Suchergebnisse

"This book features the stories and voices of parents, young people, community organizers and educators describing how they are fighting systemic racism in schools by building a new educational justice movement committed to community-based, high quality, humane and empowering education for all young people"--

Dry Bones Rattling offers the first in-depth treatment of how to rebuild the social capital of America's communities while promoting racially inclusive, democratic participation. The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) network in Texas and the Southwest is gaining national attention as a model for reviving democratic life in the inner city--and beyond. This richly drawn study shows how the IAF network works with religious congregations and other community-based institutions to cultivate the participation and leadership of Americans most left out of our elite-centered politics. Interfai

'Fire in the Heart' presents a study of the processes through which white Americans become activists for racial justice. Warren shows how activists in community organizing, education & criminal justice reform develop a commitment to racial justice and embrace the cause as their own.

This report presents the findings of research on parent organizing within what the report calls Education Reform Advocacy Organizations (ERAO), such as Stand for Children and Parent Revolution. The ERAO agendas focus on standards, test-based accountability, teacher tenure reform, and parent choice. The report recognizes that ERAOs are often criticized as astroturf organizations that mobilize parents behind their agendas instead of building authentic parent power; it then presents some evidence that many groups are committed to long-lasting parent engagement, and it reports on the community organizing practices they use to build parent leadership. Unfortunately, the report's presentation of research methods is so weak that the research cannot be relied upon without a better idea of the rigor or lack of rigor of its approach. The findings may be valid for the groups studied, but the selection is biased towards ERAOs that work to build sustainable forms of parent participation; it is unclear if those groups are representative of the broader field of ERAOs. While the report suggests some community organizing strategies can be used to advance the ERAO version of education reform, this approach undermines an understanding of community organizing as a democratic practice through which organizations and agendas emerge out of the concerns and through the actions of indigenous community leaders working to build a more inclusive public democracy.

Both the plight of African American young people and their feelings and thoughts about this plight are major issues of concern in U.S. politics. In 2003, the Black Youth Project was launched, with funding by the Ford Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to promote both social scientific analysis and public understanding of these issues (the project has an innovative and engaging Website that can be accessed at http://www.blackyouthproject.com/). Cathy J. Cohen is the principal investigator of the project and, in Democracy Remixed, she draws upon a new national survey of black youth to offer a mixed-method empirical description and theoretical analysis of "black youth and the future of American politics." In this symposium, a diverse group of political and social scientists have been asked to critically assess the book's account and to comment more broadly on the importance of black youth to the future of American politics.—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Faith–based community organizing in the United States has emerged as one of the most effective ways to rebuild democratic life in urban communities. Scholars have argued that the success of modern community organizing lies in its ability to engage the social capital embedded in religious congregations. I examine this claim through a comparatively set case study of the effort to apply an American community organizing strategy in Britain. Using interviews, observations, and documentary sources, I analyze the experience of the British Citizens Organizing Foundation (COF), which is affiliated to the U.S.–based Industrial Areas Foundation. I find that the COF has attained more national influence than its American counterpart, but its local foundations remain much weaker. the relative weakness of faith–based social capital in Britain only partly explains this result. the orientations of religious institutions toward political engagement also matter, and so does the relative power of local versus national political institutions. I argue for bringing a more institutional approach to our theoretical understanding of community organizing and of the role of social capital in revitalizing democratic life more broadly.