nce in academia than they had experienced in Germany. Lewin's (1986) emphasis on the importance of the freedom needed by researches to conduct studies without government oversight was a vital consideration in motivating his moving from Germany to the United States.
Cherry (1998) argues that the legacy of Lewin's commitment to social action research is often overlooked by researchers who focus on his impact on organizational and educational psychology. Cherry (1998) states that upon his arrival in America, Lewin was instrumental in bringing about an innovative community-based research organization called the Commission on Community Interrelations (CCI) within the American Jewish Congress (AJC). Lewin was attracted to this American liberal Jewish institution because it provided him and other scholars with the opportunity to examine social groups and to explore the potential of social engineering which he viewed as a new science that would provide cultures with an opportunity to shape and mold young people to become good citizens and productive members of society.
Burnes (2004) described Lewin as the intellectual father of contemporary theories of applied behavioral science, action research, and planned change. Much of his work on leadership style and experiments in planned change took place after his arrival in the United States. His focus was in part on changing consumer behavior as well as group dynamics and the resolution of social conflict. Burnes (2004) states that among Lewin's primary interests were the problems faced by minority or disadvantaged groups, a perspective reinforced by his strong belief that only the permeation of democratic values into all facets of society could prevent the worst extremes of social conflict.
It is readily apparent that much of Lewin's interest in this subject derived from what Marrow (1969) characterized as his own experiences in an extremely anti-Semitic culture in Nazi Germa...