Utilizing critical geography, critical history, and critical educational studies as guideposts, this article examines community organizing and school district partnerships as relevant to improving urban public education reform efforts and schooling practices within the United States. Proceeding in four parts, part one discusses the kinds of…

Grassroots organizations have a critical role in supporting learning within many urban communities (Sobeck, Agius, & Mayers, 2007). Unfortunately, many informal organizations are short-lived as funding disappears and volunteer participation wanes. The Unspun Heroes, an informal fibre arts group committed to learning and developing skills…

The world population has changed spectacularly in the last decades. The growth in life expectancy is forcing a restructure in our policies and, obviously, education. For 2050, there will be 2.000 sixty plus year olds. That is more than 20% of the world population. Besides, discrimination for ageing and, sometimes, abandonment and abuse of elderly…

The global Occupy! actions gave some pause for thought. At first, some thought that this was a global movement that could change the way politics was conducted and maybe see the end of capitalism as we knew it. The hopes for Occupy! were high, but the highest hopes for the movement were short lived. This paper examines Occupy!'s legacy; what…

Both in concept and in practice, policy has permeated the deepest recesses of civil society and has had particular impact on the lives of those who are actively connected to the educational process. For music teachers in particular, policy can evoke images of a forbidden environment beyond one's day-to-day duties and responsibilities. Nothing,…

This paper represents voices of community organizers on Barra, a small island in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Although, arguably Barra is geographically and socio-politically located in the peripheries of Scotland, Britain and Europe, the island has been a center of North Atlantic maritime trade networks for centuries. In the current phase of…

Civic leaders who are highly and effectively engaged often have strong relationships with key stakeholders across institutions and communities. The prevalence and nature of these relationships is not known among those with more typical levels of civic engagement. We were interested in the perceptions of likelihood of individual versus community…

How can youth become leaders in their communities' resilience efforts? The Lentes en Cambio Climático (LECC) filmmaking program aimed to empower students to investigate how a changing climate affects their lives and use their own findings to inspire local resilience. Secondary students in LECC created films that explore the experiences of…

This paper explores how incorporating localized historical acts of racial injustice into Sociology courses can have a variety of pedagogical and social impacts. The use of one such event, the 1918 lynching of 13 people in South Georgia, led to the formation of the Mary Turner Project (MTP). We document the organization's work as well as its impact…

This chapter explores how community engagement creates opportunities to facilitate meaningful discussions about issues including: the nature and sources of power; who benefits and who is silenced by service and leadership efforts; which community actions result in change rather than charity; and how to developmentally sequence reflective practice.

This chapter details the ways youth community organizing strategies can inform leadership educators' approaches to engaging marginalized youth in leadership development for social change.

This essay examines several ethical and epistemological issues that arise when philosophers conduct empirical research focused on, or in collaboration with, community groups seeking to bring about systemic change. This type of research can yield important policy lessons about effective community-driven reform and how to incorporate the voices of…

This study examines the application of photovoice as a pedagogical tool in a geography class. The main stages of photovoice were modified to suit the context for learning about a geographical issue, animal rights in relation to street cats in South Korea. Data were collected, and grounded theory was applied for the analysis. Based on the results,…

In the wake of the most recent refugee crisis the private sponsorship programme re-emerged in Canada as a just and novel solution to precarious migration. The private sponsorship programme expands the role of civil society in humanitarian resettlement, while simultaneously depicting the programme as a grassroots movement of engaged and active…

Although a growing body of evidence underscores the contributions of community-based participatory research, community coalitions and other community engagement approaches to addressing health equity, one of the most potent forms of engagement--community organizing--has attracted far less attention in our field. Yet, organizing by and for…