Helping to create new curriculum materials for the public schools is a priority for CURP. This is particularly true in an age when the computer has entered the classroom, but there is confusion about how to use it effectively. The Boston Renaissance Resource Kit, created by CURP director Barry Bluestone and Hamilton Analytics, Inc., is the first in what will be a series of a state-of-the-art interactive web and CD-Rom based multimedia products specifically prepared for students, teachers, journalists, non-profits, community organizations, and government agencies throughout the Greater Boston region.

In a graphically rich and easy-to-use format, the Resource Kit contains all of the data from the Greater Boston Social Survey, a comprehensive survey of over 1,800 households in the region carried out in the mid-1990s. This survey, with over 400 pieces of information about each of these families, was the basis for the book The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space, and Economic Change in an American Metropolis by Barry Bluestone and Mary Huff Stevenson, published in 2000. The Kit also includes data from the U.S. decennial censuses for all 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts from 1950 through 2000 as well as a link to the Boston Indicators Report 2002 web site.

The Boston Renaissance Resource Kit can be downloaded at www.bostren.org.

For more information on the Resource Kit contact Barry Bluestone, Director, at b.bluestone@neu.edu.