In the fall of 2009, the Boston Foundation announced a new strategic framework, "Thriving People, Vibrant Places", to guide much of its work for the next five years. The framework had its roots in a larger strategic direction first taken by the Foundation's Board of Directors in 2001. At that time, the Board believed the Boston…

Community organizing groups that have built coalitions for local change over the past few decades are now involving young people as leaders in efforts to improve quality of life. The current study explores a particularly effective youth organizing initiative through review of organizational documents and collection and analysis of qualitative…

Considers whether two rural traditions of Irish community development--community councils and community cooperatives--conform to models of radical and pragmatic collective action. Shows that both have features of both models but gravitate more toward pragmatic, populist action rather than radical transformative change. (Contains 24 references.)…

Argues that those activities variously called community development, organization, action, or education involve the imposition of the values and beliefs of community workers or agencies upon their clientele and that community work has a strong, albeit unintentional, manipulative or exploitative aspect. (SK)

Six community workers' interviews were subjected to vocabulary scanning; factorial analysis graphics plotted words most frequently used. The workers' world views and understanding of social change emerged. One group favored local development, planned change, a facilitator role, and collaboration. The other preferred a social action model of…

Includes "The Case of Western Europe: Integration and Change in the EEC--The Fortress and the Excluded" (Conroy); "The Case of Eastern Europe: Why Community Development Still Has to Find a Role in Hungary" (Tausz); and "The Case of the Third World: People's Self-Development (Rahman). (SK)

This was an empirical study of actual processes of change as they were induced and as they occurred in a number of Indian communities. The tools were: a questionnaire composed of a number of schedules prepared for this purpose; case studies of leaders and of action situations; case histories of community institutions; an attitude study; and an…

The author discusses the growth of community action in Northern Ireland and the significance of adult education to further social change during a time of conflict. He describes two different approaches to community education: adult education as the "education arm" of the activist movement, and adult education as a general community…

The Single European Market will have serious effects on employment, production, and consumption in the United Kingdom. Of particular concern to voluntary and community organizations are the skills, gender, and racial gaps in the labor force. Organizations must develop the capacity to think and work within a European framework. (SK)

Conventional anti-poverty efforts have failed because they have not created the structures for the poor to help themselves, and they are designed and controlled by people outside of the affected communities. Introduced in 1968 by the National Association of the Southern Poor, the Assembly is a non-political structure that organizes community…

This monograph discusses how to bring about changes and reforms in the area of human services. The introduction defines human services and briefly discusses some reform movements and whether or not viable change methods are available. Section I discusses the roles of various change participants including the change agent, lobbyist, ombudsman,…

This book explores relationships among democracy, social capital, and community-based mediating structures, focusing on Appalachia because of the obvious failures of market capitalism there. It suggests that mediating structures protect communities from the savage side of market capitalism and promote the democratic prospect by increasing and…

This book is directed at the following audiences: adult educators and others who are either involved in or desire to become involved in community-based work; students of education, the social sciences, or related disciplines who desire information on community involvement as a career or means of fulfilling civic responsibilities, and persons in…

DRAWING EXAMPLES OF COMMUNITY PROBLEMS AND COMMUNITY ACTION FROM THE UNITED STATES, PUERTO RICO, IRAN, INDIA, KENYA, AND 14 OTHER COUNTRIES (MOSTLY DEVELOPING NATIONS), THIS CASEBOOK STRESSES COOPERATION BY TRAINED COMMUNITY WORKERS AND VOLUNTEER COMMUNITY LEADERS FOR COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT. SEPARATE SECTIONS DEAL WITH MEANS OF DEVELOPING RAPPORT…

This paper develops a conceptual framework as a guide for research analysis and the designing of experimental interventions aimed at the improvement of the socialization process of the community. Socialization agents are the parents, older and like-age peers, formal education agencies, churches, leisure time child and youth serving agencies, legal…