Focuses on the community disintegration caused by violence and conflict in South Africa. Examines the need for social reconstruction and development and the challenges facing community workers in the changing social and political context. (SK)

In the last decade, community development in Ireland has emphasized social and economic inclusion, regeneration, and civic participation. Continuing challenges include designation of diverse community representatives, demand for increased administrative efficiency, and management of mandates and accountability. There are more community development…

Discusses whether the politics of individual practitioners actually influence the causes they adopt and therefore the outcomes; describes research that reinforces the argument that no such congruency exists; and argues that barriers to radical community work are such that its major impact is to strengthen pluralism while making minimal…

Beliefs and values evolve within communities through daily experience. Information gained from experience is translated into knowledge through the filter of beliefs and values. Community development facilitators should add their knowledge base to the community's to produce new knowledge and a synthesis of new cultural habits. (SK)

Do the actions and agency of citizens in civil society affect the public sphere? Whether these people and their activities contribute a discourse of the public or only a marginal realm is critical to understanding the relationship among community development, civil society, and social change. (Author/JOW)

The author states that there are inherent contradictions and assumptions in community development (CD) theory and practice. Contradictions spring from a tendency to apply CD on an inappropriate level and for incorrect purposes. Assumptions spring from CD's Western cultural origins. (CH)

Principles of feminist community action--working against inegalitarian social relations, promoting egalitarian working relations, self-reflection; and evaluation--are explained and demonstrated with the example of the Greenham Commons Women's Peace Movement in Britain. (SK)

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.)…

Examines the perspectives and dimensions of social change and community development in rural United States. Argues that the causes of poverty must be reconceptualized, and emphasis placed on long-range institutionalized programs of community services, training, and citizen participation. (SK)

Reviews community development in Latin America (self-help local improvement projects, popular education, nongovernmental organizations). Identifies challenges--increasing the participation of all levels, reorganizing priorities, and supporting the development of economic democracy. (SK)

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)

Community development programs in Fort Chipewyan, Wabasca-Desmarais, and Slave Lake were evaluated to determine their success in effecting social change in spite of, or in cooperation with, the existing bureaucratic machinery in Alberta. The history of governmental support and the Human Resources Development Authority jurisdiction are cited…

Discusses the Gulbenkian Rhetoric (which sees the purpose of community work as inducing and enabling people to adapt to changed circumstances), outlines different models of change in respect to policy, social relations, and politics, discusses middle-range factors which influence change, and outlines the relevance of the 'social movements'…

Includes "Community Work in the U.K.: Reflections on the 1980s" (Miller, Bryant); "Multiplication and Divisions: Trends in Community Development in Ireland since the 1960s" (Cinneide, Walsh); "Reconstruction to Deconstruction: The Transformation of Community Work in Australia" (Meekosha; Mowbray): "Community…

The paper describes the Moss Side District Centre (MSCD), a community development project in the inner city of Manchester, England, the problems and struggles associated with it, the social consequences of the MSDC, options for social change, and the need for community action. (MF)