Order Number |
67767446433A |
Type of Project |
ESSAY |
Writer Level |
PHD VERIFIED |
Format |
APA |
Academic Sources |
10 |
Page Count |
3-12 PAGES |
Read attached Module 5 Reading Response.
Learning Materials:
Read the following:
Chetkovich, C., & Kunreuther, F. (2006). From the ground up: Grassroots organizations making social change. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Chapter 6. [This chapter will be the basis of the Collaborative Annotation Assignment this week. If you prefer, you may consider reading it in Perusall]
Brown, M.J. (2006). Building powerful community organizations: A personal guide to creating groups that can solve problems and change the world. Arlington, Massachusetts: Long Haul Press. Chapters 12.
Jobin-Leeds, G., & AgitArte. (2016). When we fight, we win! Twenty-first-century social movements and the activists that are transforming our world. New York: The New Press. Chapter 1.
Videos
This lecture video is about collaboration and community building. Please click here for a PDF of the presentation
. [Aaron’s note: this course was developed by a team of OGL faculty, so the lecture video is not narrated by me.] The content referenced in this video is from the texts,
Chetkovich, C., & Kunreuther, F. (2006). From the ground up: Grassroots organizations making social change. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Brown, M.J. (2006). Building powerful community organizations: A personal guide to creating groups that can solve problems and change the world. Arlington, Massachusetts: Long Haul Press.
Within each module, students will complete a reading response. This response is “semi-formal” in nature meaning that it should be polished, clearly written, and should include citations (in APA format) from the weekly readings (the formal part), but you should also feel free to allow your raw thinking come through without concern for being “right” or “wrong” (the informal part).
The purpose of the reading response is to allow you an opportunity to grapple with the course material. These responses are essentially ways for us to talk to each other about your intellectual development. I also want your reflections to be a useful tool in constructing your final paper, so each response will ask you to think about the key ideas that you might draw into the final paper.
I want to be clear that this summary is not my way of testing your understanding, but it is instead my way of gauging your understanding. Reading responses are graded for completion, not for “accuracy” though I will provide feedback as part of our ongoing dialogue with one another.
Overall, your response should be ~1000 words and be generally balanced between each section (summary, critical analysis, and reflection).
Summary (~300+ words)
First, I want you to provide an integrated summary of the readings in the context of the central theme of the module. Don’t spend time reproducing what each chapter said individually, but think about the main concepts or themes that connect the readings to one another.
Imagine that you are introducing the material to me and you want to draw my attention to ways in which the readings are threaded together. While you should include citations in the summary, you should focus on paraphrasing the authors as you try to draw connections and identify themes.
This portion of the response will give you an opportunity to clarify and synthesize your own understanding, and it will give me an opportunity to see how you interpreted the texts.
Critical Analysis (~300+ words)
Second, I want you to provide a critical analysis of the readings. This is where I want you to directly interact with the text by providing an evaluation of specific ideas in the readings that stood out to you.
This is your attempt to grapple with the course material by providing an analysis of what is important, confusing, wrong, or noteworthy in the readings. In this section, your analysis should be extremely close to the text, meaning that you should provide more direct citations that show how you are responding directly to the claims of the authors.
Because of the constraints of time and space, you will not be able to respond to everything the authors claimed, nor do you need to do so. Just pick out the aspects of the readings that you found were the most important and analyze them.
Reflection (~300+ words)
Third, I want you to reflect on the readings with an eye toward how they can be used in the final paper. In the reflection portion of the reading response, I want you to start to reflect on how what you learned in this module might be useful for that paper. You can write about anything you find particularly significant, but here are some of the kinds of questions you might consider:
The authors of From the Ground Up state that all organizations must work in partnerships when they wish to accomplish something that they cannot do alone. With the limited resources of social change organizations and their large missions, these organizations in particular are likely to need partners.
The stronger the capacity for collaborative work, the greater potential for systemic change. Here, collaboration refers to “the process by which two or more groups work together to accomplish something that cannot be done – or not done effectively – by a single group” (p. 132). Why is cross-issue collaboration so important in the LGBTQIA movement? Based on your readings and own opinion, what are the benefits? What are the challenges?
Joint Production? Or, a higher level of collaboration that provides space for communal agenda setting, acknowledges a common good that is more than the sum of separate interests, and responds to collective agenda-setting by changing and growing?
Collaboration and Community Building Module 5
Collaboration
■ All organizations must work in partnerships when they wish to accomplish something that they cannot do alone.
■ Collaboration refers to “the process by which two or more groups work together to accomplish something that cannot be done – or not done effectively – by a single group” (p. 132).
■ In theory, collaboration may invoke warm feelings and hope but to practitioners the term often incites discomfort and even scorn.
Collaboration
■ Collective action linked with constituent transformation and mobilization; the primary form of collaboration is participation in political coalitions.
■ Collective action through other activists (with no focus on individual transformation) is associated with complementary alliances and match-making.
■ Individual empowerment linked to individual transformation, collaboration tends to involve service partnerships and issue-area networks.
■ Individual empowerment through dismantling legal barriers (with no element of transformation), collaboration consists of joint production
Political coalitions
■ Political coalitions tend to be short-lived, motivated by a specific issue, and focused on bringing about a particular action by public authorities.
■ Among the SCOs studies by the authors of From the Ground Up this collaboration was most often found among those working toward collective action through constituent individual transformation (organizing groups).
Complementary Alliances and Match- Making
■ These forms of collaboration are most common among the SCOs that emphasize collective action primarily through other groups.
■ Collaboration is a large part of the work of these SCOs.
■ Because the social change work of these SCOs consists of supplying information, analysis, and linkages to activist groups their relationships tend to be complementary.
Service Partnerships and Issue-Area Networks
■ SCOs that focus on individual empowerment through transformative work with clients utilize two general types of collaboration that include: In service partnerships and issue area networks.
Service area partnerships allow for SCOs to coordinate with different types of service providers to create programs that meet client needs. In issue-area networks agencies join forces with similar groups to share information, exchange technical assistance and referrals, and engage in issue- related advocacy.
■ The major challenges include lack of clear agreements, differences in service philosophy, and the actual time and effort required to sustain activities.
Joint Production
■ The primary mode of collaboration here is the joint production of work, primarily public-interest lawsuits, where the SCO teams up with other legal advocacy groups or private law firms.
■ Collaboration is the easiest and most production when the partners each bring different capacities and resources. In this way, the groups can bring something different to the collaboration, making less competition over policies and resources.
Cross-Cutting Influences on Collaboration
■ Collaborative practices vary across social change orientation, but a commonality found is the drive to achieve broader impact and serve better constituent groups influencing the collaboration in the first place.
■ A primary component that works against collaboration are organizational needs.
■ The factors that support or inhibit collaboration vary with social change orientation which in turn shapes the degree and type of collaboration in which different kinds of SCOs are likely to engage.
Variation within Social Change Orientation
■ Historical or environmental influences may make collaboration less costly, more beneficial, or simply more expected.
■ Differences in leadership practices and attitude.
Going to the Next Level
■ SCOs need to balance their basic operational costs against the bigger mission- related benefits associated with collaboration at one level.
■ At a different, higher, level of collaboration we see that collaborators would like to actually provide a space for “communal agenda setting, acknowledge a common good that is more than the sum of separate interests, and respond to collective agenda-setting by changing and growing” (p.146). This level of collaboration is infrequent.
Communal Agenda-setting
■ “How do you provide the platform without actually designing the platform?”
Acknowledging the Common Good
■ In the absence of a clear sense of this common good, then the community risks being torn apart by the internal tensions that often accompany collaboration.
Changing and Growing in Collaboration
■ Some SCOs seek out a “deeper connection” in which they actually change their approaches and frameworks in a way that allows them to grow together in their work.
■ The possibility of change is greatest in collaboration that makes space for communal agenda-setting, seeks out a vision of the common good, and support learning and change by participants. These components will result ins “Collaborative Empowerment” rather than “Collaborative Betterment”
Building Powerful Community Organizations
■ In building a community organization it is desirable to develop a sense of community and help to improve the world, the two being interdependent.
■ It takes an intention to build a sense of community and mutual responsibility – it is putting other’s needs on the same plane as our own.
■ How do you develop mutual support and a sense of community?