LEARNING LEADERSHIP IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Abstract

The experiences of learning and leadership development within central city communities to support the activities of a social justice movement are the central focus of this phenomenological research investigation. Informants, identified with nominations from the membership represented the diversity of religious ideology, ethnicity, gender and educational achievement of the coalition. In a three-stage interview process, data collected revealed the leaders’ history, activities and meaning perspectives. Learning processes and implementation, the essential inquiry of the investigation, occur within the community of leaders. In the community-based context, learning modalities included active engagement, problem solving, modeling, mentoring, and critical reflection. Opportunities characterized as multicultural and ecumenical engaged the most significant learning. Relationships that endorsed, empowered, and agitated were crucial in the activity of learning. Within the community of learners, action was the prevailing source of new thinking. Most importantly, the meaning leaders attributed to their leadership centered on faith values. Emitting from passionate self-interest, the meaning making ranged among values of faith, social justice, and citizenship. Underpinning the work are faith values for social justice. Among the roots of adult education are social movements and action in the public arena. Evident at the turn of the 20th century were activism and social movements alongside clubs, radio forums, and kitchen meetings. As we enter the 21st century, social responsibility is revisiting the North American sector of the global landscape. Growing numbers of citizens worldwide are participating in nongovernmental and nonpartisan political activity (Wildemersch, Finger, Jansen, 2000). Contemporary studies reveal that citizens are questioning authority, government, and global capitalism (Inglehart, 1999). Increasingly, they are acting on concerns for democracy outside the traditional public spaces available to them. “Social action, community organizing, and new social movements are characteristic of citizen activity in a reclaiming of civil space” (Scott, 2001, p. 1). Undeniably, community organizing is on the rise. The value of social action in urban communities is dependent upon effective leadership that represents the local community and is organizationally sufficient (McGaughey, 1992). A significant source of prospective leaders is faith-based organizations, one of the more stable constituents of the urban context (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993). Within faith-based communities exists the potential to inspire, develop, and sustain leadership capacity (Lincoln and Mamiya, 1990). Adult learning strategies supporting the capacity building energize the renewal of local communities and affect positive change to counter the dramatic and continual shifts of the urban landscape. Leadership learning in central city communities is simultaneously a process and an outcome.