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Social Action

Overview  |  Guides  |  Campus Examples  |  Documents to Download

Courses

Classes offered in and out of the Bonner Foundation Network that teach social action and create campaigns to change policies on their campuses and in the community.

• San Jose State University — Social Action (Sociology 164)

This course examines the tactics and strategies of current and past efforts to bring about social change in the United States.  In order to  learn how to do social change well, we will examine and explore the basics of community organizing (e.g., issue development, campaign planning, creating a winning strategy, and building an organization).  An engaging part of this course is that you will have the opportunity to hear directly from previous Soc. 164 students about their successful social action projects.

What is unique about this course is that it is designed to actual do social action.  Instead of just reading about it in a book, you will learn about how to bring about social change by doing it.  Of course, we will still use 'book knowledge,' but my hope is that this knowledge will be challenged by your social actions, and that you will develop a more critical and deeper understanding of public issues and community change by integrating praxis with theory.  Thus, this course is an action-oriented, solutions-based, course on community activism.  Instructor:  Scott Myers-Lipton smlipton@sjsu.edu

Myers-Lipton - Annotated Social Acton Course Syllabus.pdf

• Reading Assignments for Myers-Lipton Social Action Course.pdf

The textbook for this class is Change! A Student Guide to Social Action by Scott Myers-Lipton.

"Walk the Talk" - a documentary on Scott's class campaigns

• Interview with Scott on documentary 

Here are TV news reports on two actions that SJSU Social Action students:

• Students Against Sexual Harassment
• SJSU's United Students Against Sweatshops
• Student Homeless Alliance demonstration  

• Listing of courses (with syllabi) from other courses teaching social action with students leading campaigns.

• Berea College — Movements & Community Organizing (Peace and Social Justice Studies 205)

A study of the theory and practice of global activism for peace and social justice. Students will study social movement theory and significant nonviolent movements of the 20th and 21st centuries, including such movements as the Indian movement for self-rule led by Mahatma Gandhi, the American Civil Rights Movement, and the Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa. Students will also acquire practical skills in community organizing and movement-building, such as effective advocacy, strategic analysis, and facilitation. The course includes an active learning experience in which students apply what they have learned to an activist project with a local community organization or on-campus. Active Learning Experience.  Meta Mendel-Reyes, Professor of Peace and Social Justice Studies, Steering Committee, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC) Action Team, Showing Up For Racial Justice (SURJ) meta.mendelreyes@gmail.com . Syllabus (pdf)

• California State University, Fresno —  “Social Policy Analysis, Advocacy, and Community Organizing”

 Dr. Matthew Ari Jendian is professor of Sociology and founding director of the Humanics Program in Community Benefit Administration. In this course he guides students to identify a public policy issue based on their work with Community Benefit Organizations (CBO). Last semester, each student spent approximately 25 hours working with a CBO to launch advocacy campaigns and revise or propose a public policy. Some of the public issues that Dr. Jendian’s students worked on included rental housing improvement act, labor displacement due to automation, offering a different perspective on undocumented immigrants, and Measure P to fund clean and safe city parks. The course activities included attending a local government meeting, preparing a well-researched fact sheet and a research paper, identifying allies and preparing lobbying tool (Public Call to Action), drafting a letter to the editor, and producing a video & written reflection. Dr. Jendian sees immense value in teaching courses focused on social change / social action. He says, “it's important to train the next generation about what they can do to shape and influence the development of their community.” His suggestion for educators teaching this type of course for the first time is to talk with two or more faculty who have taught this before to understand their approaches and campaign process. 

• The College of New Jersey — “Climate Change and Society”

Dr. Miriam Shakow is Associate Professor of Anthropology.  She engages students in social action as part of the course “Climate Change and Society.” Students in this course not only read about climate change, but also learn how to speak to the public on climate change as a complex human problem, advocate for the cause, and collaborate with agencies to lobby for a policy change. Each student is expected to spend about 30 hours on community-engaged learning. Students’ tabling or face-to-face outreach for their campaign and weekly team meetings count towards those hours. Each group submits a Social Action Campaign Portfolio which includes evidence of tabling, survey, flyer, weekly meetings, policy white paper, op-ed, group presentation, campaign notebook, reading response questions, and reflection paper. She shared that the students’ responses to the project were very positive. Everyone was engaged in the project at some level. The journey of growth that she noticed in every student reaffirmed her commitment to teaching the course again. Her advice to new faculty (new to Social Action course structure) is to spend more time on social action process rather than the content, because planning for social action takes time. 

• California State University, Northridge — “Progressive Community Organizing” 

Dr. Karen Morgaine is Associate Professor of Sociology and Department Chair in College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on social movements, diversity, power and privilege, social justice, and research methodology.  She integrates social action project in “Progressive Community Organizing.” The course examines the history of community organizing in the U.S., explores the different theories and approaches to grassroots organizing, and helps students develop organizing skills to launch advocacy campaigns. Students work in groups to develop recruitment plan, flyer, social media presence, and presentation. Additionally, they also work individually on campaign portfolio, demonstrating their understanding of the concepts discussed in the class such as issue development, historical analysis, target analysis, and power analysis. Dr. Morgaine found that her students were very engaged in exploring issues and context. She said, “It is important to go out and work in the community. It is more than social service. The focus is on social change.” She notes that one should consider giving enough group time in class so students can work on the campaigns. 

• Earlham College — "Student Social Action"

Sophia Lombardo was a senior Bonner Scholar at Earlham College and was inspired to use the book - Change! A Student Guide to Social Action - to involve students on her campus in advocacy and activism. She worked with a professor to develop an interdepartmental course, "Student Social Action," which she taught in her last semester. Earlham allows Student-Led Courses to be taken for one credit, pass/fail and with a maximum of 10 students enrolled. Students in her class discussed case studies of student-led social movements, wrote reflections on social justice issues personal to them, and brainstormed ideas for their group projects. The class created three projects, the first on improving students’ access to health counseling services on campus and greater mental health awareness, the second on developing an environmentally sustainable cafe tray option, and third on creating a physical space and online presence for students doing social justice initiatives. Her advice to other students in terms of teaching this course is to do informal check-in with students to build strong relationships and to be in constant communication with faculty mentors to get meaningful input for the course.  

• Emory & Henry College — Public Movements, Social and Cultural Change (Civic Innovations 200)

Drawing from efforts for social and cultural change across regional, national, and international contexts, students apply key lessons and strategies to specific contemporary issues and questions, emphasizing the development of innovative ideas and building support for them. Students understand the difference between policy-driven innovation and change and citizen-driven innovation and change, particularly in the Appalachian context, and assess the effectiveness of those change efforts based on outcomes. 

• Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government — Leadership, Organizing and Action: Leading Change (Online Course in Executive Education Program)

This online course is an online opportunity to learn how to organize communities to mobilize their resources to create the power they need to make change. Effective organizing requires learning to identify, recruit, and develop leadership, build community around that leadership, and build power from the resources of that community.  This course offers a unique opportunity to learn on line by interacting with leaders of civic associations, social movements, advocacy groups and nonprofits around the world and Professor Marshall Ganz of Harvard Kennedy School. Professor Ganz and his associates have coached people to use community organizing and leadership practices in social movements, electoral campaigns, community organizing, classroom instruction, workshops, lectures, writing – and now Executive Education Online.

• Marshall Ganz’s Organizing (People, Power, Change) syllabi and materials 
• Spring 2014 course VIDEOS can be found under Documents to Download 

• Stanford University — Grassroots Community Organizing: Building Power for Collective Liberation (AFRICAAM 100, CSRE 100, FEMGEN 100X, URBANST 108)

Programs

Undergraduate and Graduate programs with an emphasis in organizing action, community engagement, or social justice.

• Antioch University: Education, Leadership and Social Justice Our MA in Education, Leadership and Social Justice concentration is designed to give students a critical understanding of organizations, such as schools, non-profits, government and service agencies and how to navigate organizational systems with a critical perspective to develop skills to facilitate for positive change.This program stands apart from other graduate education degrees in these ways and more:
• Streamline your degree with a fast-paced curriculum that can be completed in five quarters and begins in Summer quarter. Take advantage of flexible evening and Saturday course options that accommodate each student’s work schedule.
• Interactive courses in small classrooms are built around open dialogue and team participation, encouraging a high level of involvement. This format provides ample opportunity to share your own knowledge while learning from your peers.
• Engaged faculty with extensive experience bring a real-world perspective to the coursework that is immediately applicable and relevant. If desired, you will receive professional mentoring throughout the MA program and even after graduation. 
• Claremont Graduate University: Community-Engaged Education & Social Change Community-engaged education bridges the divide between academia (PK–16) and activism by exploring how schools and communities can partner with one another for mutual benefit. The Master of Arts program in Community-Engaged Education & Social Change trains educators who understand the critical intersections across learning, teaching, and local community. 
• Emory & Henry College: Civic Innovation Department provides students with the skills and knowledge to be innovative problem-solvers and leaders in the non-profit, government, and private sectors, addressing issues of social justice, equality, and sustainable community development.  Civic Innovation students take seriously the dynamics of their places, and are grounded in the twin values that all persons have the potential to make creative contributions to the common good, and that all places have the potential to be safe and healthy places for all their people. A defining element of most courses is that students spend time putting theories and ideas to use in the local community through a variety of experiential learning placements and partnerships.  Tal Stanley, Associate Professor (tastanle@ehc.edu) and Travis Proffitt, Associate Director of Appalachian Center for Civic Life (tproffitt@ehc.edu). 
• IPSL Master of Arts in Community Organizing & Social Activism COSA is approximately one calendar year (13 months), with the majority of the program spent abroad. Students begin the program with a 2-week Residency either ONLINE or at the IPSL Institute for Global Learning in Portland, Oregon, followed by three terms abroad (including a summer term) in IPSL partner communities in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. Upon their return from abroad, students finish the program with a 1-week ONLINE Re-Entry Residency. Cohorts begin in September (Fall cohort), January (Spring cohort), or May (Summer cohort). 

• New York University: Advocacy & Political Action Specialization The Advocacy and Political Action specialization prepares you to magnify your impact and create meaningful change in the civic engagement, political, and advocacy arenas. Whether your passion for social justice and human rights is in immigration, criminal justice, food security, the environment, or any other issue, you’ll need to expand your skillset and learn the strategies and tactics to successfully mobilize people, organizations, and systems.   

• New York University: Art, Education, & Community Practice The Art, Education, and Community Practice program serves individuals interested in socially engaged art who want to work outside of or in collaboration with traditional venues (museum, galleries, and classrooms). Students come from a wide variety of backgrounds: studio art and design, performing arts, film, curators, community-based organizations, social activism, and a variety of art education contexts (teaching artists). 

• Prescott University: Social Justice & Community Organizing offers an online and on-campus masters program at the Social Justice and Community Organizing (SJCO) curriculum combines a unique focus on theories and practices that equip our graduates with the skills, connections, and knowledge to participate effectively in social justice movement building. Courses offer an intensive emphasis on comparative critical theory (both scholarly and grassroots movement-based) with direct participation in organizing and mobilization as powerful tools for understanding the complex relations of culture, power, systems of oppression, and the history and future of movements for social and environmental justice. Community Organizing skills, together with a strong theoretical basis, prepare students for applying their skills within different organizing settings and working in collaboration with directly affected communities.  SJCO faculty combine academic scholarship with long-time committed participation in social justice struggles and movement building.  Through hands-on participatory learning and community-based, experiential  courses, students have opportunities to learn directly from movement leaders working on the cutting edge of grassroots projects from Los Angeles, to the US-Mexico borderlands, to Maasailand, Kenya.  SJCO is open to students interested in all social justice issues and struggles, from anti-racist struggles against state violence, to economic and environmental justice, to indigenous rights, climate justice, LGBTQ liberation, immigrant rights, and housing justice -- all voices and issues are needed as we seek to build diverse and resilient mass movements with the power to shape the future.

• Penn State - Harrisburg: Community Psychology and Social Change Based on the intersection of psychology and sociology, the Master of Arts in Community Psychology and Social Change emphasizes leadership, community development, social activism and public advocacy. The program equips students to address multifaceted problems facing communities. Students learn to assess problems and to plan, implement and evaluate solutions at community and organizational levels. Learning takes place through coursework, fieldwork, and an individual master’s project customized to the student’s area of interest.

• Saybrook University: Transformative Social Change Transformative social change builds on the emerging and growing traditions of the scholar-practitioner and the scholar-activist. Saybrook’s Online master’s degree in Transformative Change will prepare students to respond to current global, social, cultural, and political challenges—creating transformative changes in society that are guided by humanistic values. Learning is enhanced by direct engagement and the quality of social action benefits from deep reflection upon values and goals. Graduates of our master’s program will be able to apply these understandings to work with major foundations, the United Nations, universities, and other nonprofit organizations. In addition, graduates of Saybrook’s M.A. in Transformative Change program may choose to move into the Ph.D. program where they can prepare to develop social and public policy analyses in their respective interest areas. 

• Trinity Washington University: Educating For Change This program in curriculum and instruction will help you better understand the dynamics of how to improve the quality of education for all students — and particularly those in urban environments. You will interact with a range of disciplines — including sociology, psychology, history, political science, economics and education — so that you can effectively address social inequalities within educational systems, particularly those associated with gender, ethnicity, social class and disabilities. Our graduates advocate for transformations in education, and we want to help you add your voice to those important conversations. 

• University of Chicago: Social Service Administration The SSA Master of Arts program prepares you to be a leader in the fields of clinical social work and social administration practice. The AM degree, artium magister (master of arts), from SSA is equivalent to an MSW, but with a broader educational and experiential foundation that combines direct social work practice with policy development, interdisciplinary research and social science theory. The comprehensive and interdisciplinary nature of the AM degree translates into greater flexibility and choice in your future career.

• University of Massachusetts- Amherst: Social Justice Education The goal of the Social Justice Education (SJE) concentration is to prepare educational leaders who can promote social diversity and social justice in educational settings through the development of theoretical and practical knowledge, empirical research, and the use of effective social justice education practices. UMass Amherst also has a Community Scholars Program for undergraduates. 
• University of Miami: Community & Social Change The Master’s degree program in Community & Social Change (C&SC) is designed to prepare a new generation of creative and community-engaged leaders for the human service sector. The vision of the program centers on the philosophy that leaders in community organizations must be knowledgeable in research, theories, and practice. Leaders must be specifically trained to translate knowledge of individual, organizational and community well-being into action, engaging in praxis with the community. The 30-credit master’s program in Community & Social Change is designed to accommodate a variety of students by offering courses in the evening, on weekends and during summer interim sessions. Generally, full-time students are able to complete the program in one to two years. 

• University of Michigan: Diversity and Social Justice in Higher Education Graduate study in this concentration considers broad issues that affect higher and postsecondary education as well as depth of knowledge and experience gained across a variety of learning contexts. A series of symposia works to sustain and strengthen a supportive network of graduate students and faculty in the School of Education who are interested in research, pedagogy, and activism around issues of diversity and social justice.

• University of Pennsylvania Education, Culture, & Society The Master’s degree in Education, Culture, and Society offers training in a broad array of theoretical and methodological approaches to the nuanced study of education as a social, cultural, and historical phenomenon, either in the U.S. or around the world. Following a traditional yet flexible/individualized academic curriculum, this program invites students to examine and study the social and cultural contexts of learning in preparation for doctoral study as well as for careers in schools, administration and educational research. The program is great for the intellectually curious who don’t fit neatly in other boxes, and want to build a new one of their own. 
• University of Wisconsin - Madison: Community-Engaged Scholarship, Graduate Professional Certificate The purpose of this certificate program is to train graduate students in the practice of community-engaged scholarship (CES), which is defined as teaching or research that is done in collaboration with community organizations or community partners in equitable, mutually beneficial, respectful relationships.  

Fellowships

Fellowships and Career opportunities in organizing action, community engagement, or social justice. 

• Stanford University — The Praxis Fellowship in Community Organizing and Social Change

The Praxis Fellowship is a new three-quarter program at Stanford University. It will support student activists in developing their analytical and practical skills as social change leaders and community organizers. The program will provide a deep experience in community organizing, develop a support community among students engaged in social justice work, cultivate authentic relationships between students and community partners, and create pathways for students to continue community organizing and social justice work beyond Stanford. Students will learn from long-time organizers, participate in skill-building workshops, study movement histories, develop issue campaigns, and engage directly in community organizing and movement-building work.

The program includes four components:

• a three-course curriculum: Solidarity and Racial Justice (Fall), Grassroots Community Organizing (Winter), and the Community Organizing Field Work (Spring)
• a 9-month collaboration/internship with an organization engaged in community organizing and social movement work
• community-building activities, including events with community organizers and social movement leaders, a retreat, and shared meals/reflection sessions throughout the year
• a capstone project that supports the community partners’ work and deepens the students’ analytical skills

Daniel Murray, Program Director and Lecturer and the Director of Community Engaged Learning at the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity

Derek Blackmon, Associate Director and Associate Dean and Director of Stanford’s Diversity and First Generation Office

Breatriz Herrera, Instructor and long-time community organizer with over 10 years of experience organizing in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco

• Northwestern University - Social Justice Advocacy Fellowship

• Macalester College - Chuck Green Fellowship

Spring Seminar and Summer Civic Engagement Project: The Civic Engagement Fellowship enables students to put their ideas into action. Sophomores and Juniors are eligible to apply for this six-month fellowship that includes a spring seminar and a funded, full-time summer field experience of their choosing. Each spring, 12 students are selected as Chuck Green fellows and participate in a unique seminar shaped by the fellows themselves along with the facilitating professor. They will study democratic engagement in social and organizational change and identify a client organization that is involved in the Twin Cities urban political landscape. The fellow will analyze and address an area of specific interest to them, and then in the full-time summer work with that client, implement a mutually agreed-upon solution, supported by a $4,000 stipend. Rather than a standard internship, the student will work with the organization in a consultant-client relationship, living out Chuck Green’s belief in the knowledge and abilities of students. The fellowship both fulfills the Political Science Practicum Requirement and also counts as an advanced class for the major.

Trainings

Trainings in organizing action, community engagement, or social justice.

• Northwestern University — Social Justice Advocacy Training

Participants must commit to attending the entire training from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm. This training is free and lunch is provided. We will be partnering with Evanston Township High School students for this training, and we are excited to build skills and campaigns for social change with them in this training.  By the end of the training, participants will be able to: 

• Articulate the dynamics of political power, how to change those dynamics, and determine how and where to engage in policy change for social justice
• Identify and analyze problems
• Use tools and processes for contextual and problem analysis
• Apply research, planning, and organizing strategies to engage and empower citizens and grassroots groups
• Apply different influence and engagement strategies and activities used in advocacy, and understand which strategies work best and when
• Apply the basics of communication and persuasion for advocacy 

Led by Kelly Benkert, Director of Leadership & Community Engagement kelly.benkert@northwestern.edu