Expanding Our Understanding of Social Change

A Report From the Definition Task Force of the HLC Special Emphasis Project

Darragh Callahan, Elizabeth Wilson, Ian Birdsall, Brooke Estabrook-Fishinghawk, Gary Carson, Stephanie Ford, Karen Ouzts, Iris Yob

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Social change is defined broadly in terms of process and product to indicate that all kinds of

social change activity are welcomed and encouraged at Walden. As faculty members, students,

and alumni have indicated, even small acts can have large consequences, and many of these

consequences are unpredictable. The charge given to the Definition Task Force was to expand

the university’s definition of social change to provide more guidance for teaching, learning, and

assessing the social change mission at Walden. To that end, the Task Force offers the following

considerations.

To bring about long-term solutions and promote lasting effects through the process of social

change, the following features may need to be considered as appropriate to the context and

purposes of each program. The features are grouped under the headings Knowledge, Skills, and

Attitudes, to encourage a holistic approach to preparing learners for social change. The

groupings, however, are defined by soft boundaries because each feature belongs primarily to

one group but may share some of the qualities of the other groups.

A. Knowledge

1. Scholarship

The scholar-practitioner model is particularly suited to social change because knowledge

applied to real-life situations is a scholar-practitioner’s goal. In the scholarly role, the

scholar-practitioner engages in active learning, critical reflection, and inquiry into real-

life dilemmas and possibilities. Careful study and research can reveal the causes and

correlates of social problems and suggest solutions and opportunities for promoting

growth.

2. Systems thinking

Many of the issues addressed by social change are complex because there may be

multiple causes and manifestations of the issue that require different responses at many

levels. Systemic thinking is a technique for developing insights into challenging

situations and complex subjects. It usually begins with analysis, which makes sense of a

system by breaking it apart to see how the parts work together and influence each

other. This may be followed by synthesis that aims to develop a set of responses that

address the situation in a comprehensive way. In the Walden community, finding

systemic solutions to challenging issues might be undertaken by multidisciplinary

collaborations in which scholar-practitioners from a number of colleges work together

to examine issues and propose multipronged responses.

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3. Reflection

Those working toward positive social change can enhance their effectiveness by

reflecting on the experience. Reflection can be extrospective, that is, looking outward to

review the short- and long-term outcomes of a project and its implications for the

individuals, institutions, and communities with and for whom one is working. It can also

be introspective, that is, looking inward to examine what has been learned from the

process, including new insights into one’s motives, skills, knowledge, actions, and

reactions. Self-reflection allows for the contemplation of one’s professional and

personal development. Group reflection affords all stakeholders in a social change

project (scholar-practitioners, community partners, policy-makers, and beneficiaries) an

opportunity to process the experience and learn from each other. Reflection employs

critical-thinking and analytical skills. It can be carried forward by questioning and self-

inquiry and may depend on a willingness to see things from another’s perspective.

While reflection needs to be honest, it should also be caring and supportive, examining

strengths as well as weaknesses and successes as along with disappointments. While

reflection may look to the past, its purpose is forward-looking—to make future social

change activities more effective.

B. Skills

4. Practice

In the practitioner role, the scholar-practitioner engages in the application of

knowledge. Learning-by-doing, or experiential learning, has a long history of support

and success in education because it can infuse and sometimes lead to deconstructing or

constructing theoretical understandings within the realities of practical life in the

student’s personal growth, profession, or community. By using recursive loops between

scholarship and practice, both intellectual growth and better practice can occur—each

informing the other. Not merely knowing about theories but actually testing theories in

the context of everyday life is the foundation of a scholar-practitioner’s educational

process and contribution to social change.

5. Collaboration

Given the complexity of many of the issues addressed in social change efforts,

responsive action may be needed from many different sources. In these situations, the

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social change agent may want to build working relationships with other entities

including community leaders, service agencies, neighborhood coalitions, businesses,

religious congregations, and other local institutions. Apart from these types of civic

engagement, collaboration with scholars and practitioners in an array of professional

fields may bring a variety of perspectives, research, and applied knowledge.

Partnerships can unite the skills, knowledge, and energies needed to make a difference.

The ability to build a team, combined with leadership, project management, conflict

resolution, and communication skills, may be essential. A significant partner in social

change enterprises is the primary beneficiary; this person has a personal knowledge and

experience that can be invaluable in both analyzing a situation and proposing responses.

The primary beneficiary may be one individual or someone representing the

perspectives of a group of beneficiaries. Working collaboratively with primary

beneficiaries can be mutually educative and rewarding.

6. Advocacy

Advocacy is a matter of raising consciousness or being the “voice” for someone, some

group, or something that may or may not otherwise have a voice that can be heard. It

may involve political engagement, but it may also be a matter of supporting others as

they negotiate directly with the services and opportunities they need. In light of social

change, advocacy more widely aims to influence not only political but also economic

and social systems and institutions to protect and promote the dignity, health, safety,

and rights of people. Advocacy for an issue often takes the form of education that aims

to bring about a new understanding and awareness. Advocacy may also need to

encompass mentoring activities to build confidence and self-reliance in those whose

welfare is being promoted.

7. Civic engagement

Social change efforts can be supported and reflected in laws by policy-makers. Being

aware of the channels for communicating with civic leaders and knowing how to

effectively use those channels are often important when working for social change. All

institutions and groups—not just government entities—have their own politics, that is, a

prevailing mind-set, an internal structure, and channels of influence and power. Being

able to incorporate and negotiate these politics in support of social change requires

finesse and sensitivity. Understanding this before engaging with others can be helpful,

whether these others are legislators, local agencies and institutions, professional

associations, neighborhoods, ad hoc teams, or professional colleagues. Power

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relationships also exist between those working for social change and those who are the

primary beneficiaries. Mutual collaboration and power-sharing between the parties

involved can empower all toward more lasting social change.

C. Attitudes

8. Humane ethics

While a number of emotional effects may prompt one to engage in social change,

including empathy, sympathy, guilt, a feeling of satisfaction, and so on, one’s ethical

code can inform and direct one’s motivated engagement in social change. Humane

ethics is a system of moral principles that guide human conduct with respect to the

rightness and wrongness of certain actions. While personal codes of ethics may differ,

an underlying, common code of a humane ethic is characterized by tenderness,

compassion, sympathy for people and animals, especially for the suffering or distressed,

and concern for the health of the environment in which we live.

Analyzing Social Change

Figure 1 below shows each of the features—scholarship, systemic thinking, reflection, practice,

collaboration, advocacy, civic engagement, and humane ethics—on an axis ranging from 0 to 5.

Each social change activity or project could be mapped onto the axes to show the extent to

which it incorporates each feature. Joining the points along each axis produces a web for each

activity, an example of which is shown in red.

It is important to note that this tool is not intended to be an instrument to assess a particular

social change activity. Some projects and activities will be appropriately strong in one or more

areas but not necessarily in all. Rather, its purpose is to serve as a tool to analyze social change

activities that occur at Walden. It may reveal areas where an activity might be enhanced, and

importantly, it may reveal where the program for preparing students for social change might be

strengthened.

Further, all kinds of social change activities are encouraged, given the range of interests,

commitments, and opportunities for engagement among students, faculty members, and staff.

Most, if not all, kinds of activity can be represented as a web. The purpose of the web analysis

is ultimately to provide a tool to enlarge our vision of the range and features of social change

that seeks long-term solutions and promotes lasting effects.

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Figure 1. Web map showing each of the features.

Below are some examples of web maps of social change activities based on reports by students, faculty

members, and alumni in a recent research study: Perspectives on Social Change. Pseudonyms have been

used throughout.

Example No. 1. Bookcase Builders

Tom is a Rotarian and undertakes a number of service projects in the community with other Rotarians.

One such activity involves building bookcases. Some members of the club also volunteer with Habitat for

Humanity, which provides housing for needy families. Another member has connections with the local

school district and knew of a recent drive to improve the level of literacy in the community. Putting

these together, the club decided to build bookcases for the Habitat for Humanity homes and, through

the support of another club member who manages a bookstore, give each family a gift certificate to buy

books for the children to put in the bookcase.

This activity would certainly rate relatively high on Collaboration for the networking among Rotarians,

the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity, the school district, and the local book store. It also represents

a Humane Ethic in that it shows the responsiveness of this club to the need for these children to read

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well for their future success in life. As a practice, this need is supported by implicit knowledge about the

importance of motivating children and providing them with opportunities to read. so there should be a

showing on the Practitioner axis. Figure 2 below shows how this project might be mapped.

Figure 2. Web map of the bookcase builders project.

If Tom and his fellow club members want to pursue this project further they might ask whether they

may seek other possible partners for this endeavor, such as the reading tutors, the bookstore

salespeople, the parents, and even the children themselves. Others brought into the program may

contribute more Systemic Thinking to address the problem of illiteracy. The club members may also

consider follow-up activities using other features like Advocacy with a particular focus on mentoring,

Civic Engagement, or some Scholarly study of or research on the effectiveness of the project.

Example No. 2. Basket-Weavers as Story-Tellers

Arsi’s research took her to a remote and needy area of Jamaica, where many of the village women help

support their families through weaving baskets for sale in the tourist areas. Using a qualitative approach,

Arsi listened to and recorded the women’s stories of their lives in abject poverty, analyzed them for

common themes, and presented her findings as her dissertation. The information in this dissertation

could be invaluable to service agencies and others willing to work with these women to improve their

lives.

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The project is high on the Scholar axis, especially because it is research into a real-life problem that

needs informed solutions. It further exhibits significant Collaboration in that she established personal

relationships with the women so that they could tell her their stories. It is also strong in the Humane

Ethics dimension because it deals with real human need. Writing a dissertation also demands Reflection,

particularly because it requires some discussion of the meaning of the findings and their possible

implications. The dissertation ultimately enters the public domain and, as such, is a permanent voice for

the women whose stories it shares (Advocacy). Figure 3 below illustrates this example.

Figure 3. Web map of the basket-weavers as story-tellers project.

Arsi successfully graduated in 2011. If she wanted to continue with the project, she might share her

findings with policy-makers (Civic Engagement) and service providers, such as business people,

educators, and healthcare workers (Systemic Thinking). If she could disseminate her work through

publications and presentations, she would not only deepen her own understanding (Reflection) but

more directly provide valuable information to service agencies and others to apply in working with and

for these women (Practitioner).

Example No. 3. The Monthly Giver

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Many faculty members, students, and staff members sign up to make monthly