Anti-Poverty Community Organizing & Learning Project (2009-2014)
The Anti-Poverty Community Organizing & Learning (APCOL) project was a community-university action research project focused on how people learn to engage, re-engage, and remain disengaged in various forms of anti-poverty activism. The project was housed in the Centre for the Study of Education and Work.
The APCOL project produced a series of publications, including 12 working papers written by academic and community-based researchers. These papers connected with the various themes examined in the APCOL project.
Research Activities
Contexts Explored for Learning:
- Anti-poverty initiatives, campaigns, and programming.
- Everyday neighbourhood life and biography.
Action Research Activities of the Project:
- Grassroots organizing.
- Case studies in eight Toronto neighbourhoods matched with a community/university researcher.
- Co-design and co-administration of a city-wide anti-poverty activism survey.
Project Overview
Active from 2009-2014, APCOL was co-led by Sharon Simpson (Labour Community Services, Toronto) and Peter Sawchuk (²ÝÝ®ÎÛÊÓƵµ¼º½).
APCOL was funded by the Canadian government’s SSHRC (Social Science and Humanities Research Council’s) Community University Research Alliance program.
Goals
The goals of the APCOL project were to:
- Contribute to local neighbourhood capacity to engage in anti-poverty work as they define it,
- Contribute to effective cross-linkage of community anti-poverty initiatives across the Greater Toronto Area,
- Build understanding of the role of community-led organizing in the broader processes of positive social, political and economic change,
- and, Expand the base of research knowledge on the role of informal learning and popular education in anti-poverty work and social movement development.
Partnerships
Partners in the research initiatives included:
- Community organizations and resident groups from eight of the 13 Toronto neighbourhoods designated as high priority in terms of poverty challenges in the City of Toronto.
- Student researchers and professors from four of Toronto’s higher education institutions, including ²ÝÝ®ÎÛÊÓƵµ¼º½, Ryerson University, York University and, George Brown College.
Project Resources
- Working Paper #1 — Journey through food activism in Toronto, Ontario (by Rachelle Campigotto)
- Working Paper #2 — Re-thinking learning-work transitions in the context of community training for racialized youth (by Karen Carter)
- Working Paper #3 — Engagement, identity, emotion and learning: A pre-apprenticeship program case study (by Sue Carter)
- Working Paper #4 — Community learning and mobilization through research (by Joe Curnow)
- Working Paper #5 — The role of anti-poverty organizing for citizenship: Living and learning citizenship and agency through community activism (by Ashleigh Dalton)
- Working Paper #6 — A seat at the table in downtown Toronto centre east, Canada (by Doreen Fumia)
- Working Paper #7 — Anti-poverty activism from a CHAT perspective: A comparison of learning across three organizations (by Peter H. Sawchuk)
- Working Paper #8 — Social networks and socio-economic integration: Immigrant experiences and approaches in Toronto (by Agnes Thomas)
- Working Paper #9 — Economic and educational inequalities and support for Occupy Movements: Some recent North American evidence (by D.W. Livingstone and Milosh Raykov)
- Working Paper #10 — Decolonizing methodologies: Reflections of an interviewer (by Erin Oldynski)
- Working Paper #11 — Promoting holistic community organizing: FoodShare food activist workshop series (by Christine McKenzie)
- Working Paper #12 — Exploring (de)alienation in social movement learning: Case study findings on participant motivation and the role of movement organisations (by Joseph E. Sawan)
- Working Paper #13 — Learning in action: How "radical habitus" mediates social movement activity and learning (by J.E. Sawan)
- Working Paper #14 — Social movement learning in union and community coalition: An activity theory perspective (by Peter H. Sawchuk)
- Aboriginal identity, spirituality and learning: A case study with the Anishnawbe Health Toronto community health worker trainee program
- The state of business in Mt. Dennis: Disinvestment & gentrification in Toronto's inner-suburbs (by Katherine N. Rankin, Kuni Kamizaki, Heather McLean)
- APCOL Push Back, Move Forward! Conference Report (by Katheryne Schulz)
- Building capacity for anti-poverty policy making from the bottom-up (public policy panel) (by Sue Carter, Cutty Duncan, Youssef Sawan and Peter Sawchuk)
- Insights on methods from the APCOL CURA (presentation)
- Research in anti-poverty organizing and learning in the GTA: A participatory approach (presentation)
- Learning from each other: APCOL Conference Report
- Key reading lists for the APCOL project
Anti-poverty activism gets a boost (May 2009)
Additional Notes
This project was supported by the .