One of my goals in the course is to develop the students' capacity for collective action in relation to their communities or workplaces. Structure and agency are concepts that frame this goal. Structure refers to the ways society is organized economically, politically, and culturally. Agency refers to people's capacity to act in ways that affect their social conditions. These two aspects are in dynamic relationship. Structures (of class, race/ethnicity, gender, etc.) shape the field on which people play out their decisions. Agency enables people to influence the structures.
Students often have a sense and experience of individual agency. Their college studies are such an experience. They know that they are working to improve their chances of a better job. However, many students have little sense and little experience of collective agency - working together with others to improve social conditions in their communities and workplaces.
Urban Sociology is an urban studies course. Thus there are at least two field experiences as part of the course. I focus on community organizations, especially NYC community boards and labor unions, in order to address the community and workplace issues.
In order to communicate to the students that the organizations visited on field trips are only part of a much larger universe of organizations engaged in collective action around a wide range of social issues, I have included a set of links to community and labor organizations.
The Internet links and the Blackboard Discussion Board enable the students to enter and to share the world of social movements, both those movements addressed in the course, and those of their own interests beyond the course. It is one thing to hear a professor speak about social movements in class or to read about them in a textbook. It is another thing to let these movements speak for themselves through their websites and to explore the links that these websites lead to. The Discussion Board enables students to benefit from the research of their classmates, to find students with similar interests and to pursue lines of research of their own.
Activity Overview
This project focuses on "classic" themes and concepts in the field of Urban Sociology which I address in lectures and through assigned readings. The community/workplace organizing project is an opportunity to apply these themes and concepts to students' own situations and to pose the issue of collective agency in social change in cities.
On the first day of class, students receive a three-page handout that I have written entitled: "How to Organize Your Community or Workplace." I explain this model in class and use its categories as an outline for the students' final research report.
In the third week of class, by which time students have been introduced to the concepts of structure and agency, the students receive the assignment of using the links to organizational institutes to research one community organization and one labor union, or labor-related organization such as Jobs with Justice.
To begin the research project, which will culminate in a formal research paper, students choose either a neighborhood community or a workplace, unionized or not. They apply the organizing model cited above to the community or workplace.
Using the categories of the organizing model, the students write a research paper which must be a minimum of five typed pages, plus one page of bibliography including data sources. The content describes the community or workplace, people and place, and a plan, based on the model provided, for organizing there. Students are required to provide statistical demographic data on the community or workplace and to include data gathered by at least two participants from the community or workplace. Each student must write his/her own research paper. If students live in the same neighborhood, they may visit the community board or other organizations together. Students do not do peer-editing, but they work in groups in class periodically to give feedback to each other as they move through the assignment.
The research paper is then shared in groups in class. The class reporting and discussion allows us to immerse the students in the world of community and labor organizations, and to test the model against actual organizations and campaigns.
The activity is assessed in its own right in terms of the completeness of the report (using the key categories of the organizing model; e.g., issues, goals, and sources of power) and in how this activity is integrated into the final research report on a community or labor organization.
Materials and Resources
Community Organization Links
New York City Community Boards http://www.nyc.gov/html/cau/html/cb/cb_main.shtml
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) http://www.acorn.org
Industrial Areas Foundation http://www.industrialareasfoundation.org
New York Citizens Action http://www.citizenactionny.org
New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) http://www.nypirg.org
Jobs with Justice http://www.jwj.org
Labor Organization Links
American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) http://www.aflcio.org
New York State AFL-CIO http://www.nysaflcio.org
New York City Central Labor Council http://www.nycclc.org
American Federation of Teachers http://www.aft.org
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) http://www.seiu.org
Professional Staff Congress -CUNY (PSC-CUNY) http://www.psc-cuny.org