Major Approaches to Community Practice: Development, Organizing, Social Planning, and Social Change

Part II provides theory and strategies for the major practice methods—development, organizing, planning, and social change, which are introduced through discussion of evolution, models, and the changing context of community practice for the 21st century. Chapter 7 argues that models can provide a framework for practice and that they can be tailored to local culture, needs, and aspirations, as well as sociopolitical contexts. It provides brief histories of community practice as it has evolved in industrialized and industrializing nations. Marie Weil, Dorothy N. Gamble, and Mary L. Ohmer emphasize the importance of three central contexts that will continue to impact practice across the world: globalization and its debilitating effects on low-income, impoverished, and vulnerable populations; the increase of multicultural societies worldwide; and the need for expansion of human rights, particularly for women and girls. Major purposes, values, and practice hallmarks and characteristics are examined in eight current community practice models: neighborhood and community organizing; organizing functional communities; social, economic, and sustainable development; inclusive program development; social planning; coalitions; political and social action and policy practice; and movements for progressive change.

Chapter 8, Development Theories and Community Development Practice: Trajectory of Changes, by Lakshmi Lingam, interrogates the concept of development and traces its differential evolution and connotations in the Global South and North. It illustrates the trajectory of theory and practice in relation to varied political ideologies and social conditions, and documents the unequal exchanges imposed in colonial and postcolonial periods by Western nations that extracted natural resources and products and returned finished goods for the producing nations to purchase. Professor Lingam provides critique of several eras of development driven by ideologies grounded in neoliberalism that have recently been countered by alternative development theory, human development–focused theories, and sustainable development theory—all of which value local participatory development and gender equity. Case examples from India reflect this merging perspective.

Chapter 9, by Dorothy N. Gamble and Marie D. Hoff, carries forward discussion of theory and practice in sustainable community development through analysis of entwined environmental, social, and economic concerns. They chart a direction that can lead to achieving the goal of true sustainability [Page 164]stated by Gro Bruntland as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Integrating knowledge from natural and social sciences, they propose a path to sustainability that is grounded in policies and relationships to promote responsibility, opportunity, and equality, employing essential community practice knowledge and skills.

Chapters 10 and 11 present new community organizing theories and practices. Mary L. Ohmer and Fred Brooks III focus on the practice of community organizing—comparing and contrasting conflict and consensus approaches. Viewing organizing as a process of “helping communities join together to identify and solve problems,” they trace the origins, philosophy, and evolution of both conflict- and consensus-oriented strategies and focus on case examples that demonstrate the effective blending of both approaches.

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