HSC 4201 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Social Actions
Community Organizing/Building
• Community organizing—a process by which community groups are helped to identify common
problems or change targets, mobilize resources, and develop and implement strategies for
reaching their collective goals
• Community capacity—community characteristics affecting its ability to identify, mobilize, and
address problems
• Empowerment—social action process for people to gain mastery over their lives and the lives of
their communities
• Participation and relevance—community organizing should start where the people are and
engage community members as equals
• Social Capital—processes and conditions among people and organizations that lead to their
accomplishing a goal of mutual social benefit, usually characterized by interrelated constructs of
trust, cooperation, civic engagement, and reciprocity, reinforced by networking
Need for Organizing Communities
• Need for organizing communities has increased
• Advances in electronics and communications, household upgrades, and increased mobility have
resulted in a loss of a sense of community
• Individuals are much more independent than before
Assumptions of Community Organizing
• Ross, those who organize communities do so while making certain assumptions.
1. Communities of people can develop the capacity to deal with their own problems
2. People want to change and can change
3. People should participate in making, adjusting, or controlling the major changes taking place
in their communities
4. Changes in community living that are self-imposed or self-developed have a meaning and
permanence that imposed changes do not have
5. A holisti approah a suessfully address proles with whih a frageted
approah aot
6. Democracy requires cooperative participation and action in the affairs of the community,
and people must learn the skills that make this possible
7. Frequently, communities of people need help in organizing to deal with their needs, just as
many individuals require help in coping with their individual problems
Community Organizing Methods
• There is no single preferred method for organizing community
• Rothman created an original typology of 3 primary methods of community organization:
o Locality development
o Social planning
o Social action
• Have been renamed:
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