Unity through Community Service Activities: Strategies to Bridge Ethnic and Cultural Divides

Community service work is an ideal way not only to help define how young people deal with each other but actually to facilitate these interactions and help them achieve meaning in their lives. This book addresses community service ways to overcome divisions, foster multicultural group development, and reduce ethnocentrism and ethnic conflict.

About the Author
August John Hoffman is a professor of psychology at California State University Northridge and El Camino College-Compton Center. His research interests include community service work and student mentoring as effective methods to reduce ethnic conflict and improve self-efficacy among community college students. Born in Havana, the late Norma Espinosa Parker was a developer of the CCC Cultural and Fine Arts Academy, whose more than 300 students from different backgrounds, cultures, and races were enrolled in a summer and after school music program. Eduardo Sanchez is a psychology student at California State University Northridge. He collaborates with Hoffman on various research projects involving community relations. His research interests include interracial interaction through community service work. Julie Wallach is a graduate of California State University Northridge. She has co-authored more than a dozen articles with Hoffman.