Region
Progressive Community Organizing
A Critical Approach for a Globalizing World
By Loretta Pyles
- Price: $44.95
- Binding/Format: Paperback
- ISBN: 978-0-415-95780-9
- Publish Date: January 12th 2009
- Imprint: Routledge
- Pages: 208 pages
Description
This interdisciplinary textbook offers a comprehensive view of the central issues facing progressive community organizers who seek to mobilize those negatively impacted by local, national, and global social policies and practices. Intended for both undergraduate and graduate students in social work, it aims to articulate the depth of the subject by introducing students to the philosophical, political, and sociological theories that inform community organizing and advocacy. These topics are explored in detail through such examples as the labour movement, environmental organizing, feminist movements, and faith-based movements as a way to inform social work community practice. The author emphasizes the importance of a thorough understanding of why and how people get together to effect change in their own communities. Ongoing debates and controversies that face organizers and advocates in the social work profession are also considered.
Each chapter includes relevant discussion questions for reflection, as well as a list of useful books and websites for further inquiry. Also included are numerous case studies from community efforts in Post-Katrina New Orleans, many of which the author has been involved in herself, providing a recent and widely recognized series of real world examples that will be easily accessible for students and professors around the world.
Contents
Preface. Acknowledgments. Part I: Foundations of Community Organizing. 1. Introduction. 2. The Self-Aware Organizer. 3. Theories and Ideas for the Progressive Organizer. 4. Learning From Social Movements. 5. Critical Organizing Frameworks. Part II: Tools for Community Organizing. 6. Organizing People: Constituencies and Coalitions. 7. Toward Empowering Organizations. 8. Language Matters: Issue Framing and Communication. 9. Tactics for Change. Part III: Enduring and Emergent Issues in Organizing. 10. Toward Solidarity: Understanding Oppression and Working with Identity. 11. Religious and Spiritual Aspects of Organizing. 12. Global Justice: Organization and Resistance. References. Index.