Social change within the "establishment": a city's response to national antiabortion protesters

Article Abstract:

From 1988 to 1992, antiabortion groups such as Operation Rescue attempted to close abortion clinics through use of innovative protest techniques. Their strategy was to overload local institutions such as police departments, render them ineffective, and allow protesters to block and subsequently close abortion clinics. This study viewed reaction to these new protest techniques from within a local community rather than from a national perspective. The study found that local institutions surprised protesters with animated defenses that ultimately caused the protest groups, rather than local institutions, to be overextended. The article attributes this effective response to a view that public officials became activists. The authors defined activists as those whose behavior changed from the predictable and routine to that which was unexpected and had not been experienced previously by opponents. The authors were participant observers. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Research, Demonstrations and protests, Civil rights workers, Civil rights activists, Pro-life movement, Social change, Demonstrations

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The future search conference as a vehicle for educational change: a shared vision for Will Rogers Middle School, Sacramento, California

Article Abstract:

This article presents an application of a future search conference in a California middle school. The future search conference detailed by Marvin Weisbord in his book Discovering Common Ground, is an event where large numbers of people from across, down, and outside an organization gather to focus on an issue. In the case presented, the central theme was the clarification of the school's vision for the year 2002. In attendance were teachers, administrators, parents, students, district representatives, union representatives, business, higher education, school board members, feeder school teachers and principles, and school support staff. The article addresses the conditions that made the school receptive to action, the planning process, the conference design components (the past, the present, the future, and planning), successful outcomes, and lessons learned. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Elementary and secondary schools, Methods, Management, Planning, Educational innovations, Educational planning, Middle schools

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