Action Learning for Social Action

Action Learning for Social Action

Author: Mike Pedler

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-11-30

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 9780367500498

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This book is about action learning in the service of social action and social change. The contributors are all engaged in developing new approaches to the wicked problems found in the world today, including the climate emergency, the circular economy, food poverty and insecurity, homelessness, disadvantage, active citizenship, social entrepreneurialism, and the learning of young women abducted by Boko Haram. They reflect a great diversity of settings in South Africa, Australia, Canada, Nigeria, Mozambique, Hungary, Poland and the UK. At this time of global crisis rapid technological and social developments sit side by side with apparently impossible challenges needing urgent action. In the Global South, conflicts, terrorism and climatic changes have forced millions of people to abandon their homes and to migrate in search of food and safety. In the Global North, neo-liberal and market-based policies have pursued deregulation, privatisation and the shrinking of the state with consequent increases in homelessness, poverty and ill-health. Action learning was devised to help people work together in challenging situations to bring about changes from the bottom-up. The people in these stories and cases are not passively awaiting brighter futures but are acting together to create a better world for themselves. They are taking back control in local community regeneration schemes, local energy and housing projects, setting up co-working spaces and inventing new ways of doing business and learning new ways to inhabit the earth. They demonstrate a confidence in an action learning idea that is alive and evolving. The chapters in this book were first published in the journal Action Learning: Research and Practice.


Learning in Social Action

Learning in Social Action

Author: Griff Foley

Publisher:

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 9781862010673

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This book seeks to increase our understanding of those non-educational contexts and informal circumstances in which people learn. Adult educators, Professor Foley argues, ought not to neglect the importance of the incidental learning which can take place, in particular, when people become involved in voluntary organisations, social struggles, and political activity of every kind. In developing the argument that such involvement can provide extraordinarily powerful learning opportunities, he uses case studies from the United States of America, Australia as well as Third World countries - Brazil and Zimbabwe - and embracing very diverse environmental, women's, worker and political struggles. He is particularly interested in how involvement in social action can help people to unlearn dominant, oppressive ideologies and discourses and learn instead oppositional, liberatory ones, even if such processes of emancipatory learning are inevitably complex and contradictory. He relates these processes of informal learning in contested contexts to current thinking in adult education and points the way to a somewhat different, and more radical, agenda in adult education theory and practice. For adult educators, community workers and others working with socially engaged citizens, the insights and lessons of this book ought to be especially useful as they try to develop their own practice in such contexts.


CHANGE!

CHANGE!

Author: Scott Myers-Lipton

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-02-23

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 1000533980

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CHANGE! A Guide to Teaching Social Action is for faculty, staff, and students who are interested in developing a college course or co-curricular experience using social action. Social action occurs when everyday people band together to develop their power in order to change policy. What distinguishes a social action class from other social change courses is that students are actively involved in enacting a policy change of their choice, thus providing students with a first-hand experience of democracy and power. As part of the social action class, students can start a new campaign, keep a campaign going from the previous semester, reactivate a campaign from a previous year, or join a community campaign. The goal of this book is to train the next generation of democratic citizens and participants. The hope is that if teaching social action is mainstreamed in higher education, students will be able to do democracy more effectively, and help to preserve it at the same time. More specifically, the book provides an overview of the history of college social action, explores what needs to be considered before starting a social action class, explains how students choose their campaigns and launch them, and how students plan, implement, and evaluate their campaigns.


Active Learning

Active Learning

Author: Dana E. Wright

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-04-10

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1317588258

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While many educators acknowledge the challenges of a curriculum shaped by test preparation, implementing meaningful new teaching strategies can be difficult. Active Learning presents an examination of innovative, interactive teaching strategies that were successful in engaging urban students who struggled with classroom learning. Drawing on rich ethnographic data, the book proposes participatory action research as a viable approach to teaching and learning that supports the development of multiple literacies in writing, reading, research and oral communication. As Wright argues, in connecting learning to authentic purposes and real world consequences, participatory action research can serve as a model for meaningful urban school reform. After an introduction to the history and demographics of the working-class West Coast neighborhood in which the described PAR project took place, the book discusses the "pedagogy of praxis" method and the project’s successful development of student voice, sociopolitical analysis capacities, leadership skills, empowerment and agency. Topics addressed include an analysis and discussion of the youth-driven PAR process, the reactions of student researchers, and the challenges for adults in maintaining youth and adult partnerships. A thought-provoking response to current educational challenges, Active Learning offers both timely implications for educational reform and recommendations to improve school policies and practices.


Teaching in the Cracks

Teaching in the Cracks

Author: Brian D. Schultz

Publisher: Teachers College Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 127

ISBN-13: 0807775681

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This engaging book shows how teachers and schools are creating emergent, democratic, progressive education amidst the current context of high stakes accountability. In this follow-up to his bestseller, Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way, Schultz explores how today’s rhetoric and restrictive mandates result in curriculum that fails to capture the attention of students. For meaningful learning that develops transferable skills and engages students, teachers and sometimes whole schools need to find spaces to “teach in the cracks” so that students can connect with issues relevant to their lives. Teaching in the Cracks provides both a theoretical and practical foundation for incorporating an action-focused curriculum that meets academic standards and provides students with opportunities for agency and to use their voices in their own learning. “Through compelling examples, Brian Schultz shares how educators can help students use their powers.” —From the Foreword by Deborah Meier, teacher, principal, and advocate “This book is an invitation to rethink teaching from top to bottom, to dive into classroom life as a passionate adventure in discovery and surprise.” —From the Afterword by William Ayers, education activist “For teachers who genuinely seek to make a difference through their work, this book will be a helpful resource.” —Pedro A. Noguera, University of California, Los Angeles


Learning to Teach for Social Justice

Learning to Teach for Social Justice

Author: Linda Darling-Hammond

Publisher:

Published: 2002-01-01

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9780807742082

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In this book, a group of student teachers share their candid questions, concerns, dilemmas, and lessons learned about how to teach for social justice and social change. This text provides powerful examples of how they integrated diversity within a teacher education program--an excellent model for educators who are seeking ways to transform their teacher education programs to better prepare teachers to work effectively in multicultural classrooms.


Writing for a Change

Writing for a Change

Author: National Writing Project

Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Published: 2006-09-25

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13:

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One: exploring student-driven learning and literacy through social action -- Part one: Social action in practice -- Two: Power play / Paula Laub -- Three: lending student voice to curriculum planning / Dietta Poston Hitchcock -- Four: Tthe story of the youth dreamers : in their own words / Mildred Harris, Chantel Morant, Shanta Crippen, Chris Lawson, Chekana Reid, Cierra Cary, Tiffani Young-Smith -- Five: Reflections on the youth dreamers / Kristina Berdan -- Six: Community action in a summer writing institute / Chinwe "La Tanya" Obijiofor -- Seven: Changing our world / Lori Farias, critics of society class -- Eight: Poetry and power in the creative writing workshop / Maggie Folkers -- Nine: Shall we dance? / Connie Ellard Bunch -- Ten: The march on John Philip Sousa / Elizabeth A. Davis -- Eleven: Social action and parent involvement / Mildred Serra -- Part two. Getting started with social action -- Twelve: Learning from social action : reflections on teaching and social action -- Thirteen: Principles for practice : what is social action? / Jennie Fleming, Ian Boulton -- Fourteen: Recommendations for the classroom : before you start / Jennie Fleming, Ian Boulton -- Part three. Stuff you can try : activities for social action -- Metro map -- Naming the group -- Community vocabulary -- Devising the vision -- How we behave in groups -- Movie poster -- Faces -- But why? -- Codes -- Changing your mind -- Sculpts -- The three c's -- Swot -- Ideal specimen -- Force field analysis -- Worst nightmare -- Now/soon/later -- The swimming pool -- Messages -- References -- Resources for further reading


Service-learning and Social Justice

Service-learning and Social Justice

Author: Susan Benigni Cipolle

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1607095181

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This book provides everything administrators and teachers need to build service-learning programs that prepare students as engaged citizens committed to equity and justice. Cipolle describes practical strategies for classroom teachers along with the theoretical framework so readers can deftly move beyond the book to a meaningful program for their schools.


Action Learning for Social Action

Action Learning for Social Action

Author: Mike Pedler

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-17

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 1000286509

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This book is about action learning in the service of social action and social change. The contributors are all engaged in developing new approaches to the wicked problems found in the world today, including the climate emergency, the circular economy, food poverty and insecurity, homelessness, disadvantage, active citizenship, social entrepreneurialism, and the learning of young women abducted by Boko Haram. They reflect a great diversity of settings in South Africa, Australia, Canada, Nigeria, Mozambique, Hungary, Poland and the UK. At this time of global crisis rapid technological and social developments sit side by side with apparently impossible challenges needing urgent action. In the Global South, conflicts, terrorism and climatic changes have forced millions of people to abandon their homes and to migrate in search of food and safety. In the Global North, neo-liberal and market-based policies have pursued deregulation, privatisation and the shrinking of the state with consequent increases in homelessness, poverty and ill-health. Action learning was devised to help people work together in challenging situations to bring about changes from the bottom–up. The people in these stories and cases are not passively awaiting brighter futures but are acting together to create a better world for themselves. They are taking back control in local community regeneration schemes, local energy and housing projects, setting up co-working spaces and inventing new ways of doing business and learning new ways to inhabit the earth. They demonstrate a confidence in an action learning idea that is alive and evolving. The chapters in this book were first published in the journal Action Learning: Research and Practice.