Volume 8, Issue 1 (1990) Community Development and Other Community Applications

This volume of Sociological Practice is devoted to community development and other applications of sociology in the community. The community is a unit of analysis as well as a unit of development. If the term community development implies that it is the community that is being developed, then the purpose of practice is development of the community rather than development in the community. Much of what is labelled community development is actually organizational or group development in the sense that the community is not dealt with holistically. In other cases the individual is the unit of treatment within a community setting. In still other instances, the focus is on bricks and mortar rather than on human or sociological factors. This latter approach can be seen readily in the evaluation of projects that define success in terms of physical outputs such as the construction of roads, parks, or buildings. In these cases, the objectives are community buildings; not community building. In all of these instances, the community is an arena in which development takes place, but the unit of development is something other than the community itself.

Read more from guest editor Alvin S. Lackey in the Introduction to this issue.