An Interview with Bill Strickland: How Community-Based Adult Educational Facilities Can Lift People Out of Poverty in Urban America

Abstract

This chapter is an interview with Bill Strickland, a community activist and social entrepreneur in Pittsburgh who has started a network of adult educational facilities to lift people out of poverty in urban America. Having grown up facing the same disadvantage as many of his students, Strickland shows how when we build prisons, we create prisoners and criminals. But when we build schools we nurture citizens. Strickland's Bidwell Training Center helps the poorest, least educated individuals in his community get the training they need for immediate employment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (chapter)