ACTIVISM BEYOND THE CLASSROOM (ABC) invites you to engage in participatory inquiry and public scholarship related to grassroots activism around education and social justice, in collaboration with Philadelphia community activists and one another. Together, we will explore how to form the coalition(s), theory, and praxes necessary to transform social conditions. In the first part of the course, we critically examine theories of power, resistance, and liberatory transformation to share knowledges and a build a critical vocabulary with which we will investigate the contested rhetorical and political terrain of our present moment. The notion of praxis, a guiding principle of the course, signals the processes through which “theory” is both embodied and realized. As such, in the second part of the course, we will experiment with how theory can be brought to bear on contemporary struggles around education—and, conversely, how the practices of activism can inform our learning, scholarship, and pedagogies. ABC is an Academically Based Community Service course supported by the Netter Center for Community Partnerships.
Our work will crosscut three areas: (1) inquiry-based working groups, (2) community engagements, and (3) public forms of scholarship, including a class podcast, opinion essays, and a course website located at: www.activismbeyondtheclassroom.com.
WORKING GROUPS
ABC working groups function as micro learning communities formed in collaboration with community partners to: engage in collective inquiry and action, develop teaching and learning practices, and produce public scholarship in chosen areas of exploration. Each working group will develop a working group syllabus and a podcast episode which, in addition to content added to the course website, will introduce the topic to a wider audience.
For the Fall 2019 iteration of the course, established community partnerships invite collective inquiry in the areas of: teacher unionism and organizing; youth and student organizing; and, processes of gentrification and cultural erasure in Philadelphia communities. Previous inquiry areas (archived on the course website) have included: mass incarceration, gender, educational disparities, schools as sites of empowerment; Penn-West Philadelphia community relations; queer theory and education; Black and Brown activism in higher education; and critical pedagogies.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENTS
Apart from the ethic and praxis of community partnership (described below), students are asked to observe or (when possible) participate in a local community action around an issue of their choosing (e.g., related to working group inquiries or individual interests), and write a short reflection on the experience to be shared on the course website. Examples of past community engagements have included: neighborhood association meetings, community or student organization meetings, political demonstrations, teach-ins, etc. I strongly encourage you to venture beyond the campus. As a class, we will share information about community engagement opportunities.
PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP
In addition to intellectually engaging issues of public significance to the field of education, a major objective of the course is for class participants to explore approaches to public scholarship. With the availability of social media and online/open-access publishing, there are more opportunities than ever for researchers to help shape public as well as academic discourses. Yet, graduate training rarely provides avenues for students to cultivate a more “public” voice around their fields of expertise— or, to grapple with the risks public scholarship presents in today’s political climate. To this end, in addition to the class podcast, students will also author an op-ed article related to their working group or individual interests. Examples from previous students are available on the course website.
ABCS Course and Development
The third iteration of Activism Beyond the Classroom enlisted the support of the Netter Center in expanding the course’s reach and capacity. Dr. Strong received an ABCS course development grant for the Fall of 2019 to deepen the course’s collaboration with partner organizations engaged in community advocacy and inquiry. Additionally, this expands the course’s offering to undergraduates.