About the Author 

Mark R. Warren is a sociologist concerned with the revitalization of American democratic and community life. He studies efforts to strengthen institutions that anchor inner-city communities—churches, schools, and other community-based organizations—and to build broad-based alliances among these institutions and across race and social class. Mark is interested in the development of community leaders through involvement in multiracial political action as well as the outcomes of such efforts in fostering community development, social justice, and school transformation; and is committed to using the results of scholarly research to advance democratic practice. Click Here to Visit Mark’s Home Page

Mark is the author of several books, including Fire in the Heart: How white activists embrace racial justice (Oxford University Press) and Dry Bones Rattling: Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy (Princeton University Press), and is co-editor of a book on social capital-based strategies for combating poverty called Social Capital and Poor Communities(Russell Sage Foundation Press). Mark also published a lead article in the Harvard Educational Review on the relationship between community development and school improvement, entitled “Communities and Schools: A New View of Urban Education Reform.” He currently co-directs a large-scale study of community organizing efforts at school reform and educational justice in six localities across the country. The book from this project, A Match on Dry Grass: Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform (Oxford University Press), is out in September of 2011.

Mark is an associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education where he teaches courses on community organizing, social capital and qualitative interviewing. He works closely with many doctoral students who are interested in community organizing and school reform, in the relationship between communities and schools, and in the role of activism in advancing social, racial and educational justice.

Mark is the founding chairperson of a new Special Interest Group of the American Education Research Association on Community and Youth Organizing for Education Reform. Through this venue and others, Mark is working with a growing number of scholars to build a new field of research on the role of community organizing in education reform.

Mark is also an active member of the community at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard University. Before coming to Harvard, Mark was an associate professor of sociology at Fordham University, where he founded and directed the college’s service learning program. Mark continues his involvement with college students through his membership on the board of Harvard’sPhillips Brooks House Association, the college’s student-led community service/action network.