Provides an overview of the issues facing community development in Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Discusses possibilities for international cooperation across Europe in the 1990s. (SK)

An instrumental/technocratic approach to evaluation of social development relies on primarily quantitative methods. An interpretive approach resists claims to legitimacy and authority of "experts" and questions existing interpretations. The latter approach is characterized by cultural relativism and subjectivity. (SK)

The author, a political candidate, describes campaigns as events allowing citizens to assess candidates' knowledge of community problems. He documents the adversarial nature of a candidate's self-education and explores the relationship of the intellectual content of the political process to community development. (SK)

Development agents need to examine their assumptions, motivations, neutrality, and terminology, which is often imprecise and misleading. The combined cooperativist and constructivist approach has proved successful in overcoming these problems. (SK)

Community planners in Illinois use computer software to conduct retail trade market analyses based on Reilly's Law. Market boundaries are determined using the population of the town and neighboring town, and the distance between the two towns. The simple indices implied by Reilly's Law do not offer reliable guidance to planners. (KS)

In Western countries, community work is often carried out without attention to comparable activities in developing societies. There is a need for collaboration and exchange, and practices must be changed to accommodate them. (JOW)

The Svanholm Collective, founded in 1978 by 82 adults and 40 children, helped introduce organized organic farming in Denmark. The collective has a common economy and self-governing system. Children are integrated into daily life and work. The community provides preschool education and afterschool activities for older kids. (MLH)

In Sierra Leone, two church-sponsored programs are focused on sustainable development. The Wesleyan Development Education and Awareness Programme trains people to initiate community projects. Women's Loan Scheme encourages development of small-scale enterprises. (SK)

Explores how experiments in both community development and in community economic development that are based on cooperative education provide fertile ground for research in environmental education. (Author/CCM)

Governmental and nongovernmental community work in Israel is examined through five dimensions: locus of initiation, funding, goals, intervention methods, and levels of complexity. A new division of labor among public, voluntary, and private sector community work is proposed. (SK)

Examines the Phipps Houses Group, a nonprofit housing developer, in its attempt to foster a sense of community and family well-being in housing developments. Discusses the community development program and gives a profile of tenants. Suggests that this model should become more common as direct federal housing development diminishes. (RJM)

Compares attempts at community development in Nigeria under English and French colonialism with postcolonial grass-roots efforts up to the post-cold war era. Suggests the need to rethink the structure and role of the state in society. (SK)

An ethnographic study of Kalhor nomads in Iran showed that the government's top-down approach to development and weak local institutions obscure the impact of technology on women and poor people. Despite rhetoric about participation, these groups are not consulted about their needs, priorities, and interests. (SK)

Makes use of action research, finding it to be the most useful research method in studying the phenomenon of ritual performance in the classroom. Concludes that the ritual process may appear to be complex and formal, yet much of this community building work is performed naturally by many teachers trusting their instincts in everyday situations all…

Describes how the University of Pennsylvania embraced the idea that urban institutions have an obligation to help sustain their surrounding communities. Penn's investment of intellectual, financial, and social capital not only created a more vibrant West Philadelphia, but also strengthened town-gown bonds and revived a spirit of activism on…