3B — Go! Students Choose Their Issue

Introduction

Chapter 1 — Overview

A — Social Action's Role in U.S. Experiment in Democracy B — US College Social Action C — Benefits of Social Action for Students, Campuses, and Society D — The Vision: Bringing Social Action into the Classroom E — Overcoming Challenges of Teaching Social Action

Chapter 2 — Developing a Social Action Class

A — Academic Course vs Co-Curricular & B — Prerequisites  C — Creating a Social Action Syllabus D — Teaching Style & E — Classroom Norms F — The Students G — Building Campus Allies and Community Partners H —The Role of Place & I —Each Semester vs Every Year (or Other Year) J — Using Mural Board (option)

Chapter 3 — Launching Student Campaigns

A — On Your Mark: Preparing Students for the Road Ahead B — Go! Students Choose Their Issue C — Get Set: Setting the Tone D — Change Theory E — Building Power F — Walking Tour G — Research: Historical Overview, Power Mapping, & Target Analysis H — Group Dynamics I — Strategy & Tactics J — Campaign Kickoff

Chapter 4 — Campaign Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation

A — Timeline & Campaign Plan B — Campaign Implementation: "Series of Actions" Begins C — Campaign Execution & Case Studies D — Campaign Evaluation E — Day of the Final: Campaign Notebook & Group Presentation

Chapter 5 — Where to Go From Here

A — Next Semester B — Mainstreaming Social Action C — Social Action Internship Program D — Pipeline to Jobs & Graduate School E — Status of Current Campaigns F — Impact of Social Action on Former Social Action Students

Read CHANGE! A Guide to Teaching Social Action

• Chapter 3B Go!: Students Choose Their Issue (p.56-68)

Sociology 164: Social Action assignment

Discussion

As they are choosing their campaigns, I remind them that choosing a campaign is their choice. The campaign they choose to work on may come from a liberal, conservative, social democrat, or libertarian perspective…or it may have no ideology. I tell them I am not promoting a political ideology; whatever campaign they choose to do is totally up to them. Thus, there is no political indoctrination, as students develop and choose what campaigns to work on, and can change campaigns at any point in the semester.

My role is to teach them about democracy, power, and how to bring about change. Furthermore, my role is to offer guidance about strategy and tactics, and to help students consider the variety of options available, with the students deciding on how to best move forward.

Switching Groups

Campaign Case Study

In Spring 2023, a group of students in the Sociology 164: Social Action class chose to continue a previous San José State University student social action campaign. After class on Day 4, Kayla came up to me and said that she was really passionate about working on the Asian American Arts and Action campaign from the fall of 2021 that was working to get a monument to the Filipino Farmworkers erected next to the Cesar Chavez monument on campus, since it focused on only Mexican American farmworkers. Cesar had started his organizing in San José near campus after a group of SJSU Sociology students had connected Fred Ross, an Alinsky-trained community organizer, to him in 1952. Cesar visited the SJSU campus regularly in his early organizing and the Chavez family had several young people attend SJSU.

Kayla had read about the Asian American Arts and Action campaign when I passed out the Binders on Day 2, and as a Filipina, she was drawn to this campaign. However, she was nervous about putting her idea forward to "re-activate" the campaign. In addition to her self-doubt, she also was resigned to the fact that we have just finished Day 4 of the class, and most of the campaigns had already been decided up. I told her that she should DEFINITELY make a pitch to the class at the beginning of Day 5. I also told her that in these days of the class, the groups are quite fluid, and students are encouraged to change groups if they feel more passionate about an issue than another group is working on. She took, my advice, and pitched the idea to re-activate the campaign for a statue. After Kayla's pitch, eight students from other groups, as well as a few undecided folks, joined her, where they created "Students for Filipino Farmerworkers: Justicie for Itliong and Manongs". 

There were nine students leading this campaign were Antonio, Ajamu, Kayla, Jeralyn, Raymond, Fabiola, Lenny, Megan, and Viet.

Course Development Reflection Questions

• Which of the best practices discussed from the text (Ch 2B) and the above video clips might you adopt in your class? What other best practices do you know and might use to help your students choose an issue?
• In Soci. 164: the general policy is that a campaign must be non-violent and it cannot violate the UN Declaration of Human Rights. In your class, what will be your class policy for your class, or will you handle this case by case? Is there a social action campaign that you would not allow your students to choose in your class? (e.g., a constitutional amendment to overturn Brown v. Board of Education proposed by an alt-right group.) This type of campaign has never been proposed by any students, but it is a good thought experiment to carry out to figure out what lines, if any, should be drawn and where to draw them.