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 (University of Toronto).
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 University of Toronto, 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 .