Grassroots Social Action: Lessons in People Power Movements

(Paperback)

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With the ever-expanding boom of grassroots organizations and their growing importance for public policy, many organizations have been forced to rethink the effects of social, economic, and political disparities in society. This collection of essential essays and case studies will help activists, researchers, and students engage in this process of reevaluation and strategizing.

Grassroots Social Action explores power negotiations and examines effective and ineffective community actions from the bottom up. Willie and his colleagues focus on the influence of common people in relation to hierarchical forms of social order. Paying special attention to nine case studies, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the chapters show the complementary relationship between dominant and subdominant people in public policymaking.

Grassroots Social Action offers a critical and empowering assessment of how change occurs in communities.

Reviews

In this captivating set of studies, Willie, Willard, and Ridini, present a full-blown picture of effective and ineffective grassroots social actions with real-life case studies. Grassroots Social Action characterizes these movements as being in solidarity with organizations and causes outside of their specific communities. We learn what's happening at the core of grassroots movements, and the importance of legitimization and implementation as concepts for measuring outcomes. -- James A. Hefner, president professor emeritus, holder of the Thomas and Patricia Frist Chair of Entrepreneurship, Tennessee State University, Nas
This politically rich and educationally sound collection illuminates how social conditions and practices affect grassroots movements. With valuable insights from case studies, including the authors' thoughtful reflections, Grassroots Social Action makes a well-defined contribution to the scholarship the discipline. -- Caroline Hodges Persell, professor of Sociology, New York University, and author of Understanding Society: An Introduction to Sociology, Second Edition
Willie's introduction and commentary on the essays is valuable to understanding how the case studies fit his conceptual framework of grassroots movements. -- 2008 * Choice Reviews *

Author Bio

Charles V. Willie is Charles W. Eliot Professor of Education Emeritus, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University

David A. Willard is a doctoral student in Administrative Planning and Social Policy at Harvard University

Steven P. Ridini is vice president of programs at The Medical Foundation