Community Organizing
A Study of BOCA youth community organizing and Youth Summit:
This project, conducted by Dr. Mark Wilson of the Pacific School
of Religion, GTU, uses ethnographic methods to evaluate the successes
and failures of community youth organizing by BOCA, the PICO style
community organizing group known as "Berkeley Organizing Congregations
for Action." Specifically the BOCA youth project seeks to
build relationships across racial and ethnic lines, to organize youth
around their political issues and social concerns, and to create
a vision of the common good using their own cultural language, symbols
and terms. The study hypothesizes that the "relational model" of
PICO style organizing does not adequately address differences of
faith, race, and class that the youth experience. After a number
of focus groups, interviews with youth and organizing leaders, the
project will culminate with a Youth Summit that draws various Euro-,
Asian-, African- American and Latino youth from BOCA's program to
reflect upon the findings, and suggest a new set of strategies and
faith paradigms (beyond "building relationship") that can
make youth organizing more effective.
Project Description
Focus: Challenges to the BUYA Youth Faith Based Community Organizing
Model
Methods: Controlled Ethnographic Study of 4 Racially Diverse Church
Youth Focus Groups. Qualitative Content Analysis
Questions to Focus Groups:
- Draw a picture of your neighborhood
and its relationship to faith, justice and the social good.
- What
are the major social issues and changes in your community and how are
they addressed by the church?
- What religious beliefs
and ideas connect to your understanding of justice, equality and community
organizing?
Resources
