local justice agencies to establish a working partnership for community safety, thereby mediating interactions between informal and formal agents of social control.

Justice agencies to engage with all individuals and groups who are performing community safety/crime prevention functions in a more effective and inclusive way. To ensure formal and informal mechanisms of social control, and the wider community, recognise, and legitimise the RLSH movement in community safety policy and practice. Reconsider the use of the term “vigilantism” and how it is it applied to individuals and community groups involved in community safety policy and practice. This case study presents a unique approach to community safety and crime prevention that can be extended within this public safety philosophy and practice.

This study is a contribution to a small but growing body of research concerning the RLSH movement/community.