Mark R. Warren

A different face of faith‐based politics: social capital and community organizing in the public arena

Questions whether, in the USA, faith‐based communities can have an important effect on politics. Contends that other areas, where there are poorer communities, are more likely to be influenced politically in civil society although does not preclude other income sectors from being similarly affected just that deprived areas are more likely to listen to faith‐based organizers.

Community Building and Political Power A Community Organizing Approach to Democratic Renewal

Rebuilding poor communities requires effective political power. This article examines the political strategy of the nations most prominent, faith-based community organizing network, the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). It discusses the relational-organizing strategy through which the IAF engaged members of religious congregations in the development of an innovative job-training program, Project QUEST, in San Antonio, Texas. And it explores the independent, nonpartisan strategy that recruited allies and won public resources for Project QUEST. By linking community building to political action, the IAF strategy contributes a participatory foundation to American politics. At the same time, the IAF strategy overcomes the limitations of community building efforts that fail to appreciate the role of conflict in creating new forms of cooperation. To achieve a broader impact, however, the IAF will have to expand its efforts to reform political institutions and to impact economic restructuring at the national level.

Youth organizing: From youth development to school reform.

Over the past twenty years, youth organizing has grown across the country. Through organizing, young people identify issues of concern and mobilize their peers to build action campaigns to achieve their objectives. Youth organizing has been appreciated for its contributions to youth and community development. The authors use two case studies to trace the more recent emergence of youth organizing as an important force for school reform. The Boston-based Hyde Square Task Force began with a focus on afterschool programming, but its youth leaders now organize to get Boston Public Schools to adopt a curriculum addressing sexual harassment. Meanwhile, the Baltimore Algebra Project began as a peer-to-peer tutoring program but now also organizes to demand greater funding for Baltimore schools. These cases illustrate a broader phenomenon where students reverse the deficit paradigm by acting out of their own self-interest to become agents of institutional change.

Building a Political Constituency for Urban School Reform

In this article, the author argues that urban school reform falters, in part, because of the lack of an organized political constituency among the stakeholders with the most direct interest in school improvement, that is, parents whose children attend urban schools. The author examines community organizing as a potential strategy to build such a constituency. Drawing primarily on extensive fieldwork research, he constructs a case study of one of the country’s largest community organizing networks, the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). He analyzes the network’s Alliance Schools initiative to promote school reform in 120 public schools in districts across the state. This article finds that organizing efforts like the IAF, despite important limitations, are beginning to create an external force for change in district policy as well as to collaborate internally with educators to produce change in the practice of education within schools.

Community Organizing in Britain: The Political Engagement of Faith-Based Social Capital

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.

The Formation of Community-Engaged Scholars: A Collaborative Approach to Doctoral Training in Education Research

In this article, Mark R. Warren, Soojin Oh Park, and Mara Casey Tieken explore the training and development of community-engaged scholars in doctoral programs in education. Community-engaged scholars working in the field of education collaborate with families, teachers, and communities to support their efforts to address educational inequities, marking an important way that researchers can promote social justice in public education. Yet these collaborations require particular skills and orientations of researchers, which traditional models of doctoral education are not designed to develop. Additionally, much less attention has been paid to the process of training and equipping emerging community-engaged researchers. This article presents the findings of a self-study of a research project designed to build among doctoral students the skills, dispositions, and commitments of community-engaged scholarship. The authors argue that by fostering collaborative learning and creating a community that embraces proje...

Research Confronts Equity and Social Justice–Building the Emerging Field of Collaborative, Community Engaged Education Research: Introduction to the Special Issue:

In an era of growing inequality and persistent racial disparities in education, as well as the increasing dominance of neoliberal policy agendas, education researchers face growing calls for their scholarship to directly confront equity and social justice in education (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 2006). The 2012 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), for example, had as its theme “To Know is Not Enough” (Ball, 2012) and charged education researchers to increase the relevance of scholarship to improving educational practice and equity and justice in education. Meanwhile, in the published version of his 2013 AERA Presidential Address, William Tierney (2013) argues that producing high quality research, while essential, is insufficient to addressing poverty and educational inequality and calls for scholars to engage directly with those they study.

Is Collaborative, Community-Engaged Scholarship More Rigorous than Traditional Scholarship? On Advocacy, Bias, and Social Science Research.

Contrary to the charge that advocacy-oriented research cannot meet social science research standards because it is inherently biased, the authors of this article argue that collaborative, community-engaged scholarship (CCES) must meet high standards of rigor if it is to be useful to support equity-oriented, social justice agendas. In fact, they argue that CCES is often more rigorous than traditional scholarship. The authors draw from cases of CCES that they conducted to provide evidence and examples. They discuss the importance of relationship building and trust in addressing the tensions that can arise between the demands of knowledge production and action-oriented social change.

Closing Commentary: New Strategies for Racial Equity in Education: Interest Convergence and Movement Building

The purpose of this issue of the Peabody Journal of Education is to revisit interest-convergence theory and explore new strategies for pursuing racial equity and justice in education. This issue could not come at a more important time. We are facing a moment of great opportunity and great danger for those who are concerned with racial equity in public education as well in our larger society. Once again, race is at the center of political cross-currents. The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement is only the most visible part of a broad and growing movement that has been seeking renewed attention to issues of racial equity and justice (Taylor, 2016). The Black Lives Matter movement has confronted mainstream America with the extent and depth of racism and racial violence in the United States. It has demanded a militant confrontation and real change. Concepts such as systemic racism and implicit bias previously restricted to academic discourse now are featured in public discourse, like in the Presidential campaign of 2016. The presence of public conversations on race provides new opportunities for racial equity initiatives in education and beyond. At the same time, a backlash has emerged to this movement and, more broadly, to the changing demographics that make the United States a “majority minority” country where white Americans are losing their majority status (Frey, 2014). Many white Americans who have been left behind in the new global economy are turning their anger and frustration against the “other”: people of color, Muslims, and immigrants. This phenomenon is not new; rather white backlash against gains in racial justice has deep historical roots going back at least to the Reconstruction/postReconstruction era (Du Bois, 1997). The Trump candidacy and victory has created a space for white nationalism and racism to emerge with the potential to set back whatever gains in racial justice have been won.

A Movement’s Legacy: Southern Echo and the Continued Struggle for Racial Justice in the Delta

Recent research has complicated popular understandings of the civil rights movement, calling into question its timeline, key players, and biggest victories. Scholars have highlighted the role of community organizing, arguing that capacity-building and leadership development were the movement’s real wins. Yet little research has examined how contemporary organizers view and use this history in their current work. Drawing upon interview and observational data from a qualitative case study, this article explores how one Delta organization, Southern Echo, responds to the movement of the 1950s and 1960s in its organizing today. We argue that Echo organizers and leaders see the civil rights movement as an ongoing struggle, and we show that Echo adopts a critical stance in analyzing past civil rights work; Echo’s structure and strategies are a direct response to this history. Our analysis offers a new, critical perspective to understandings of the civil rights movement.