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Streetwise for Book Smarts: Grassroots Organizing and Education Reform in the Bronx, by Celina Su. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009. 246pp. $22.95 paper. ISBN: 9780801475580.
In this new book on community-based organizations working to create social change, Celina Su seeks to explain why such organizations choose the tactics and strategies they do, and what that means for organizational success. Her analysis is based on case studies of four organizations of approximately the same size (small), located in the same place (the South Bronx), and pursuing the same goal (public education reform). While acknowledging that standard theories of resource availability and political opportunity provide some insight into the case study organizations' inner workings, Su argues that such explanations are insufficient, especially if we are to understand how organizations might become more effective agents of social change. She points instead to the importance of understanding the role of organizational culture, which, she says, both deeply informs organizational action and serves as the primary platform from which organization members exercise agency.
As Su is well aware, the concept of "culture" has long been a sticky one in social analysis. She thus relies on Ann Swidler's well-known definition of culture as a "tool kit" (Swidler 1986). In the first chapter of the book, Su presents two basic "tool kit" categories that will guide the organizational analysis presented subsequently: one is based on ideas associated with legendary community organizer Saul Alinsky (the "Alinskyite tool kit"), while the other draws on the work of renowned popular education advocate Paulo Freire (the "Freirean tool kit"). The two tool kits differ in three key practices: the emphasis of organizational activities, the target of organizational work, and the nature of the relationship between paid staff organizers and volunteer members. According to Su, the Alinskyite tool kit emphasizes activities...