Education Access Collaboration: Challenges in the Language of Community Engagement

• In Event: Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: Collaboration and Communication Development in Higher Education

Abstract

In higher education partnership the language of “grassroots” and “community” has many meanings depending on how it is used. Community engagement is becoming an institutional movement, promoted throughout many organizations and advocates in the field. According to Berger and Luckmann (1966), institutionalization has consequences for institutions and individuals. In this study—through qualitative analysis of interviews, meeting notes, video, correspondence, and grant applications from a four-year partnership to improve educational opportunities for youth—I unpack the uses of “grassroots” and “community” as coalition partners in an urban region describe their partnership work in context. This study enhances understanding of the legitimacy of these concepts among partners, and how they operate to reinforce and influence power structures.

Author

• Elizabeth Hudson, Wayne State University