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Online Notes
Streetwise for
Book Smarts
Requires:
Adobe Reader
In the 2003-2004
school year,
Bronx high
schools reeled
from a series of
stabbings. In
response,
several
education
organizing
groups cited the
need for
additional
safety patrol;
others asserted
that not all
existing safety
patrol officers
were treating
students
humanely, thus
exacerbating
tensions within
the schools. In
effect, the
organizations
and school
officials
battled over who
was to blame for
the school
violence.
Depending on how
groups framed
the incidents,
members
mobilized to
propose very
different
political
campaigns.
While
these education
organizing
groups had
similar goals
and worked in
the same
political
context, they
frequently
employed
divergent
political
strategies in
their campaigns.
My talk will
draw upon 18
months of
ethnographic
research I
conducted with
four education
organizing
groups in the
South Bronx. It
will focus on
the ways in
which the
groups'
organizational
toolkits made a
difference, and
how grassroots
organizations
can work more
effectively
towards
substantive
social change.
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