Community coalition building - Contemporary practice and research: Introduction

Over the last 20 years, coalition building has become a prominent intervent ion employed in communities across America. Coalitions provide community ps ychologists and those in related fields with a chance to work with M,hole c ommunities and to better understand how to create community change. As we r eflect on the past two decades of community coalition building there are ma ny questions to be answered about this phenomenon. Why has there been such an upsurge in community coalition building activity? What is the impact of this activity? What have we as students of community learned? What are the questions that we need to be asking to improve the effectiveness of coaliti on building efforts and their evaluation? This set of articles will review the state of the art of community coalition building in both practice and r esearch. The structure of the articles reflects a collaborative process, wi th multiple contributors from different disciplines, using a variety of for mats. Because this is an evolving phenomenon where the questions asked are as important as the lessons learned, many of the major sections include dia logues with community experts from across the country and from multiple fie lds, including community psychology, public health, political science, publ ic administration, and grassroots organizing.