Participation In Community Life Research Articles

The Cult of the Duce in Mussolini's Italy

During Mussolini's regime, Italian society, contrary to appearances, was a very depoliticized society. The organizations of the regime mobilized great masses of people, and the towns of every region in Italy were frequently packed with crowds extolling the Duce. But if by 'political' we mean active participation in community life, information about facts and the comparison of ideas, we have to recognize that society in Mussolini's day was the very opposite of a politicized society. The masses nearly always took part in political demonstrations as if in a ritual, circulation of news and information was always controlled by censorship, and any comparison of ideas was extremely limited, even within the Fascist Party. The Fascist Party did not contribute towards framing a policy: it confined itself to carrying out the directives that came from above, supporting the regime's propaganda and assistance activities, and incorporating its political following. In 1939, out of a population of 44 million, the Party and its dependent organizations distributed a total of 21,600,000 membership cards. But in fact the tendency to regiment the whole population and, the consequent absence of selection among registered members contributed to making the organizations rigid and thereby suppressed political debate. Mussolini made little use of the Party for purposes of government. Instead he used the State with its great bureaucratic apparatus. Above all, he used the prefects, who were State officials dependent on the Ministry of the Interior, charged with representing the central government in the various provinces of the realm. They had been in existence ever since the earliest years of the Kingdom of Italy, and had always

Higher Education of Women and National Development in Asia

It is a truism that if half the people in a society have little or no participation in community life or responsible role in its institutions, such a society is not likely to be dynamic and progressive. Thus, in those nations which systematically exclude their women from the cultural and intellectual milieu, not only are the women retarded, but so, eventually, is the whole society. As Chombart de Lauwe has emphasized: Never before has the social status of women raised so many questions throughout the world, and never before has it appeared so clearly that the evolution of social structures is linked up with this question.' Recognizing the relationship of the status of women to national development in the emerging nations, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted two resolutions requesting the member states to study this question and to recommend measures to be incorporated in a long-term United Nations program for the advancement of women.2 Pursuant to these resolutions, the secretary-general called a seminar which was held in Manila, December 6-19, 1966. The seminar was organized by the United Nations in cooperation with the Government of the Philippines, under the program of advisory services in the field of human rights. Participants in the seminar came from countries within the geographical scope of the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE). For two weeks the participants, who included men as well as women, discussed the most urgent needs in their countries and the measures which could be taken by the United Nations to assist in the advancement of women. As the discussions continued, it soon became obvious that the one paramount need overriding everything else was an increase in educational facilities and opportunities for women on all levels, from primary school to the universities. With the exception of Japan, the participants freely ad. mitted that national development was seriously retarded in all areassocial, economic, political and cultural-by the high illiteracy among Asian women and the fact that higher education was available to only a small percentage of them. The lack of adequate educational facilities for males was grimly apparent, too, but the situation for females was much worse.

Guardianship: Every Child's Right

Basic guarantees of American law for protection of the person against unauthorized control by others, respect for the dignity and rights of the individual, and effective par ticipation in community life are safeguarded for the child by a special protective status and protective relationship. In his status as a minor, the child is deprived of self-determination and self-management. The guardian, whether parent, adoptive parent, or judicially appointed person, represents the child's rights and interests in a personal relationship with the child. Studies show, however, that this protective law is almost com pletely neglected in the actual practice of courts and community social agencies serving children, despite mounting evidence of the effect of improper guardianship in child neglect, abuse, exploitation, nonsupport, running away, falling into trouble with the law, and so on. The United States Children's Bureau has made a start toward corrective legislation and practices by suggesting principles and language for legislation which defines and distinguishes key terms at law and clarifies authority and professional relationships with children.

Religion Among Ethnic and Racial Minorities

Churches of racial and ethnic minorities have developed and exist to serve the religious and social needs of these groups. This function has been shaped and reinforced by practices of racial and ethnic discrimination in American society. The goals and programs of racial and ethnic churches are affected by such factors as the movement toward desegregation and integration, the aspiration to full participation in community life, mobility, urbanization, and changes in socio-economic status. Although ethnic churches for persons of European background have virtually disappeared in America, churches of other ethnic and racial minority groups—Negro, Puerto Rican, Spanish-speaking people of the Southwest, American Indian, Chinese American, and Japanese American— continue to exist as significant institutions. Both the Protestant and the Roman Catholic churches recognize that discrimination and segregation contradict their basic beliefs and teachings. There has been a movement toward desegregation and integration within the life of the churches themselves. Because the pattern of ethnic and racial segregation in the churches is related to the pattern of ethnic and racial segregation in society, the churches have had to concern themselves with the elimination of policies and practices of discrimination and segregation in all areas of community life.

Educational, Cultural, and Recreational Services

TODAY there is general agreement that the family finds itself more and more alone in an urban world of growing impersonal complexity. Lack of a sense of belonging brings neglect of democratic responsibilities. And reduced from the status of a human being to a mere statistical cipher, the citizen becomes profoundly discontented with the pattern in which the fabric of his life is woven.1 In addition, during the war years there was built up an imaginary period ahead which was labeled the postwar world, as though it were to be entirely different from that time and the past, and in which problems of the family and the individual were to be automatically solved by full production, high income, and victory over fascism. However, many of these problems that are now arising are unhappy ones that we have known before. The same old social and economic problems are still with us, perhaps more intensely. For example, municipalities are today engaged in debate as to whether they will honor their veterans and memorialize their soldier dead by erection of statuary, or whether their memories will be most hallowed by provision of muchneeded community facilities to create and sustain the moral and social values for which these men fought. In order to promote better psychological outlook and increased social values, participation in community life must be encouraged by the provision of well-organized educational, cultural, and recreational activities. An effort to instill a discriminating appreciation of music, art, and literature into community living, to promulgate educational programs and participation in recreation, and to provide background for the religious life of the individual, must be assisted by an adequate program of services and the physical facilities necessary for their implementation, such as community buildings, schools, churches, libraries, museums, and recreation space. It is now realized that greater participation in desirable activities results from their properly planned relationships to the people. A comprehensive analysis of the needs must precede the planning of projects in order to determine the effects of population and economic trends, the kinds of people who live within each residential area, and their desires and requirements in these fields, along with the facilities and program already existent.

Evaluation of Rural Community Planning in Relation to the Curriculum of Rural Education

A good curriculum provides for effective participation in community life while in school and prepares for intelligent and interested community living as an adult citizen. Good rural planning can occur only when the rural population as a whole is able to apply the processes and techniques of social problem-solving to local as well as broader problems. In the absence of an adult population so educated community planning either is lacking or must be authoritarian and paternalistic in character. It cannot be effective. It will be rejected by the rural people when they go to the polls to elect representa tives or to levy taxes intended for the support of community projects. These facts require social education of a kind not commonly found in the rural curriculum, whether elementary or secondary. The schools must revise their regular curriculum as well as enter upon more extensive adult education pro grams centered about social problem-solving. They must, of course cooperate fully with the educational programs of other community organizations, but theirs is the responsibility for collection and dissemination of basic informa tion and for training all the youth in the requisite intellectual skills and thinking processes.

The Black Girl Passes

A SCARCELY noted result of the interaction between whites and blacks in this country is the gradual and steady elimination of the black girl from all participation in community life. So pressed is she by forces both within and without the Negro group that her ultimate disappearance seems already decreed. Casual confirmation of her doom may be had by comparing the 'color of gatherings of young Negroes of today with that of similar assemblages of twenty-five years ago. Such comparison reveals the fact that the earlier bodies were noticeably blacker. That is to say, the percentage of black people in them was greater. Today black faces in any Negro audience are few. Brown is the predominating hue, while the increasing number of yellow and white countenances promises to give a paler cast to future groups. The black girl has not been altogether left out of Nature's scheme of perpetuating life, but more and more she has been denied the privilege to mate and her children therefore have been few. The progeny of her lighter colored, more frequently wedded sister consequently outnumbers hers. The result is inevitable. Relentlessly she is being discarded. This inference may be substantiated by a merely cursory examination into other facts. Such an examination will show that everywhere the black girl is vanishing. She is not only being ousted from that sphere so lately entered by women, the economic, and not only from that purely feminine realm called society, but she is being forced out of the domain which for centuries has been conceded to be woman's particular heritage, namely, the home. In the economic world, where the black girl is employed at all, she is shunted into the least desirable positions. It is she who toils longest hours at the most degrading work for the smallest pay. Time was when she could command coveted positions. The black mammy tradition is only one faint glimmer of her former refulgence. But black mammy long since disappeared in reality and is rapidly passing as a memory. Her dusky daughter, no matter how comely, faces a keen industrial competition in which heavy pigmentation spells defeat. For Negro women generally there has been for many years one preferred avenue of endeavor. By them and by their brothers the profession of teaching has been and is regarded as a select occupation. Those engaged in it were looked up to as perhaps topmost of the upper crust, enviable possessors of that prestige which goes with the notion that a charmed life exists upon the higher social levels. To be a teacher has been for Negroes a great desideratum. Many an aspiring parent therefore has submitted to grilling sacrifices that his daughter might enter this select class and the family thus win the social leverage thereunto appertaining. Consequently the profession of teaching became the chief outlet for the energies of the rapidly advancing number of trained women. Into it almost exclusively the colleges poured their yearly quotas of sweet girl graduates. Frequently also a Nkegro girl conquered the handicaps and prejudices of the Civil Service and became a government clerk. Occasionally Negro women graduates of the country's foremost schools entered the professions. There have been and are successful Negro women physicians, dentists, pharmacists, lawyers and even ministers. And of late