(AESA Critics Choice Award Winner)
Radio Interview on Progressivism and Social Class
Collective Action for Social Change (2011) (Ch. 1.pdf)
(AESA Critics Choice Award Winner)
Radio Interview on community organizing
The League of Almost Superheroes (2012) (preview) (kindle) (print)
Short stories from Asimov's, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and more.
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Collective Action for Social Change: An Introduction to Community Organizing Aaron Schutz & Marie G. Sandy This book introduces the vibrant, conflictual, and yet deeply relational world of community organizing. Community organizers build solidarity and collective power in fractured communities. They help ordinary people turn their private pain into public action, releasing hidden capacities for leadership and strategy. Organizing groups thrive amid what Saul Alinsky called “hard reality”: the “sweeping passions” “conflict, confusion, seeming chaos” and “drama” of the public realm. This book will transform your understanding of civic action and social change in America. Download Chapter 1 here 20% off Coupon here. |
Social Class, Social Action, and Education: The Failure of Progressive Democracy Aaron Schutz Middle-class progressives in the early 20th Century wanted to transform a corrupt and chaotic industrial America into an "authentic" democracy. But they were led astray by their privilege. Focused on enhancing the voices of individuals, generations of progressives remained blind to the rich culture of "democratic solidarity" infusing labor unions and organizing in poor communities. This book traces the problematic evolution of progressive democracy in America, focusing on schools as a key site of progressive practice. At the same time, it examines alternative strategies for developing more empowering approaches to democratic education and collective action. Download "Introduction," here. |
CORE DILEMMAS OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZING SERIES
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In this series at OpenLeft.com I have been critically examining different aspects of community organizing. Older posts in the series originally posted on Education Policy Blog are available here.
ONLINE COMMUNITY ORGANIZING COURSE
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These are the lectures from an online Introduction to Community Organizing course. This course is designed to teach students how to think like organizers, and doesn't try to actually provide the skills necessary to act like an organizer.
Note on Blogging and Scholarship
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In my published scholarship, I seek to be as accurate and comprehensive as possible. I see blogging as a very different animal. My posts are really "think pieces," meant to provoke thinking and frame out possibilities, often written very quickly. When I cite research, I do it selectively, often from examples I happen to know about. The option for people to respond means that if I make obvious mistakes, there is an opportunity for the community to correct them (to the extent that anyone is reading my posts in the first place). Please note that I have frequently edited and will continue to develop blog posts without necessarily indicating I have done this. See also "Why I Blog."
About this Website
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This is the home-page of Aaron Schutz, professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Community Studies at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. I also coordinate UWM's undergraduate Certificate Program in Community Organizing. I staff and helped found Congregations for Inner-city Economic Transformation (CIET). I can be reached at schutz@uwm.edu
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