Narrative change for health equity in grassroots community organizing: A study of initiatives in Michigan and Ohio.

To achieve health equity, there is a need to act on the social determinants of health. This reality is now understood more widely, and in greater detail, than ever. Amid this movement toward health equity, there has been a natural gravitation to community organizing, which has long worked to produce more equitable systems and policies. Community organizing builds power through cycles of listening, participatory research, collective action, and reflection. One manifestation of this power is that organizing initiatives can often influence which issues are up for public debate, and the terms of those debates. This dimension of community power is often described by practitioners as narrative change work, and involves intervening on, complicating, and resisting dominant societal narratives that hinder action on the systems that perpetuate inequity. This article reports results from a study of organizing initiatives in Detroit, MI and Cincinnati, OH which both engaged in intentional narrative change work around health and health equity. We analyzed data from interviews with 35 key leaders across both cities. Results describe the organizational processes and activities taking place in both sites, with an emphasis on one issue in each city: educational equity in Cincinnati and water equity in Detroit. We then use coded interview data to examine how narrative change work took place in organizing around these issues during the COVID-19 pandemic, a challenging time for organizing initiatives. Results provide insights into adaptations taking place in community organizing during this time, as well as various approaches to narrative change work as part of holistic efforts to build and exercise community power to alter social determinants of health.

Locating longitudinal study participants 10 years after last contact: Contemporary approaches to sample retention.

AIMS: Despite their advantages, longitudinal studies often face high rates of attrition. This study documents the extensive efforts associated with retaining a longitudinal cohort last contacted 10 years earlier. METHOD: We examine the processes and outcomes of attempts to reach 1736 individuals who have been part of a multiwave study about growing up in Ontario, Canada. Contact methods include email, phone, text, social media, postal mail, announcements in newspapers, subway stations, and music streaming services. RESULTS: Challenges included a lack of consistent annual communication with participants, children moving out of the parental home, and changes in email addresses and phone numbers. The most effective contact method was phone; text messages and friend referrals were the least effective. Overall, 41.5% of the original sample was reached. Locating former research participants years later necessitated multiple and repeated contact attempts, and intensive human resources. CONCLUSION: Ten lessons for effective sample retention are discussed. In summary, reducing attrition depends on a comprehensive study design and an organized and flexible protocol that adapts to a study's ever-changing needs.

Persistence of a youth organizing initiative: Cultivating and sustaining a leadership development ecosystem.

Youth organizing can generate tangible improvements in community conditions and institutions while simultaneously promoting positive development among participants and contributing to broader movements for social change. Yet, organizing initiatives must navigate an array of challenges as they seek to continuously engage new leaders to build on the accomplishments of their predecessors who are aging out of youth organizing. This study examines the leadership development ecosystem enabling an exemplary youth organizing initiative to persist, expand, and enhance its impact over 15 years. Analyses of interviews with 19 adolescent and young adult participants reveal that engagement often begins before high school and continues long afterward, with more established older leaders playing a variety of roles to engage younger participants and support their development as leaders. Findings suggest practical strategies that can enhance the sustainability of these initiatives, which are key to the development and exercise of youth power for social justice.

Pathways to Well-being among LGBT adults: Sociopolitical Involvement, Family Support, Outness, and Community Connectedness with Race/Ethnicity as a Moderator.

People who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender (LGBT) experience disparate levels of psychological distress due to marginalization, yet there are also opportunities for community connectedness and sociopolitical involvement in identify-specific issues and organizations, which may improve psychological well-being. This study contributes to intersectional research on LGBT psychological well-being by locating LGBT community connectedness as a mediator of the associations between well-being and (a) LGBT sociopolitical involvement and (b) being out as LGBT among a sample of predominately LGBT-identified adults in the United States and Puerto Rico (n = 4940) across four racial/ethnic identity groups: non-Hispanic Black, Latinx/Hispanic, non-Hispanic White, and other races/ethnicities. Analyses revealed that separate models were operating across racial/ethnic identity groups. Path analysis further showed that LGBT community connectedness mediated (either partially or fully) the effects of both LGBT sociopolitical involvement and outness on well-being. Direct effects on well-being were also found for family support across all groups and for outness only among the non-Hispanic White and other races/ethnicities groups. Community leaders and practitioners should seek to create opportunities for LGBT sociopolitical involvement and other activities that may facilitate feeling connected to LGBT community as part of efforts to promote LGBT well-being.

Community organizing: Studying the development and exercise of grassroots power.

There is now wide recognition that grassroots community organizing is a uniquely necessary approach for contending with the persistent and escalating socioeconomic inequities that manifest as disparities across many societal domains, including housing, safety, education, and mental and physical health. The articles in this special issue report findings from studies designed to increase understanding of community organizing processes and produce actionable knowledge that can enhance these and other similar efforts to create more equitable and just cities and regions. These studies examine a variety of community organizing campaigns, initiatives, and networks in North America, as well as one in Bulgaria, and one in South Africa. These groups are building social power and demanding economic, racial, educational, and environmental justice. In this introductory article, we highlight some of the themes that emerge from this set of studies and make recommendations for future roles that research can play in advancing collective understanding and the practical objectives of grassroots organizing initiatives.

Transformation to leadership: Learning about self, the community, the organization, and the system.

Leadership development is an important practice in community organizing. Although this importance is often acknowledged, relatively little scholarship details how leadership development is actually executed, or how concepts of leadership development are applied in organizing practice. This study reports on a thesis conducted by a community organizer utilizing a critical reflexive methodology. Eight active leaders from a community organizing effort in New Orleans, LA were interviewed about their interpretations of their own development as leaders. Leadership development as experienced by leaders is supplemented with observations from the organizer working with these leaders, providing triangulation on developmental processes in practice. Findings demonstrate the potential for transformation among community residents as they work to build collective power for social change.

Participation in community organizing: Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of impacts on sociopolitical development.

This article reports cross-sectional (Study 1) and longitudinal (Study 2) results from analyses of civic behaviors and attitudes among two groups: participants in grassroots community organizing in five US cities and a geographically balanced sample of their neighbors, many of whom were participating with other types of voluntary organizations (e.g., neighborhood-based or school-based groups). This analytic approach allowed for tests of differences between groups, differences within groups over time, and interactions between groups and time on indicators of sociopolitical development including civic behaviors, psychological sense of community, and the emotional and cognitive components of psychological empowerment. Results showed that community organizing, as a particular type of mediating institution, cultivates sociopolitical development by elevating psychological empowerment and civic engagement over time.

Building power through reindigenization: Sharing the story of Menikanaehkem.

Culture shapes and animates how community organizing is understood and carried out in specific contexts. Many frameworks for examining organizing, however, do not effectively attend to the influences of culture. Greater understanding of how culture can be imbued in organizing can help to ground it in the social realities of organizing participants and can advance approaches to organizing that honor the past and present of specific cultures. This study details local culturally grounded community organizing work rooted in Indigenous, and specifically Menominee, culture. First, it provides a description of the formation of the organization Menikanaehkem in the Menominee Nation and includes examples of how current organizing practices of Menikanaehkem build from long-standing Menominee cultural practices. It then highlights the reinvigoration of cultural practices, or re-indigenization, as an important goal for community power building in Menikanaehkem. It ends with a discussion of the importance of culture in frameworks for understanding, analyzing, and promoting organizing as an endeavor to advance well-being in a way that also interrupts cycles of structural oppression, such as legacies of settler colonialism.

Ultrasociality and Intersubjectivity.

Multidisciplinary studies of evolution are pointing toward an intersubjective understanding of human cognition, belief, and behavior. Contrary to classical views of reason and knowledge, human mental capacity should not be thought of as an individually based tool for independent judgment and logical problem-solving. Instead, key aspects of learning and cognition were likely shaped to facilitate our species' greatest relative advantage from the standpoint of natural selection: large-scale collaboration. Much of what appears to be faulty reasoning or inaccurate belief when viewed at the level of individuals makes more sense when considered in terms of intersubjectivity and group-level processes. Yet, distributed cognition also has shortcomings. Among these is, paradoxically, the propensity toward individualistic understandings of human thinking and behavior. Moreover, our intersubjective thought processes tend to be biased in favor of our in-groups and maintaining existing systems. Taken together, these premises correspond with some of the theoretical underpinnings of community research and social action. Yet, they challenge or complicate others. Further consideration of humans' intersubjective cognition and learning may yield improved results in a variety of practices, including education and efforts to catalyze social and systemic changes.

Youth Cognitive Empowerment: Development and Evaluation of an Instrument.

Psychological empowerment (PE) is a multicomponent construct that involves the mechanisms through which people and groups gain control over their lives and environments. Psychological empowerment has previously been operationalized using measures of sociopolitical control among young people, with findings indicating links between PE and other positive developmental outcomes. Sociopolitical control, however, is only an indicator for the emotional component of PE. Research has largely neglected the cognitive component of PE, particularly in studies of younger people. In fact, few studies to date have presented and empirically tested measurement instruments for the cognitive component of PE among youth. In this study, we adapted a measure, which previously had been validated and used among adults, for use among young people and tested it in a sample of high school students (53% female, 75% Hispanic) in an urban school in the northeastern U.S. Confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the hypothesized three-factor structure of cognitive empowerment, and the measure was examined for association with the construct of social justice orientation. Results indicate an adequate fit for the second-order factor, and an expected relationship with the related construct.

Critical Hopefulness Among Urban High School Students.

Psychological empowerment encompasses several key aspects of youth civic and sociopolitical development. Most research has focused on psychological empowerment's emotional component, which entails learned hopefulness about one's own ability to participate in and lead community change efforts. Fewer studies have assessed critical awareness of how social power operates-psychological empowerment's cognitive component. The confluence of these two components has been termed critical hopefulness. A complex relationship exists between these two components, and previous research has found relatively small proportions of participants reporting both high levels of critical awareness and simultaneously high levels of hopefulness about their ability to exert influence in the sociopolitical domain. The current study of urban high school students in the Northeastern U.S. (n = 389; 53.5% female) investigates heterogeneity according to these two components of psychological empowerment. Latent class cluster analyses were conducted and seven distinct groups of participants emerged. Students identifying as Hispanic/Latinx were more likely to be classified into a profile group exhibiting critical hopefulness. Differences were observed between psychological empowerment profile groups on self-reported levels of psychological sense of community, civic engagement, and social justice orientation. Furthermore, a larger proportion of this overall sample was classified into groups that exhibited critical hopefulness than in a previous study of adults. These findings provide useful insights for efforts to engage young people in civic life and to promote sociopolitical development.

Assessing Community Participation: Comparing Self-Reported Participation Data with Organizational Attendance Records.

How well do self-reported levels of community and organizational participation align with recorded acts of community and organizational participation? This study explores this question among participants in social action community organizing initiatives by comparing responses on a community participation scale designed to retrospectively assess community participation (T1, n = 482; T2, n = 220) with individual participants' attendance records in various social action organizing activities over two 1-year periods. By testing the self-reported measure's overall and item-by-item association with documented participation in various types of organizing activities, we find that the self-report measure is positively, but weakly correlated with actual participation levels in community organizing activities. Moreover, associations between self-report and recorded acts of participation differ by types of activity. Examining this unique source of data raises important questions about how community participation is conceptualized and measured in our field. Implications are explored for theory and measurement of participation in community and organizational contexts.

Linking the levels: network and relational perspectives for community psychology.

In this article, we assert that relationships and networks are of paramount importance for understanding and improving settings, neighborhoods, communities, and larger social systems. Despite previous acknowledgements of their relevance, relational and social network perspectives and analyses remain underrepresented in community psychological research and action. Here, we claim that network and relational perspectives can provide conceptual and empirical 'links' between levels of analysis, more fully reflecting a transactional view. We also describe some of the sophisticated methodologies that can be employed in empirical studies drawing on these perspectives. Additionally, we contend that core concepts in community psychology such as health promotion, empowerment, coalition building, and dissemination and implementation can be better understood when employing relational and network perspectives. As an introduction to this special issue of American Journal of Community Psychology, we draw out themes and key points from the articles in the issue, and offer recommendations for future advancement of these perspectives in the field.

Channeling power across ecological systems: social regularities in community organizing.

Relational and social network perspectives provide opportunities for more holistic conceptualizations of phenomena of interest in community psychology, including power and empowerment. In this article, we apply these tools to build on multilevel frameworks of empowerment by proposing that networks of relationships between individuals constitute the connective spaces between ecological systems. Drawing on an example of a model for grassroots community organizing practiced by WISDOM­a statewide federation supporting local community organizing initiatives in Wisconsin­we identify social regularities (i.e., relational and temporal patterns) that promote empowerment and the development and exercise of social power through building and altering relational ties. Through an emphasis on listening-focused one-to-one meetings, reflection, and social analysis, WISDOM organizing initiatives construct and reinforce social regularities that develop social power in the organizing initiatives and advance psychological empowerment among participant leaders in organizing. These patterns are established by organizationally driven brokerage and mobilization of interpersonal ties, some of which span ecological systems.Hence, elements of these power-focused social regularities can be conceptualized as cross-system channels through which micro-level empowerment processes feed into macro-level exercise of social power, and vice versa. We describe examples of these channels in action, and offer recommendations for theory and design of future action research [corrected] .

Alliance-building for equity and justice: An inter-organizational perspective.

Cultivating alliances between specific sectors or fields with unrealized synergies is a promising strategy for systems change. Social network analysis is a useful tool for assessing whether such alliances build relationships between these previously disparate organizations. Two waves of valued network data were collected from the members (N = 25) of a justice system reform coalition composed of two types of community-based organizations: those involved in restorative justice practice and those involved in grassroots community organizing. Social network homophily analyses were employed to characterize the impact of alliance participation on relationships over time across three domains: working together, doing impactful work together, and sharing a philosophy about justice system reform. Results indicate marked increases in the prevalence of relationships between restorative justice and community organizing organizations across all domains, with the greatest increases occurring in perceptions of shared philosophy. Network structures at each time point differed by relational domain and organization type. Findings suggest that the alliance strengthened relationships between restorative justice and community organizing organizations, particularly in perceptions of shared philosophy, but that the magnitude of these changes varied depending on pre-existing interorganizational relationships and organization type. Findings challenge the idea that close working relationships between diverse members is critical to coalition effectiveness, pointing instead to the value of ambidextrous networks and alignment in members' philosophy and vision.

Critical hopefulness: a person-centered analysis of the intersection of cognitive and emotional empowerment.

Leaders in struggles for social justice agree on the importance and the difficulty of maintaining hopefulness while developing critical awareness of social issues. Research has indicated that the analogous components of psychological empowerment (emotional and cognitive) often do not co-vary across populations. This study used a person-centered analytic approach, latent class analysis, to identify subpopulations of participants (n = 1,322) according to the cognitive and emotional components of psychological empowerment. Four distinct sub-groups emerged: those who were relatively (1) critical but alienated, (2) uncritical but hopeful, (3) uncritical and alienated, or (4) critical and hopeful. These clusters were then examined for demographic differences and relationships with a set of conceptually relevant variables including social capital, psychological sense of community, openness, organizational participation and mental wellbeing. Results shed light on the complexity of empowerment processes and yield implications for ongoing community research and action.

The psychology and practice of youth-adult partnership: bridging generations for youth development and community change.

Youth-adult partnership (Y-AP) has become a phenomenon of interest to scholars and practitioners. Despite the potential of Y-AP to promote positive youth development, increase civic engagement, and support community change, the practice remains unfamiliar to many. Although research has increased over the past decade, the construct remains vague with an insufficient grounding in developmental theory and community practice. This article seeks to address these gaps by synthesizing data and insights from the historical foundations of Y-AP, community based research, and case study. We propose Y-AP as a unifying concept, distinct from other forms of youth-adult relationships, with four core elements: authentic decision making, natural mentors, reciprocity, and community connectedness. We conclude that Y-AP functions as an active ingredient and fundamental practice for positive youth development and civic engagement. Directions for future research are offered.

Stories of self, us, and now: narrative and power for health equity in grassroots community organizing.

Introduction: Community organizing initiatives, which build power through cycles of listening, participatory research, collective action, and reflection, have demonstrated the capacity to intervene on, complicate, and resist dominant societal narratives while promoting alternative public narratives focused on shared values and hope for a better future. Methods: To explore processes of public narrative change and their relationship to community and organizational empowerment, we interviewed 35 key leaders in community organizing initiatives in Detroit, MI and Cincinnati, OH about how narrative change takes place within community organizing practices. Results: Leaders' perspectives revealed crucial roles for narrative and storytelling in guiding individual and collective behavior, supporting the development of relationships of trust and accountability, and linking personal and collective experiences to pressing social issues. Discussion: Findings from this study indicate that systemic change is a labor-intensive process and one that requires the development of leaders (stories of self) and the cultivation of collective structures (stories of us) capable of enacting power to effect change with urgency (stories of now). We conclude by discussing implications of these findings for public narrative interventions and related health equity promotion efforts.

Toward relational empowerment.

Psychological empowerment has been theorized as a construct with emotional, behavioral and cognitive components. Yet, many studies have stressed that empowerment processes are contingent on interpersonal relationships. Moreover, theory suggests that power is developed and exercised through relationships. This article makes the case that expanding our conceptions of psychological empowerment through the addition of a relational component can enhance our understanding of psychological empowerment and the effectiveness of empowerment-oriented community practice. Previous research on empowerment is reviewed for relational content, and additional insights into the relational context of empowerment processes are marshaled from other concepts in community research including social capital, sense of community, social networks, social support, and citizen participation. A new iteration of the nomological network for psychological empowerment is presented, including the elements of a relational component.