This book is about the work, vision, and passion of dedicated individuals in communities across America, told through their own voices and through photos of them and the places they live. The real-life stories capture the enterprising spirit of people who are bringing about positive change and making their small piece of the world a better place to live. The book transports us to neighborhoods where people are taking risks and overcoming social, personal, and economic differences to improve their local environment and transform their own lives. Eli Reed, Lynn Davis, Sylvia Plachy, Dawoud Bey, and Danny Lyon are among the photographers who contributed to this book. CD included.
Using personal narratives and revealing photographs from a traveling photographic exhibition, this unique book celebrates the contributions of ordinary Americans who are working to improve their communities. 35,000 first printing.
Bill Berkowitz, a Community Psychologist, interviews twenty-two men and women from all over America, men and women who have proven themselves heroes all they've come in contact with. From a Los Angeles bus driver who sings to his passengers to Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, these collected vignettes showcase the stories of individuals who endeavor to improve the lives of others and have dedicated their lives to this task.
Approaching the topic of civic activism on both a national and local level, Your America reveals essential lessons from twelve stories of ordinary citizens accomplishing extraordinary changes in their communities. Like Bill Graham, mayor of tiny Scottsburg, Indiana, who took on the telecommunications giants and wired his town for free wifi; or Katie Redford, a young law student who dusted off the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789 and ended up changing the way American corporations behave overseas. Each profile is the result of a story on Now, the popular PBS show with a viewership of over 21⁄2 million people. For fans of the show, community activists, and the blogosphere, this book provides a blueprint for working together locally to create a better global community.
At the turn of the 20th century, when industrialization, urbanization, and immigration were radically changing the face of America, an activist government was taking root across the nation. Innovative public servants fought to meet the needs of ordinary people who didn't have access to the benefits afforded by wealth and power. From a lonely champion of Native American children in Oklahoma to a postal clerk-turned-police chief in Berkeley, Civic Pioneers: Local Stories from a Changing America, 1895-1915 tells the dramatic tales of how these individuals, both heroic and flawed, shaped the country for generations to come.
This book shows how ordinary Americans imagine their communities and the extent to which their communities' boundaries determine who they believe should benefit from the government's resources via redistributive policies. By contributing extensive empirical analyses to a largely theoretical discussion, it highlights the subjective nature of communities while confronting the elusive task of pinning down 'pictures in people's heads'. A deeper understanding of people's definitions of their communities and how they affect feelings of duties and obligations provides a new lens through which to look at diverse societies and the potential for both civic solidarity and humanitarian aid. This book analyzes three different types of communities and more than eight national surveys. Wong finds that the decision to help only those within certain borders and ignore the needs of those outside rests, to a certain extent, on whether and how people translate their sense of community into obligations.
Compelling black-and-white photographs document the disappearing livelihood of the southern truck farmer in a collection that pays tribute to the dignity of local ways in the face of globalism and urban expansion.
For almost two decades, Community Practice has been a definitive text for social workers, community practitioners, and students eager to help individuals contribute to and use community resources or work to change oppressive community structures. In this third edition, a wealth of new charts and cases spotlight the linkages between theoretical orientations and practical skills, with an enhanced emphasis on the inherently political nature of social work and community practice. Boxes, examples, and exercises illustrate the range of skills and strategies available to savvy community practitioners in the 21st century, including networking, marketing and staging, political advocacy, and leveraging information and communication technologies. Other features include: - New material on community practice ethics, critical practice skills, community assessment and assets inventory and mapping, social problem analysis, and applying community ractice skills to casework practice - Consideration of post-9/11 community challenges - Discussion on the changing ethnic composition of America and what this means for practitioners - An exploration of a vastly changed political landscape following the election of President Obama, the Great Recession, the rise of the Tea Party, and the increasing political and corporate use of pseudo-grassroots endeavors - A completely revamped instructor's manual available online at www.oup.com/us/communitypractice This fully revised classic text provides a comprehensive and integrated overview of the community theory and skills fundamental to all areas of social work practice. Broad in scope and intensive in analysis, it is suitable for undergraduate as well as graduate study. Community Practice offers students and practitioners the tools necessary to promote the welfare of individuals and communities by tapping into the ecological foundations of community and social work practice.
