ABSTRACT
Before turning to a discussion of frameworks to guide community organizing practice, it is necessary to clarify further some ideas about what types of activities community organizing encompasses, a discussion that began in Chapter 1 . Many scholars, particularly in the fields of social work, political science, and urban planning, have attempted to make sense of and typologize community organizing practices (Fisher, 1994; Mondros & Wilson, 1994; M. Ross, 1967; Rothman, Erlich, & Tropman, 2001). Such categorizing can be very useful for explaining the orientation, context, and activities of disparate approaches to community organizing practice. The categories have been referred to in the literature as community organizing “approaches,” “modes,” “styles,” “models,” and “methods” (Mondros & Wilson, 1994; Rothman, 2001). In this section, I identify and discuss the three modes identified by Rothman (2001), the three models identified by Mondros and Wilson (1994), and the three approaches to neighborhood organizing articulated by Fisher (1994). Because these scholars are categorizing the same phenomena, it will be clear that these categories overlap with one another.
