{"id":186,"date":"2017-05-15T05:54:23","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T09:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-egraumli\/?page_id=186"},"modified":"2017-05-15T10:24:37","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T14:24:37","slug":"directory-of-organizations","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-egraumli\/directory-of-organizations\/","title":{"rendered":"Synthesis of Organizing Efforts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trends in Grassroots Adult Literacy Organizing<\/h3>\n

The organizations highlighted below are meant to showcase\u00a0the\u00a0variety\u00a0that exists among\u00a0grassroots adult literacy programs. They range between emerging literacy initiatives\u2014such as that\u00a0at Dog Ears Bookstore\u2014and more highly-developed non-profits formed out of mergers between smaller organizations\u2014such as Literacy Connects. Some serve very specific populations while other exist within organizations that have\u00a0missions extending beyond literacy alone.<\/p>\n

Though grassroots organizing in adult literacy\u00a0does exist, it is minimal. Much funding for adult and family literacy\u00a0is top-down in\u00a0nature (ex. Head Start<\/a>, Division of Adult Education and Literacy<\/a>, LINCS Learner Center<\/a>), as the U.S. government has a direct stake in this issue:\u00a0literate adults support the economy and, thus, it is in the interest of the government to ensure that adults are literate at least at a basic level. The\u00a0government has less of a stake, however, in the literacy of\u00a0non-citizen populations. For this reason, much of the grassroots organizing in adult ed is done around specific ethnic or national populations.<\/p>\n

Grassroots adult literacy organizations commonly partner with churches, community centers\u00a0and libraries, both for the learning spaces and\u00a0resources\u00a0that these institutions provide, but also as a means to\u00a0better gauge community need. Oftentimes, these institutions (particularly public libraries) are able to connect the organizations with government funds\u00a0that allow them to grow. Their grassroots origins, however, usually allow them to stay grassroots in nature;\u00a0the grants generally do not raise conflicts of interests\u00a0and\u00a0the organizations are still responding to and serving a specific need in their local\u00a0community that has been voiced by community members themselves.<\/p>\n

Though many\u00a0adult literacy programs are part of larger, family literacy initiatives which do highlight the role of the whole family in a child’s academic success, there is little marketing from\u00a0these programs surrounding the role of adult literacy specifically in improving student outcomes. This may be due to a number of factors, including budget constraints, specific goals within the programs or, in some cases, a lack of awareness of this effect.<\/p>\n

\n

Grassroots vs. Astroturf: What Counts as a Grassroots Organization?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Source: Creative Commons. (2014, July 8). [Piece of Astroturf on Grass]. Retrieved May 15, 2017, from http:\/\/newsroom.ucla.edu\/stories\/whats-the-difference-between-political-grassroots-and-big-interest-astroturf<\/p><\/div>The listed\u00a0grassroots\u00a0organizations have grown out of conversations between community members who seek\u00a0to address demonstrated community needs\u00a0by harnessing their individual power as citizens. While some of the organizations chosen are and remain\u00a0highly localized, others have grown\u2014sometimes merging with other organizations or seeking\u00a0outside funding sources. Despite growth, these\u00a0organizations have remained loyal to\u00a0their grassroots origins. For example, despite being “one of the largest non-profit refugee and immigrant service providers in the Puget Sound area,”\u00a0the Refugee Women’s Alliance, founded in 1985 by a small group of successfully-settled women refugees, continues to hire a staff composed primarily of refugees and immigrants and serves only local\u00a0communities (Refugee Women\u2019s Alliance). I have been mindful to exclude\u00a0organizations that began\u00a0as grassroots but have since became astroturf. According to Joanne Barkan (2012), in an article for Dissent Magazine<\/a>, “astroturfing is political activity designed to appear unsolicited, autonomous, and community-rooted without actually being so.”<\/p>\n

References:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Barkan, J. (2012, Spring). Hired Guns on Astroturf: How to Buy and Sell School Reform. Retrieved May 15, 2017, from https:\/\/www.dissentmagazine.org\/article\/hired-guns-on-astroturfhow-to-buy-and-sell-school-reform<\/p>\n

Refugee Women\u2019s Alliance. (n.d.). Mission and History. Retrieved May 15, 2017, from https:\/\/www.rewa.org\/about-rewa\/history-and-mission\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trends in Grassroots Adult Literacy Organizing The organizations highlighted below are meant to showcase\u00a0the\u00a0variety\u00a0that exists among\u00a0grassroots adult literacy programs. They range between emerging literacy initiatives\u2014such as that\u00a0at Dog Ears Bookstore\u2014and more highly-developed non-profits formed out of mergers between smaller organizations\u2014such as Literacy Connects. Some serve very specific populations while other exist within organizations that have\u00a0missions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":450,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-186","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-egraumli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-egraumli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-egraumli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-egraumli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/450"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-egraumli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-egraumli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/education-2272-spring-2017-egraumli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}