Streetwise for Book Smarts: Grassroots Organizing and Education Reform in the Bronx Book

This book is an important addition to the community organizing and grassroots social change literature, and an incredibly useful tool for practitioners interested in more critical self-reflection. Moving beyond strict structural explanations, Streetwise offers a clear and compelling look at comparitive organizational cultures of four Bronx social change organizations (SCOs) as a way to understand their values, visions, and, to a degree, their results. Celina Su strikes a nice balance between recognizing complexity and nuance within organizations (groups discussed do not neatly map onto categories 100% or mirror each other in methods and choices) and also offering a useful rubric through which to view and analyze SCOs.
Those familiar with grassroots organizing theory will recognize Su´s classification of groups as either Alinskyite or Freirean. Those not, however, need not worry, as the respective tool kits attributed to each model are laid out quite clearly in the first chapter.
Su clearly shows that SCOs are not monolithic one-size-fits-all entities, and change is neither inevitable nor impossible. In paying attention to everyday decisions, multiple outlets of power and agency, group philosophies and value sets, and (both expected and unexpected) results, Su offers us the chance to more critically and contextually understand SCO actions and outcomes.
I really loved reading the case studies.
A great contribution!