Building Community Capacity to Advocate for Policy Change: An Outcome Evaluation of the Neighborhoods Working in Partnership Project in Detroit

This article presents results of the outcome evaluation of Neighborhoods Working in Partnership (NWP), a community-based participatory research project of the Detroit Community–Academic Urban Research Center, designed to enhance policy advocacy skills through training and support, thereby increasing community capacity, engagement, and empowerment of Detroit residents to change policies. Focus groups and conversational interviews were conducted with NWP participants. Results indicate that the workshop empowered participants and enhanced dimensions of community capacity. Participants reported engaging in policy advocacy activities and various policy successes. Participants identified challenges and facilitating factors to their policy campaigns. Recommendations for similar trainings are provided.     

The Use of Dialogue in Community Organization Practice: Using Theory,Values, and Skills to Guide Group Decision-Making

The ability to engage diverse community participants in group dialogue to resolve differences, establish common ground, identify problems, set goals, and plan actions is an essential part of community organization. However, there are limited resources in the social work literature about how social work skills can best be used to facilitate group dialogue in this context. In this article, the theories and values associated with the use of group dialogue are discussed. The manner in which these skills are applied in community organizing is described. The interpersonal skills needed for facilitating group dialogue in community organization practice are also examined.     

Opportunities for Community Organizing in the Realm of Economic Justice and Low Wage Worker Struggles

ABSTRACT

The new upsurge in labor organizing among low-wage workers provides community organizing with opportunities to engage in economic justice struggles. Low-wage workers are organizing in many sectors of the workforce that are difficult to organize. Their issues are part of the larger discourse concerning inequality in the United States. New forms of community organizing are developing in some areas that embrace economic justice issues. However, many of the national networks have yet to become involved in issues of community members in the capacities as workers. Macro social work needs to revisit its origins and forge a new tradition that incorporates the problems that inspired Jane Addams and her contemporaries, the issues of workers and immigrants.     

In Praise of Community Organizers

Community organizing was an issue of discussion during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign. Rather than celebrate its rich history of advocating for labor reform and community revitalization, noted opponents of former community organizer Barack Obama, including Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, decided to make grassroots community organizing the target of their ridicule and scorn. Given group work's close association with community organizing, in this article in the Social Work with Groups journal, the author aims to set the record straight.     

Why do families actually pool their income? Evidence from Denmark

This paper analyzes income-pooling by using a unique Danish data set that includes questions on income pooling among 1,696 couples. The analyses show that most Danish households use some kind of income pooling and that the proportion of income pooled varies considerably according to individual characteristics (age, education, occupation, past partners, upbringing) and household characteristics (household income, duration of marriage, location of residence and the existence of public goods, including children). However, when all variables are evaluated in a common model, the duration of marriage and the existence of children predominantly affect the likelihood of income pooling.

试论王栋实学致用的经世观

王栋把经世看成是一种"家法"。他的经世家法说实际上是实学思想的反映。王栋十分看重儒学的经世作用。同时王栋主张讲学经世,他认为《论语》《孟子》之书是真正的人情事变切实工夫,是一种经世济用之学。王栋反对悬空论道,强调理论联系实际。他详细分析了历来学者对知行关系的看法,认为知与行两者复杂关系的形成实由于"德性无假于见闻,见闻不离于德性"的交错变化而成的。于是,他对知行的种类作了详细考察,强调"心悟而身体",并把对良知的体悟看成是行的前提和关键。     

Educating for Organizing in U.S. Sociology: A Missing Component in Scholar-Activist Pedagogy1

In this essay, I argue that sociology programs should offer curricular opportunities for undergraduate students to study the actual mechanics of social change in the form of explicit training in the philosophies and practices of community organizing and direct action. That training, I assert, is separate from a content-driven approach to the study of social movements, or the inclusion of community-based research courses. Grounded in an analysis of the roots of the discipline of U.S. sociology as situated in the practice of empirically informed democratic engagement, I shift the focus away from a debate over whether or not critical pedagogy is, or should include, activism. Instead, I focus on the extent to which our students are, in practice, learning concrete organizing skills to change power relations, regardless of the content area or pedagogical style. In doing so, I bring back into the conversation a tradition that the profession seems to have forgotten, and think of ways in which contemporary sociology programs in the United States can better contribute to the advancement of a grassroots, or a humanistic public sociology.     

我国创业投资的发展与合伙企业法的修改

文章首先提出了创业投资由风险投资与产业投资结合而成的观点 ,继而在分析创业投资三种组织形式的基础上 ,提出了有限合伙制度对于创业投资的重要意义。同时 ,在指出现行合伙企业法未规定有限合伙制度对于创业投资的负面影响中 ,建议国家抓紧修改合伙企业法 ,增加有限合伙的内容 ,从而促进创业投资的发展。文章对合伙企业法的修改提出了具体建议     

乡村振兴背景下农村社区组织化的内在张力及其消解

在乡村振兴的背景下,真正需要再造的不仅是地域、行政或物理意义上的“农村社区”,而是具有高度自我组织能力、发展能力和强有力社会功能的“农村社区”。如何让农村社区能够真正运作起来?农村社区组织化在现实中是极为复杂的社会过程,其中内含差异甚至是具有冲突性的组织化逻辑。“为社区工作”还是“与社区工作”,“建立组织庇护”还是“整合个体差异”,“他组织化”还是“自组织化”?为此,可以通过“投资型组织化”这一理念,在比较视野中反思性地讨论农村社区组织化的逻辑平衡和实践优化。