Anti-poverty movements and the creation of national service programs

Anti-Poverty Movements of the 1960s framed and delivered a message on economic and educational inequalities that shaped national service initiatives from 1964 to the present, and resulting in programs such as Straight Up AmeriCorps. In this thesis and project work, I use social movement theory and the related sociology of knowledge to analyze and explain both the social production of AmeriCorps and my own work with the Straight Up AmeriCorps program. During 2009 and into early 2010, I chose to work with this AmeriCorps program to fulfill the applied sociological experience requirement for my Master's in Sociology. During my practice placement with Straight Up AmeriCorps, I collaborated with program staff on the development of grant proposal. I was asked by program staff to document a compelling need for the new focus of the program and to develop a program evaluation plan that included performance measures and tools for measurement. Straight Up AmeriCorps was originally created and developed in 1994 to prevent at risk and low-income youth from dropping out of school. Along with a change in the local community's most pressing need, Straight Up AmeriCorps' traditional focus on academic mentoring and tutoring is giving way in the coming to year to that of career-path mentoring, building youth job experience, and developing skills related to academic and career success. In this way, programs such as Straight Up AmeriCorps are situated at the locus of knowledge-power as they translate and mediate between the State, anti-poverty movement organizers, and local need.