Mark R. Warren
Professor, Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs, University of Massachusetts Boston
Areas of Expertise:
- Civic Engagement
- School Reform
Connect with Mark
About Mark
Warren is a sociologist concerned with the revitalization of American democratic and community life. He is a leading expert in the study of contemporary community organizing. Warren studies efforts to strengthen institutions that anchor low-income communities – public schools, religious congregations and other community-based organizations – and to build broad-based alliances among these institutions and across race and social class. He undertakes collaborative research with community-based organizations in order to identify models for school-community collaborations that can integrate education reform with community development initiatives.
Briefs
The Promise of Community Organizing for School Reform
SSN Key Findings,
Podcast
Publications
"Transforming Public Education: The Need for an Educational Justice Movement" New England Journal of Public Policy 26, no. 1 (2014).
Argues that a social movement that creates political and cultural change is necessary to transform the racial inequities in public education and to connect this transformational effort to a larger movement to combat poverty and racism. Discusses how the seeds of a new educational justice movement can be found in the rise of community and youth organizing efforts, in the development of teacher activism, and in the recent creation of new alliances at local, state, and national levels like those combating the school-to-prison pipeline.
Dry Bones Rattling: Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2001).
Identifies effective strategies to rebuild social capital and democratic life in low-income communities. Through a study of modern community organizing efforts, it shows how religious institutions have become engaged in initiatives to build affordable housing, create job opportunities, improve public education and build a cross-class and cross-racial progressive alliance that addresses the needs of poor and working families.
"Communities and Schools: A New View of Urban Education Reform" Harvard Educational Review, Summer 75 (2005): 133-173.
Identifies and analyzes promising models for how public schools can work together with community-based organizations in low-income communities to develop integrated strategies that combine education reform with community development. This approach creates policies and practices that address all of the factors – like housing, health, and safety – that affect the ability of children to learn and grow in schools.
"How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice" Poverty & Race Research Action Council Newsletter, Nov/Dec 19 (2010): 1-2, 10-13.
Offers a concise summary of the author’s research findings on how white Americans come to support racial justice not just because it is the right thing to do but because they embrace the cause as their own and as critical to the well-being of all Americans.
"Community Organizing for Education Reform" in Public Engagement for Public Education: Joining Forces to Revitalize Democracy and Equalize Schools, edited by Marion Orr and John Rogers (Stanford University Press, 2010), 139-172.
Provides a comprehensive overview of the growth and development of the field of community organizing for school reform. It reviews the diversity of ways organizing groups build the participation of parents and young people to improve quality and increase equity in public education and considers that challenges the field faces in bringing organized communities to the center of school reform efforts.
Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Shows the processes that influence white Americans to become activists for racial justice -- not just because it is the right thing to do but because they embrace the cause as their own. Drawing from interviews with fifty white activists, the book shows how white activists come to find common cause with people of color when their core values are engaged, as they build relationships with people of color that lead to caring, and when they develop a vision of a racially just future that they understand to benefit everyone – themselves, other whites, and people of color.
A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform (with ) (Oxford University Press, 2011).
Shows the vital contributions that organized parents and young people are making to school reform through participation in community organizing efforts. The book demonstrates the limitations of reform efforts that are imposed from the top. It draws from rich descriptions of organizing efforts to show the ways that grassroots organizing groups are building the power to increase equity in public education and creating collaborations with educators to improve schools in our most distressed communities.
In the News
Guest to discuss Education Reform Through Community Action on Washington Post Blog, Mark R. Warren, November 29, 2011.
"The Critical Role of Community Organizing in Effective School Reform," Mark R. Warren, Interview with Leonard Lopate, Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC, December 14, 2011.