The New York City Labor Chorus completed its 25th year in June of 2017. This paper comes after gathering of data for an ethnographic study of the chorus during the entire year, beginning September of 2016. The researcher had been a chorus member for five years and continued to be a participant while collecting data. This paper focuses on…

Social change on behalf of the disadvantaged in a neighborhood or community can be achieved through various types of change agents, models, and approaches. One of the most effective models was developed by Saul Alinsky, a well-known American community organizer, and it was this model that provided the theoretical framework for the development of…

The author examines the process by which the formally-structured outgrowths of social movements become part of local power systems. Although social movements often start out in opposition to local power systems, they sometimes merge with those systems in order to operate effectively and to accomplish significant change in the distribution of…

In 1974 American institutions of social service--i.e. nonprofit agencies whose purposes are to assist groups and individuals to maintain or advance themselves in the social order--are in the midst of a crisis of confidence. As a social order, Americans are least effective in delivering social service to those who are impoverished, of color,…