Edward Zigler and Sally J. Styfco
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195393767
- eISBN:
- 9780199776993
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195393767.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Developmental Psychology
This chapter focuses on the planning of the Head Start program. To the planners, the purpose of Head Start was optimal child development, resulting in improved school readiness. The Community Action ...
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This chapter focuses on the planning of the Head Start program. To the planners, the purpose of Head Start was optimal child development, resulting in improved school readiness. The Community Action people viewed better performance by a Head Start child not as an end in itself but as a means to a much larger end. It was an opportunity to hire parents and locals to improve their financial situation. More important, Head Start would confront and change the system so that all poor children and adults would experience a better quality of life.Less
This chapter focuses on the planning of the Head Start program. To the planners, the purpose of Head Start was optimal child development, resulting in improved school readiness. The Community Action people viewed better performance by a Head Start child not as an end in itself but as a means to a much larger end. It was an opportunity to hire parents and locals to improve their financial situation. More important, Head Start would confront and change the system so that all poor children and adults would experience a better quality of life.
Steve Cropper, Alison Porter, and Gareth Williams (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9781861348180
- eISBN:
- 9781447301936
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781861348180.001.0001
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
Improving health in populations in which it is poor is a complex process. This book argues that the traditional government approach of exhorting individuals to live healthier lifestyles is not enough ...
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Improving health in populations in which it is poor is a complex process. This book argues that the traditional government approach of exhorting individuals to live healthier lifestyles is not enough – action to promote public health needs to take place not just through public agencies, but also by engaging community assets and resources in their broadest sense. The book reports lessons from the experience of planning, establishing, and delivering such action by the five-year Sustainable Health Action Research Programme (SHARP) in Wales. It critically examines the experience of SHARP in relation to current literature on policy; community health and health inequalities; and action research. The authors make clear how this regional development has produced opportunities for developing general concepts and theory about community-based policy developments which are relevant across national boundaries and show that complex and sustained community action, and effective local partnership, are fundamental components of the mix of factors required to address health inequalities successfully. The book concludes by indicating the connections between SHARP and earlier traditions of community-based action, and by arguing that we need to be bolder in our approaches to community-based health improvement and more flexible in our understanding of the ways in which knowledge informs developments in health policy.Less
Improving health in populations in which it is poor is a complex process. This book argues that the traditional government approach of exhorting individuals to live healthier lifestyles is not enough – action to promote public health needs to take place not just through public agencies, but also by engaging community assets and resources in their broadest sense. The book reports lessons from the experience of planning, establishing, and delivering such action by the five-year Sustainable Health Action Research Programme (SHARP) in Wales. It critically examines the experience of SHARP in relation to current literature on policy; community health and health inequalities; and action research. The authors make clear how this regional development has produced opportunities for developing general concepts and theory about community-based policy developments which are relevant across national boundaries and show that complex and sustained community action, and effective local partnership, are fundamental components of the mix of factors required to address health inequalities successfully. The book concludes by indicating the connections between SHARP and earlier traditions of community-based action, and by arguing that we need to be bolder in our approaches to community-based health improvement and more flexible in our understanding of the ways in which knowledge informs developments in health policy.
Nick Gallent and Daniela Ciaffi (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781447315162
- eISBN:
- 9781447315186
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447315162.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
With trust in top-down government faltering, community-based groups around the world are displaying an ever-greater appetite to take control of their own lives and neighbourhoods. Government, for its ...
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With trust in top-down government faltering, community-based groups around the world are displaying an ever-greater appetite to take control of their own lives and neighbourhoods. Government, for its part, is keen to embrace the projects and the planning undertaken at this level, attempting to regularise it and use it as a means of reconnecting to citizens and localising democracy. This unique book analyses the contexts, drivers and outcomes of community action and planning in a selection of case studies in the global north: from emergent neighbourhood planning in England to the community-based housing movement in New York, and from active citizenship in the Dutch new towns to associative action in Marseille. It will be a valuable resource for academic researchers and for postgraduate students on social policy, planning and community development courses.Less
With trust in top-down government faltering, community-based groups around the world are displaying an ever-greater appetite to take control of their own lives and neighbourhoods. Government, for its part, is keen to embrace the projects and the planning undertaken at this level, attempting to regularise it and use it as a means of reconnecting to citizens and localising democracy. This unique book analyses the contexts, drivers and outcomes of community action and planning in a selection of case studies in the global north: from emergent neighbourhood planning in England to the community-based housing movement in New York, and from active citizenship in the Dutch new towns to associative action in Marseille. It will be a valuable resource for academic researchers and for postgraduate students on social policy, planning and community development courses.
Sarah Banks
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9781847428189
- eISBN:
- 9781447303138
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781847428189.003.0011
- Subject:
- Social Work, Social Policy
This chapter examines the nature of ‘community work’ and regards ‘community development’ as one of several approaches to community work. It considers Marjorie Mayo's conclusion that community ...
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This chapter examines the nature of ‘community work’ and regards ‘community development’ as one of several approaches to community work. It considers Marjorie Mayo's conclusion that community development as an intervention has limited radical potential, and argues that this conclusion is equally valid thirty-five years later, as the more radical ‘community action’ approaches to community work have been marginalised and community development has become mainstreamed within policies and practices concerned with promoting citizen participation and neighbourhood renewal. The chapter also offers examples of locally based action for political change (based on community organising and critical pedagogy), which keep alive the radical community-work tradition. The focus is on community work as an occupation and set of practices in Britain, where it has developed separately from social work.Less
This chapter examines the nature of ‘community work’ and regards ‘community development’ as one of several approaches to community work. It considers Marjorie Mayo's conclusion that community development as an intervention has limited radical potential, and argues that this conclusion is equally valid thirty-five years later, as the more radical ‘community action’ approaches to community work have been marginalised and community development has become mainstreamed within policies and practices concerned with promoting citizen participation and neighbourhood renewal. The chapter also offers examples of locally based action for political change (based on community organising and critical pedagogy), which keep alive the radical community-work tradition. The focus is on community work as an occupation and set of practices in Britain, where it has developed separately from social work.
Mark Krasovic
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226352794
- eISBN:
- 9780226352824
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226352824.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This book follows community action – the idea, popular in the years of the Great Society, that marginalized people should participate in designing and implementing public programs that affect their ...
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This book follows community action – the idea, popular in the years of the Great Society, that marginalized people should participate in designing and implementing public programs that affect their lives – as it plays out in Newark, New Jersey, over the course of the 1960s. It focuses on three main manifestations of this idea: the War on Poverty’s Community Action Program, police-community relations programs, and investigative riot commissions. Newark, the book argues, is where community action was stretched to its limits: where locals grabbed hold of the idea and the federal resources that animated it and used them to shape policy, programs, and cultural narratives to their own ends. They recognized community action as a political, even more than an economic, opportunity as they sought greater access to the city’s urban renewal plans, its police department, and city hall itself. This movement produced a response from those hoping to secure existing structures of power, often using their own version of community action. After Newark’s 1967 riots, detractors at the local and national levels turned on community action as the cause, while its proponents used its resources to attempt an alternative reading of events. In the aftermath, as federal support for community action declined and resources were diverted increasingly toward law enforcement and market-oriented modes of urban development, Newarkers found new outlets for their political energy in electoral drives toward city hall and new tools of community development.Less
This book follows community action – the idea, popular in the years of the Great Society, that marginalized people should participate in designing and implementing public programs that affect their lives – as it plays out in Newark, New Jersey, over the course of the 1960s. It focuses on three main manifestations of this idea: the War on Poverty’s Community Action Program, police-community relations programs, and investigative riot commissions. Newark, the book argues, is where community action was stretched to its limits: where locals grabbed hold of the idea and the federal resources that animated it and used them to shape policy, programs, and cultural narratives to their own ends. They recognized community action as a political, even more than an economic, opportunity as they sought greater access to the city’s urban renewal plans, its police department, and city hall itself. This movement produced a response from those hoping to secure existing structures of power, often using their own version of community action. After Newark’s 1967 riots, detractors at the local and national levels turned on community action as the cause, while its proponents used its resources to attempt an alternative reading of events. In the aftermath, as federal support for community action declined and resources were diverted increasingly toward law enforcement and market-oriented modes of urban development, Newarkers found new outlets for their political energy in electoral drives toward city hall and new tools of community development.
Guthrie S. Birkhead and Christopher M. Maylahn
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195372922
- eISBN:
- 9780199866090
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195372922.003.0018
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
This chapter describes the application of specific principles to the practice of public health surveillance at the state and local level. It describes the development and current status of state and ...
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This chapter describes the application of specific principles to the practice of public health surveillance at the state and local level. It describes the development and current status of state and local jurisdiction over the conduct of public health in the United States, the importance of the link between surveillance and community action, the role of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), and new developments in surveillance strategies. The chapter concludes with a description of the challenges faced by public health surveillance practitioners in carrying out this core public health function.Less
This chapter describes the application of specific principles to the practice of public health surveillance at the state and local level. It describes the development and current status of state and local jurisdiction over the conduct of public health in the United States, the importance of the link between surveillance and community action, the role of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), and new developments in surveillance strategies. The chapter concludes with a description of the challenges faced by public health surveillance practitioners in carrying out this core public health function.
Frank Stricker
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807831113
- eISBN:
- 9781469603575
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807882290_stricker.7
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter evaluates the programs that were commonly associated with President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, especially those that were implemented by R. Sargent Shriver's Office of Economic ...
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This chapter evaluates the programs that were commonly associated with President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, especially those that were implemented by R. Sargent Shriver's Office of Economic Opportunity. In particular, it considers job-training programs, paying particular attention to the Manpower Development and Training Act and the Job Corps, along with Head Start, Neighborhood Legal Services, and community action programs. The chapter then outlines some of what planners and politicians did to address poverty during the 1960s, and analyzes which among the War on Poverty, economic growth, and cash transfers cured poverty in 1965–1970. It concludes by discussing the impact of Johnson's liberalism on his antipoverty crusade.Less
This chapter evaluates the programs that were commonly associated with President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, especially those that were implemented by R. Sargent Shriver's Office of Economic Opportunity. In particular, it considers job-training programs, paying particular attention to the Manpower Development and Training Act and the Job Corps, along with Head Start, Neighborhood Legal Services, and community action programs. The chapter then outlines some of what planners and politicians did to address poverty during the 1960s, and analyzes which among the War on Poverty, economic growth, and cash transfers cured poverty in 1965–1970. It concludes by discussing the impact of Johnson's liberalism on his antipoverty crusade.
Angus McCabe (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781447327776
- eISBN:
- 9781447327806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447327776.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Organizations
This chapter explores the debates about 'below the radar' (BTR) community groups and their assumed role in delivering a range of policy agendas from democratic renewal through to community cohesion ...
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This chapter explores the debates about 'below the radar' (BTR) community groups and their assumed role in delivering a range of policy agendas from democratic renewal through to community cohesion and public service delivery. It argues that the motivators for community action are, and have been, ill understood in policy circles. Further, there is and has been little systematic analysis of the power relationship between the state (both locally and nationally) communities and neighbourhoods which can inform meaningful debate on devolution and localism. The chapter critically examines the implications of changing policy environments for small community groups and asks can such activity, which has often been independent of, and operated outside the state, be co-opted to deliver particular government policy objectives?Less
This chapter explores the debates about 'below the radar' (BTR) community groups and their assumed role in delivering a range of policy agendas from democratic renewal through to community cohesion and public service delivery. It argues that the motivators for community action are, and have been, ill understood in policy circles. Further, there is and has been little systematic analysis of the power relationship between the state (both locally and nationally) communities and neighbourhoods which can inform meaningful debate on devolution and localism. The chapter critically examines the implications of changing policy environments for small community groups and asks can such activity, which has often been independent of, and operated outside the state, be co-opted to deliver particular government policy objectives?
Karen M. Hawkins
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813054971
- eISBN:
- 9780813053424
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813054971.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter discusses the Office of Economic Opportunity’s shift away from local ideas. This primarily entailed OEO funding fewer projects originating from local people and instead pushing national ...
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This chapter discusses the Office of Economic Opportunity’s shift away from local ideas. This primarily entailed OEO funding fewer projects originating from local people and instead pushing national emphasis programs, such as Head Start, designed by federal officials. Although congressional cuts to OEO’s budget in 1967 played a role, the federal campaign to standardize the types of programs within the nation’s Community Action Agencies was perhaps more in response to other factors. For one, there was growing congressional disapproval for the controversial (and sometimes violent) direction of some local community action groups. Additionally, there was a continuing belief within OEO that national-emphasis programs would be more effective in reaching those most in need than were programs conceived by local people, most of whom were not poor themselves.Less
This chapter discusses the Office of Economic Opportunity’s shift away from local ideas. This primarily entailed OEO funding fewer projects originating from local people and instead pushing national emphasis programs, such as Head Start, designed by federal officials. Although congressional cuts to OEO’s budget in 1967 played a role, the federal campaign to standardize the types of programs within the nation’s Community Action Agencies was perhaps more in response to other factors. For one, there was growing congressional disapproval for the controversial (and sometimes violent) direction of some local community action groups. Additionally, there was a continuing belief within OEO that national-emphasis programs would be more effective in reaching those most in need than were programs conceived by local people, most of whom were not poor themselves.
Mark Krasovic
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226352794
- eISBN:
- 9780226352824
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226352824.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
The book’s conclusion considers the legacy of 1960s community action in the decades after the election of the city’s first black mayor in 1970, a period in which the city was regarded as a largely ...
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The book’s conclusion considers the legacy of 1960s community action in the decades after the election of the city’s first black mayor in 1970, a period in which the city was regarded as a largely hollow prize. Numerous municipal officials during this period – including two mayors – had gained a political education via the city’s antipoverty program. But they faced greatly diminished federal investments that came increasingly in the form of block grants that were uninterested in significant community participation. The conclusion follows the depletion and reorganization of the Community Action Program and the broader ethic that had guided it, yet finds their most significant legacy in the various community-based organizations that continue to anchor particular neighborhoods and value the knowledge and desires of their residents.Less
The book’s conclusion considers the legacy of 1960s community action in the decades after the election of the city’s first black mayor in 1970, a period in which the city was regarded as a largely hollow prize. Numerous municipal officials during this period – including two mayors – had gained a political education via the city’s antipoverty program. But they faced greatly diminished federal investments that came increasingly in the form of block grants that were uninterested in significant community participation. The conclusion follows the depletion and reorganization of the Community Action Program and the broader ethic that had guided it, yet finds their most significant legacy in the various community-based organizations that continue to anchor particular neighborhoods and value the knowledge and desires of their residents.
Claire Townsend Ing, Rebecca Delafield, and Shelley Soong
Winona K. Mesiona Lee and Mele A. Look (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780824872731
- eISBN:
- 9780824875718
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824872731.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Pacific Studies
Hawaiians have faced historical and cultural traumas leading to modern day inequities in the social, economic and political realms. These inequities contribute to poor health status that many Native ...
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Hawaiians have faced historical and cultural traumas leading to modern day inequities in the social, economic and political realms. These inequities contribute to poor health status that many Native Hawaiians experience. Two groups have attempted to improve these health outcomes, Academic researchers and the Native Hawaiian community. However, often times the approaches and goals of these two groups are at odds. Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is an approach that seeks to combine community goals, action, and priorities with those of academic research. This chapter illustrates the evolution of CBPR in Hawai‘i, and its meaningful principles that have been effective for both the Native Hawaiian and research communities in their promotion of health.Less
Hawaiians have faced historical and cultural traumas leading to modern day inequities in the social, economic and political realms. These inequities contribute to poor health status that many Native Hawaiians experience. Two groups have attempted to improve these health outcomes, Academic researchers and the Native Hawaiian community. However, often times the approaches and goals of these two groups are at odds. Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is an approach that seeks to combine community goals, action, and priorities with those of academic research. This chapter illustrates the evolution of CBPR in Hawai‘i, and its meaningful principles that have been effective for both the Native Hawaiian and research communities in their promotion of health.
Stephen Schryer
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781503603677
- eISBN:
- 9781503606081
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503603677.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
Focusing on the African American poet and playwright Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), the Introduction explores links between 1950s and 1960s process literature and the Community Action Program. Baraka’s ...
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Focusing on the African American poet and playwright Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), the Introduction explores links between 1950s and 1960s process literature and the Community Action Program. Baraka’s Black Arts Repertory Theatre and School (BARTS) was funded through the War on Poverty, and his version of process art fulfilled the participatory requirements of the Community Action Program. Both Baraka and many welfare activists allied with the Community Action Program also drew on a binary conception of class culture popularized by the post–World War II counterculture and liberal social science. This binary conception produced two figures that alternately incited and frustrated literary and social work efforts to bridge the gap between the middle class and the poor: the juvenile delinquent and the welfare mother.Less
Focusing on the African American poet and playwright Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), the Introduction explores links between 1950s and 1960s process literature and the Community Action Program. Baraka’s Black Arts Repertory Theatre and School (BARTS) was funded through the War on Poverty, and his version of process art fulfilled the participatory requirements of the Community Action Program. Both Baraka and many welfare activists allied with the Community Action Program also drew on a binary conception of class culture popularized by the post–World War II counterculture and liberal social science. This binary conception produced two figures that alternately incited and frustrated literary and social work efforts to bridge the gap between the middle class and the poor: the juvenile delinquent and the welfare mother.
Liz Richardson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9781847420855
- eISBN:
- 9781447302124
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781847420855.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
This introductory chapter looks at the activities people in low-income neighbourhoods are doing in order to improve the places where they live. It first discusses DIY community action, which is used ...
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This introductory chapter looks at the activities people in low-income neighbourhoods are doing in order to improve the places where they live. It first discusses DIY community action, which is used interchangeably with ‘community self-help activity’. The chapter then studies the importance of neighbourhood conditions and the concepts of social capital and community engagement. It ends with a study of the structure of the book and the findings of the study.Less
This introductory chapter looks at the activities people in low-income neighbourhoods are doing in order to improve the places where they live. It first discusses DIY community action, which is used interchangeably with ‘community self-help activity’. The chapter then studies the importance of neighbourhood conditions and the concepts of social capital and community engagement. It ends with a study of the structure of the book and the findings of the study.
Liz Richardson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9781847420855
- eISBN:
- 9781447302124
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781847420855.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
This chapter aims to show how the work of the groups contributes to dealing with social exclusion and neighbourhood decline. It examines how one understands the value the groups' work has, what the ...
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This chapter aims to show how the work of the groups contributes to dealing with social exclusion and neighbourhood decline. It examines how one understands the value the groups' work has, what the groups actually do in practice, and whether one can create more social capital and citizenship using community self-help activity. The chapter determines that initially, the things the groups do seem like worthy activities, but that this perception drops compared to the scale of problems.Less
This chapter aims to show how the work of the groups contributes to dealing with social exclusion and neighbourhood decline. It examines how one understands the value the groups' work has, what the groups actually do in practice, and whether one can create more social capital and citizenship using community self-help activity. The chapter determines that initially, the things the groups do seem like worthy activities, but that this perception drops compared to the scale of problems.
Mark Krasovic
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226352794
- eISBN:
- 9780226352824
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226352824.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter provides a history of the development of the Community Action Program within the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. It complements those histories that have focused on the role of ...
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This chapter provides a history of the development of the Community Action Program within the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. It complements those histories that have focused on the role of social scientists and academic theory in the development of the program by providing accounts of key program architects’ encounters with marginalized Americans, including Native Americans and urban gang members. Out of such encounters grew a critique of the federal bureaucracy that, in turn, produced community action.Less
This chapter provides a history of the development of the Community Action Program within the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. It complements those histories that have focused on the role of social scientists and academic theory in the development of the program by providing accounts of key program architects’ encounters with marginalized Americans, including Native Americans and urban gang members. Out of such encounters grew a critique of the federal bureaucracy that, in turn, produced community action.
Jørgen Amdam
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781447315162
- eISBN:
- 9781447315186
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447315162.003.0015
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
The author brings different actors and scales together in a depiction of Volda (Norway) as a complex adaptive system, arguing that the effects of scale can be nullified where there is a genuine ...
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The author brings different actors and scales together in a depiction of Volda (Norway) as a complex adaptive system, arguing that the effects of scale can be nullified where there is a genuine devolution of power to community actors; that, essentially, there are decisions that are best made at a community scale though ‘self-governed community development’. Such mechanisms are specific to context, but many conceptions of planning allow the separation of strategic from local development decisions, and the argument that power should be devolved as far as possible is not an unusual one. These debates, however, inevitably return to the view that community action will always exist within the shadow of hierarchical authority.Less
The author brings different actors and scales together in a depiction of Volda (Norway) as a complex adaptive system, arguing that the effects of scale can be nullified where there is a genuine devolution of power to community actors; that, essentially, there are decisions that are best made at a community scale though ‘self-governed community development’. Such mechanisms are specific to context, but many conceptions of planning allow the separation of strategic from local development decisions, and the argument that power should be devolved as far as possible is not an unusual one. These debates, however, inevitably return to the view that community action will always exist within the shadow of hierarchical authority.
Jenny Phillimore and Angus McCabe (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781447327776
- eISBN:
- 9781447327806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447327776.003.0013
- Subject:
- Sociology, Organizations
There is a growing interest in social networks and the potential that exploring them brings to understanding development and change in communities. Equally, there has been, until recently, a ...
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There is a growing interest in social networks and the potential that exploring them brings to understanding development and change in communities. Equally, there has been, until recently, a substantial investment in community capacity building; developing the skills and knowledge of community activists to ‘grow’ their organisations and ‘scale up’ to take on public and other services. Yet, little is known about how those active in small, below the radar, community groups gain the skills, knowledge and resources they need to meet their goals and objectives, whether political or service driven. This chapter questions the assumption which has underpinned ‘capacity building’ initiatives: that skills are best developed through formal training and education and highlights the importance of networks and informality as key aspects of peer learning for community action.Less
There is a growing interest in social networks and the potential that exploring them brings to understanding development and change in communities. Equally, there has been, until recently, a substantial investment in community capacity building; developing the skills and knowledge of community activists to ‘grow’ their organisations and ‘scale up’ to take on public and other services. Yet, little is known about how those active in small, below the radar, community groups gain the skills, knowledge and resources they need to meet their goals and objectives, whether political or service driven. This chapter questions the assumption which has underpinned ‘capacity building’ initiatives: that skills are best developed through formal training and education and highlights the importance of networks and informality as key aspects of peer learning for community action.
Kazuyo Tsuchiya
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816681112
- eISBN:
- 9781452947945
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816681112.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Movements and Social Change
This chapter discusses the Community Action Program (CAP) and its doctrine of the “maximum feasible participation” of the poor in the early 1960s. The CAP was created under the leadership of the ...
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This chapter discusses the Community Action Program (CAP) and its doctrine of the “maximum feasible participation” of the poor in the early 1960s. The CAP was created under the leadership of the Bureau of the Budget when poverty was largely ignored during the post-World War II period in the United States One of its proposals was to distribute the resources of existing public and private organizations for the improvement of educational, training, health, and other services for the poor. However, the policy makers of CAP were divided over how to integrate the poor and the Black Americans into state programs; thus, the original concept of CAP was suspended between the rubrics of inclusion and exclusion.Less
This chapter discusses the Community Action Program (CAP) and its doctrine of the “maximum feasible participation” of the poor in the early 1960s. The CAP was created under the leadership of the Bureau of the Budget when poverty was largely ignored during the post-World War II period in the United States One of its proposals was to distribute the resources of existing public and private organizations for the improvement of educational, training, health, and other services for the poor. However, the policy makers of CAP were divided over how to integrate the poor and the Black Americans into state programs; thus, the original concept of CAP was suspended between the rubrics of inclusion and exclusion.
Stephen Schryer
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781503603677
- eISBN:
- 9781503606081
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503603677.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
Ranging from the 1950s to the present, Maximum Feasible Participation traces the literary legacy of the War on Poverty. After World War II, countercultural and minority writers developed an ...
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Ranging from the 1950s to the present, Maximum Feasible Participation traces the literary legacy of the War on Poverty. After World War II, countercultural and minority writers developed an antiformalist art that privileged process over product, rejecting literary conventions that separated authors from their audiences. This aesthetic was part of a broader trend toward participatory professionalism: an emerging model of expert work that challenged boundaries between professionals and clients. During the War on Poverty, the Johnson administration promoted this model through the Community Action Program, which encouraged “maximum feasible participation” by lower-class clients. Not coincidentally, many writers, especially cultural nationalists like Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), established institutions that were funded by this program. Participatory professionalism, however, hinged on a concept of poverty that was the paradigm’s undoing. Postwar social scientists developed a binary model of class, which insisted that the poor inhabit a culture of poverty at odds with middle-class norms. This theory resonated with process artists’ depictions of poverty as an alternative, present-oriented worldview that disrupted traditional literary conventions. This notion of cultural difference at once enabled and frustrated process art, and it lent itself to political programs aimed at dismantling the welfare state. With in-depth readings of Jack Kerouac, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Joyce Carol Oates, Tom Wolfe, Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara, Philip Roth, and Carolyn Chute, Maximum Feasible Participation shows how mid-twentieth-century welfare politics transformed American writers’ understanding of audience and literary form.Less
Ranging from the 1950s to the present, Maximum Feasible Participation traces the literary legacy of the War on Poverty. After World War II, countercultural and minority writers developed an antiformalist art that privileged process over product, rejecting literary conventions that separated authors from their audiences. This aesthetic was part of a broader trend toward participatory professionalism: an emerging model of expert work that challenged boundaries between professionals and clients. During the War on Poverty, the Johnson administration promoted this model through the Community Action Program, which encouraged “maximum feasible participation” by lower-class clients. Not coincidentally, many writers, especially cultural nationalists like Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), established institutions that were funded by this program. Participatory professionalism, however, hinged on a concept of poverty that was the paradigm’s undoing. Postwar social scientists developed a binary model of class, which insisted that the poor inhabit a culture of poverty at odds with middle-class norms. This theory resonated with process artists’ depictions of poverty as an alternative, present-oriented worldview that disrupted traditional literary conventions. This notion of cultural difference at once enabled and frustrated process art, and it lent itself to political programs aimed at dismantling the welfare state. With in-depth readings of Jack Kerouac, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Joyce Carol Oates, Tom Wolfe, Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara, Philip Roth, and Carolyn Chute, Maximum Feasible Participation shows how mid-twentieth-century welfare politics transformed American writers’ understanding of audience and literary form.
Hemalata Dandekar and Kelly Main
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9781447315162
- eISBN:
- 9781447315186
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447315162.003.0009
- Subject:
- Political Science, Public Policy
In southern California the authors present a case study revealing that community action is an extension of existing community processes and capacities. They are dealing with processes that have been ...
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In southern California the authors present a case study revealing that community action is an extension of existing community processes and capacities. They are dealing with processes that have been implanted in order to generate acceptance of planning decisions and outcomes. What we see in California is a form of extended participatory democracy (which is heavily supported) rather than the communitarian planning outlined in the introductory chapter: essentially a form of community planning which is state sponsored in response to the ‘disconnect’ between the intervention and the heterogeneous needs of community groups.Less
In southern California the authors present a case study revealing that community action is an extension of existing community processes and capacities. They are dealing with processes that have been implanted in order to generate acceptance of planning decisions and outcomes. What we see in California is a form of extended participatory democracy (which is heavily supported) rather than the communitarian planning outlined in the introductory chapter: essentially a form of community planning which is state sponsored in response to the ‘disconnect’ between the intervention and the heterogeneous needs of community groups.
