A Match on Dry Grass

Last month, Associate Professor Mark Warren, Lecturer Karen Mapp, Ed.M.'93, Ed.D.'99, and 15 doctoral students celebrated the release of their book, A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform, the culmination of a long-standing research project.

A Match on Dry Grass argues that community organizing represents a fresh and promising approach to school reform as part of a broader agenda to build power for low-income communities and address the profound social inequalities that affect the education of children.

“The power of collaboration is one of the most important messages [of the book],” Mapp says, noting that, though there is a lot of research about family and community ties being key ingredients of school improvement, this book discusses how to make it work through case studies exploring prominent organizing efforts in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, San Jose,Calif., and the Mississippi Delta.

“Many times people think this [type of] collaboration is impossible or adversarial, but we found these groups are working in partnership with schools and districts,” Mapp says. “The message from the book is, How can we reframe this work so we can see collaboration as an integral part of student achievement and improvement? Collaboration with communities is key.”

One unique aspect of the research project was the large number of doctoral students who participated.

“We tried a bold experiment, building a research team that included 15 doctoral students from the beginning to end of the research process, and taking an approach that valued and empowered students as full participants,” Warren says. “Consensus-building took a lot of time, but produced a rich, complex research product that benefited from the diversity found in our large team. Meanwhile, we created a powerful process of apprenticeship training for students and built a community in which they and we could grow as emerging scholars committed to and engaged in the critical work of transforming schools and communities.”

For doctoral student Anita Wadhwa, Ed.M.'09, finally seeing the book bound was beyond gratifying. “To see our work in the context of a larger book in which so many organizing groups across the country are being represented is even more thrilling,” she says. “When I think of all the interviews, observations, and analysis that our research team engaged in, it almost seems like a Herculean undertaking. To be able to hold the book, and to see it on Google Books, validates the years of work we put into this.”