This special issue of The New Courier offers a selection of excerpts from presentations made worldwide at a series of conferences and seminars organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and other relevant organizations to promote inter-civilizational and intercultural dialogue.

This article discusses the award-winning First Nations Community Plan Model developed by the Cities and Environment Unit within the Faculty of Architecture at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

This article highlights some of the activities of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Developments Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP) grantees.

This report provides statistical data and analysis of resources and challenges impacting the arts and cultural sector in Maricopa County, Arizona along with comparative data of nine other benchmark regions to aid in understanding characteristics that affect arts and culture.

Rushton's perspective is based on the assumption that "the rationales for public assistance were born in an era when everybody or at least those who made public policy knew what kind of art was worthy of subsidy." His article addresses how the "economic analysis of public funding of the arts changes in a multicultural setting..."

This document was released in July 2003 to correlate with The National Endowment for the Arts Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA). The survey indicates that in 2002, 39% of American adults, about 81 million persons, attended a benchmarkﾝ art activity. Those include attendance of jazz, classical music, opera, musicals, plays, ballets, and art museums. This paper examines the demographic characteristics of the 2002 statistics and details arts attendance rates by demographic group (sex, race, ethnicity, age, income, and education); how the demographic groups are distributed among

This article discusses the indifference of the American public culture to the experiences of other cultures based on the lack of literary work being translated from foreign languages into English.

The West Coast continues to support and develop institutions that reflect the diversity of their communities and a dedication to honoring a multiplicity of histories, beliefs, and interpretations. This special section examines these institutions.

This essay addresses the divergent approaches regarding government support and subsidies of the arts in countries around the world. As an example, Brooks cites that of the total funding to symphony orchestras in the world, the percentage of government support in Europe is more than 70%; in Japan that total is about 50%; in Canada, 33 % and in the U.S. the figure is less than 10%. (from abstract)

"When it comes to charity, older African Americans are more likely than those of other racial and ethnic groups to work through their churches to help the needy. Older Asian Americans are more likely to support museums and other cultural institutions. Older Hispanics donate the least money ﾝbut the most time ﾝto community organizations and people in need. Those are some of the findings of an AARP survey to be released today, the first in-depth look at the way older Americans of different ethnic and racial groups approach community service and philanthropic giving."