Procedures and Methods for Community and Resource Development

Abstract

If the aim of education is to bring about a change in the behavior of the learner, then adult education is one method of changing behavior in line with the objectives of the community development effort. It follows also that the total of community development is more than adult education and it functions in the context of social, economic, and physical forces that prevent its being conducted or evaluated in isolation from the milieu. In an attempt to decide whether community development is or is not education, Miller (1964) wrote that it is often difficult to see any educational process in much of the activity called community development. However, educational method is involved to the extent that the worker in the field tries to help the people of the community learn problem-solving processes. The limited amount of research on the community development process is probably a result of the complexity of the research problem, the paucity of resources for this kind of research, and the prevalence of adult educators who do not feel they need to develop a theoretical base for their programs. Although the quality of research varies widely, only a limited amount meets standards for social science research. According to Bealer and Fliegel (1964), most of the research on planned change in the community development setting has been done by American rural sociologists whose innovation and adoption research was related to processes by which cultural change spreads in a society. Sanders (1964), in analyzing community development in a sociological perspective, concluded that large-scale community development requires a theoretical knowledge of group action processes on the part of leaders and planners. The term community development is used to mean one or more of several different concepts. According to Sanders (1964), it is used in the sense of (a) process, with emphasis on what happens to people and their social life; (b) method or means to improve agriculture or raise health standards; (c) formalized program, such as a national community development plan; and (d) a movement to which people are emotionally committed or a cause to which they are dedicated.