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 — Maintaining Momentum
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 — Social Action Campus 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
Discussion
It is key that you understand the difference between Campaign Activity and Actions:
- Campaign Activities: building power by fliering, tabling, giving presentations to other student orgs and community groups, etc.
- Campaign Actions: public displays of the students' power, which puts pressure on a target through a march, rally/press conference, lobbying day, street theater, occupying a space, target meeting, etc.
The Campaign Activities and Actions have an order to them. Please take note of the order that I have placed them in during my Sociology 164: Social Action class, as you will have to figure out what order to put them in. A general rule is that your students will do about 20 campaign activities, which will take them about 8-10 weeks to do, to prepare them for the first campaign action.
As you will see, there are many campaign activities tied to issue development (i.e., demands and a target), (2) building power, (3) tactics, and (4) campaign launch & implementation. In Sections 3A-J, please take note how I place on the Mural Board the various campaign activities they must take each week in order to get to a campaign action. For me, the goal is to get every group to do at least one campaign action.
Notice in Sociology: 164: Social Action, I have front-loaded the action. As you probably have heard, Bobby Hackett, President of the Bonner Foundation, and I have a saying that guides the social action teaching philosophy: On Your Mark, GO, Get Set. Front loading action guarantees students the opportunity TO DO action, rather than just talk about change. It also makes sure that they have time to do a campaign action.
In addition, the Sociology 164: Social Action class goes back and forth between campaign activities/actions and reflection. This makes sure you don't don’t overwhelm the students with campaign activities/actions. For example, after the students choose campaigns, they then "Set the Tone", which doesn't have too many campaign activities, and allows them to continue the variety of activities they have for Issue Development. The same is true for Research, which follows Building Power, a section which has a lot of campaign activities connected to it. Also, by doing Research at this time, makes students inspired to find the answer, since they realize they need more depth after tabling during the Building Power section.
This back and forth between campaign activities/actions and reflection is in-line with Paolo Freire's idea of integrating acting and reflection. Remember, Freire stated, "Critical reflection on practice is a requirement of the relationship between theory and practice. Otherwise theory becomes simply "blah, blah, blah, "and practice, pure activism."
Here is the class flow for Sociology 164 - Social Action:
Here is the class for a one semester course using the Soci. 164 model, as well as what the model would look like over a two-semester, Co-Curricular Workshop Series.
Based on this framework, below is an overview of the entire Sociology 164: Social Action course, showing the flow between campaign activities & actions:
In addition, below is an overview of the entire Sociology 164: Social Action course, with all of the class topics, campaign activities & actions, readings, assignments, and class structure included:
In Chapter 3 and 4, each step of the Students for Filipino Farmworkers campaign will be presented at the end of each section under CAMPAIGN CASE STUDY. Here is what each stage of their campaign looks like in one image:
