1THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGANSCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK COURSE TITLE: Organizing for Social and Political Action COURSE NUMBER: 652 TERM Spring/Summer 2003 CREDIT HOURS: 3 PREREQUISITES: 550 or permission of instructor LOCATION: Advanced Community Organizing Methods Course Julio Cesar Guerrero, MSW, MA [email protected] www.umich.edu/~camila Please call or e-mail for appointment Victor Vaughan Bldg. 3rd Fl 3798 SSWB 1111 E Catherine Ph-734/763-9979 Ph-734/647-8933 Cell 734/323-2157 Fax: 734/763-0913 1. Course Description: Welcome: This course examines methods of organizing people for social and political action on their own behalf or on behalf of others. Students will analyze methods of bringing people together for collective action, building organizational capacity, and generating power in the community. The course includes the study of skills in analyzing power structures, formulating action strategies, using conflict and persuasive tactics, challenging oppressive structures, conducting community campaigns, political advocacy as a form of mobilization and the understanding of contemporary social issues and traditionally oppressed population groups. 2. Course Content: Students will learn that organizing for social and political action aims to create change by building powerful organizations at the community level. This course will take the perspective that organizing can win improvements in people's lives, make people aware of their own power, and alter the relations of power in the community. The history of organizing for social and political action and its underlying theoretical assumptions about power, conflict, and change will be covered. This course will also examine the sociopolitical arena in which organizing operates, roles and responsibilities of practitioners, several strategies and tactics, forces that facilitate or limit organizing, and lessons learned from empirically based practice. In addition, several schools of2organizing thought and how each approaches the formulation of goals, issues, constituencies, targets, and tactics will be compared. This course will analyze strategies and tactics that employ conflict as a vehicle for generating power and creating change. Students will assess theories of conflict and power and ways of assessing power structures at the community level. Political advocacy will be examined as an empowering process of strengthening solidarity and challenging oppressive structures. In contrast to advocacy as a narrow approach to representing group interests in legislatures and established institutions, this course will consider advocacy as an empowering process by which traditionally excluded people advocate for themselves in ways which build organizations and develop communities. The course content has two dimensions: 1) the theoretical and skills frameworks and 2) their application to pertinent social issues as discussed in class. The format and schedule of the course is designed to allow review or study of the application of theory to actual social or political issues. The course design suggests a methodological progression of skills and techniques used in effective organizing for social change. A number of guest speakers and video presentations will add dimension to the reading and experiential materials. 3. Course Objectives: Students are expected to develop an understanding of social dynamics as they relate to power structures; understand current social issues and relate them to social and political action as well as the roots or origins of said conditions in a broader social and political context. Upon completion of the course, students will be able to: 1. Describe the changing context in which social and political action operates. 2. Compare and contrast various strategies, steps, and styles of practice. 3. Demonstrate skills to analyze power structures, formulate action strategies, use conflict tactics, conduct community campaigns, find and develop leaders, and other organizing steps. 4. Demonstrate in-depth knowledge of ways in which oppressed people can stimulate collective action and generate power in the community. 5. Identify issues related to ethnicity, gender, social class, and other dimensions associated with discrimination, domination, and oppression. 6. Recognize issues of ethics and values arising in the field.34. Course Design: Students are required to write two short thematic papers and to contribute to one longer paper for a Social Action Model. The first assignment is a short (3-5 pages) research paper for the purpose of profiling a social issue or oppressed population group stating the need for social or political action. The second assignment is a paper explaining how the student's practicum site or any other organization could be part of a social action project. The paper (3 to 5 pages long), should describe the organization, the need and opportunities for social action organizing and the necessary elements conducive to networking, strategy, community organizing or lobbying. The third assignment is a collective paper to propose a Social Action Model chosen or designed by the students as a group project. The model will consist of a defined community-organizing and strategy approach as it applies to a given social issue. In addition, students are to participate in a final group presentation explaining the project utilizing an interdisciplinary format. This presentation will incorporate skills and methods as well as issues related to a Social Action Model. All papers should be typed, double-spaced and written in APA style. The papers and group presentations must reflect materials covered in written, oral, videotaped or experiential data collected during the semester. Students may use course materials or develop new theories of their own based on the data covered in order to strengthen their theses and presentations. REQUIRED TEXTS: Community Organizing in a Diverse Society, by Felix G. Rivera and John L. Erlich;. published in 1995 by Allyn and Bacon. And a coursepak that is available at Accu-Copy. 5. Relationship of the Course to Four Curricular Themes: * Multiculturalism and Diversity will be addressed throughout this course by considering how particular approaches have been implemented in different ethnic, cultural, age, and gender-based groups, and the ways in which particular theories and strategies are and are not compatible with cultural norms and styles. *