This article examines symbolic boundary work in congregation-based community organizing (CBCO), likely the most economically, racially, and religiously diverse left-of-center American social movement. Major studies examine how symbolic boundaries reproduce such social boundaries as race, class, and gender. In contrast, this article examines the microprocesses by which CBCO draws neiv symbolic boundaries over existing social boundaries within their groups. The author claims that boundary work is not just a tool for creating a new collective identity. For groups (such as CBCOs) that have entirely different ideas, norms, and practices than the vast majority of participants are familiar with, it is essential to developing a new shared ideology. Second, although boundary work is essential to acculturating members, it may have contradictory effects. Oversimplified boundaries that forge the unity needed for immediate group goals may become rigid and undermine overarching goals.This study examines the oppositional culture of a cross-race, cross-class social movement: congregation-based community organizing. It is a mass-based progressive movement whose ideology of activism differs markedly from primarily middle-class grassroots progressive movements such as feminism, peace, and envirorunentalism. Its formal, structured practices are more similar to labor unions-not the bureaucratic unions of the postwar era, but actively organizing "social movement imionism"-in the emphasis on formal organizational development and pragmatic, realizable campaigns. Participants are economically diverse, ranging from low-income to upper-middle class, with a large poor and workingclass base. Congregation-based orgarüzing is multiracial: A 2001 national survey

This article investigates predictors of living wage ordinance adoption in U.S. cities. The authors build on previous research by including all cities with more than 25,000 people (1,072 cities), adding new variables to measure favorable political context, use of event history analysis (Cox regression) to analyze temporal effects in diffusion, and distinguishing between predictors of early and late adoption. General political context, city size, and municipal expenditures were significant predictors, while grievances, presence of a local ACORN chapter, union density, and form of city government were not significant. Density of nonlabor progressive associations and history of progressive activism were major predictors of policy adoption.

The purpose of this article is to provide a comparison of institution-based community organizing and deliberative practices and to demonstrate how these are complementary approaches for civic engagement. In contrast to older typologies describing these two approaches oppositionally, we seek to reveal a shared democratic ethos and propose greater collaboration between action-oriented organizers and deliberative advocates. The article also identifies where deliberative and organizing practices diverge and proposes a model for how the two approaches can be integrated for mutual benefit.

Although health-based social movements organized by grassroots activists have a rich history in impacting health and social policy, few systematic studies have addressed their policy change efforts or effectiveness. In this article, the authors trace how four health-based social movements-the women's health movement, ACT UP, breast cancer, and needle exchange-influenced health and social policy legislation. The activists' efforts wrested control of "authoritative knowledge" that had once been the sole domain of "experts" with advanced medical training. They used this knowledge to empower "average" people with medical information, promote self help and engage in civil disobedience, which led to changes in healthcare delivery, drug testing and approval, and increased research funds for HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, and needle exchange. The activists' efforts led to other health-based social movements that are currently, or will become, issues for health and social policy analysts in the future.

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