(parts are based
on a talk given by Annie Ray of Oregon
Rural Action)
How is community
development different from the 'social services' model?
| |
Social
services model |
Community
development |
| Central focus |
delivery
of services |
identification
of issues, populations affected |
| role of participation |
there are
incentives to incomplete use/knowledge of available programs (e.g.,
for state budgets) |
success depends
on broad-based, inclusive strategies |
| flexibility |
resistant
to change (why?) |
dynamic,
fluid-projects/initiatives depend on support of constituents |
| Potential
for effecting social change |
Doesn't challenge
inequalities-inherently designed for minimal comfort of recipients |
Potential
to address causes, not symptoms (but can do both)-address structural
factors |
| Bureaucratic
constraints |
Structure
is predetermined-if problem doesn't fit, need a new program (e.g.,
water billing in Ontario, low-income heating assistance program) |
Great flexibility
in how to approach a problem |
| personnel |
may be understaffed,
but includes fixed budgets for personnel |
often relies
heavily on volunteer staff |
| Certainty
of funding |
Funding more
certain, but still subject to political circumstances (consider
the broad cuts Oregon social services are likely to suffer this
year) |
Funding may
vary, sources are less certain than public services model, many
community development organizations must devote scarce resources
to looking for money to keep active |
The two types
of approaches can 'complement' each other. Community development approaches
don't have to 'worry' about basic service delivery programs, and can
act as a 'safety net' where standard social services are lacking,
inadequate. So even if public welfare programs are supposed to serve
as safety nets, sometimes people still fall through the cracks, and
if the problem is serious and widespread enough and the strategies
for identifying it within a community effective, CD projects can serve
valuable functions.
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Functions of
community development
-
Social
safety net (addressing issues that social services programs don't
or can't);
-
Social
conscience (fighting for issues of social justice-for instance making
a community more handicap-accessible, or addressing difficult issues
such as domestic violence);
-
Advocacy
(for instance, the ORA's support for Measure 27 to label foods with
genetically engineered organisms/components);
-
Activism
(the water-billing project in Ontario included a request to change
the wording in the city's regulations about not having to provide
residents with municipal water if they have had their water shut
off at least twice for non-payment);
-
Community
participation (development organizations, especially to the extent
they practice grassroots, 'bottom-up' development, have the potential
to give voice to the powerless and disenfranchised, as well as other
more privileged groups within the community);
-
Address
quality of life issues (social services models couldn't, for instance,
try to put pressure on local industrial polluters to clean up their
act, or to pass an ordinance notifying neighbors when someone intends
to spray toxic pesticides)
Know the difference
between grassroots, bottom-up approach, versus top-down, bureaucratic
approach.
Advantages
and disadvantages
Community/policy
approaches versus project/program approaches
-
Integration,
coordination-social services can sometimes achieve coordination-for
instance, here in La Grande now many of the social services are
housed in the new Gekeler St. building, and the goal is better integration;
with community development, because it is bottom-up, it's sometimes
difficult to plan because one never knows what sorts of problems
people will identify as important, and as worthy of their efforts
to address. However, community development can be integrated into
an overall strategy at the community level-social services programs
are pretty much 'one size fits all.'
-
Flow
of information
-
There
are different kinds of information. Often times we value scientific
information, especially when we're trying to evaluate social
services, or inform welfare policy. Think of Seccombe's book-she
deliberately went out and interviewed women who were neglected
in formulations of public policy, realizing that their perspective
was not included. Bottom-up approaches should be characterized
by two-way flows of information-policymakers need to know what
the people they purport to help are thinking, and people need
to know what policies are, how to use them, etc. Ideally, policy
reflects the needs both of funders and recipients.
-
Contrast
this to welfare reform. If the main intent is to reduce welfare
rolls, without trying to address the reasons they are so difficult
to reduce, the objective may be met, but that doesn't necessarily
imply that people will be better off as a result.
-
Integration
versus intervention
-
Social
services programs can be integrated between themselves, but
they are generally geared more towards intervention. Community
development projects can be tailored to community needs as expressed
by participants in planning processes and public meetings. They
may recommend interventions of various sorts, but those interventions
are proposed because they meet a community's needs, not because
they fit into a bureaucratic system of social welfare service.
- Scale
- Social services
models can be quite efficient here--as bureaucracies, they're
better set up to handle large numbers of clients. Community development
can get quite messy as the size of the constituency increases.
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What is social
capital?
We know what human
capital is, right? So what is social capital? Here are a few definitions:
It can refer to
social organizations, existing networks of mutual aid, reciprocity,
or to stocks of social trust, norms and networks that people can draw
upon to solve common problems. It is one way to think about the strength
of social ties and networks and the kinds of benefits that social
groups expect to get from these networks.
Can you think
of examples of social capital that might operate in a community? Capital
already built up by segments of a community that may be useful for
development purposes. Remember how we discussed how women who had
some social support systems seemed to be demonstrably better
off, with respect to their need for welfare and their ability to get
off of welfare, than those without? They've got social capital.
Welfare agencies often reward those with social capital (for instance,
welfare reform tries to put children in parents' or relatives' homes),
or another way of looking at it, those without social capital
are punished. Chamber of commerce, various church groups-think of
our hunger project and the kind of social capital that may operate
between churches, food banks, non-profit organizations, etc.
According to sociologist
James Coleman (1988), social capital fills a need within a society/social
group, and is an economic adaptation (it's functional-we've
talked about the functional argument before). French sociologist Pierre
Bordieu (1995) contends that social capital is a function of economic
organization, and thus that most social capital is a response-it
may benefit those already in privileged positions, or it may be designed
to address perceived inequities of some groups, but to understand
it requires an examination of economic structures and capitalism.
Sociologist Robert
Putnam (1995) refers to features of social organization such as networks,
norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation
for mutual benefit. He focuses the idea of social capital on communities.
His book, entitled 'Bowling Alone (2000),' discusses in depth the
loss of social capital in communities across America. It must be kept
in mind, however, that some social groups and some social capital
works to the benefit of certain groups, at the expense of others.
What is a social
network, or who's in it? (people you know, who know you, presumably
with a higher level of trust than members have with outsiders)-is
social capital always beneficial (in other words, can it be used to
exclude as well? At the extreme, would the KKK be considered a form
of social capital)?
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Examples
from Putnam's book, Bowling Alone
-
When
a group of neighbors informally keep an eye on one another's homes,
that's social capital in action.
-
When
a tightly knit community of Hassidic Jews trade diamonds without
having to test each gem for purity, that's social capital in action
(a high level of trust with tens of thousands of dollars worth of
gems).
-
Barn-raising
on the American frontier;
-
e-mail
exchanges among members of a cancer support group;
-
Social
capital can be found in friendship networks, neighborhoods, churches,
schools, bridge clubs, civic associations, and even bars-the motto
in the TV show Cheers "where everybody knows your name"
captures one important aspect of social capital.
How does social
capital affect:
-
information flows (e.g. learning about jobs, learning about candidates
running for office, exchanging ideas at college, finding out what
houses are available for rent or sale, who the 'best' professors
or what the best classes are, etc.) depend on social capital
-
norms
of reciprocity (mutual aid) are dependent on social networks.
-
Bonding
networks that connect folks who are similar, and can sustain
reciprocity within a defined group.
-
Bridging
networks that connect individuals who are diverse, and can sustain
more generalized reciprocity between groups.
-
Collective
action depends upon social networks-action often draws upon existing
networks and resources-why re-create the wheel (e.g., the role that
the black churches played in the civic rights movement)? However,
collective action also can foster new networks (for instance, when
community development processes identify new problems and must bring
together diverse groups to address them).
-
Broader
identities and solidarity are encouraged by social networks that
help translate an "I" mentality into a "we"
mentality.
On an exam, I
might ask about what kinds of social capital could be useful for addressing
hunger or food-related issues in La Grande, for instance, or even
what kind of social capital might be harmful to community development
efforts. Understand how social capital is in a sense a corollary to
human capital-but it works at a collective level. We know how individuals
invest in human capital-that's pretty easy to decipher. There is less
agreement about where social capital comes from, but considerable
agreement that it can be used to help communities, social groups,
etc., address problems. How does social capital manifest itself on
campus, in your own community?
So, we know what
human capital is, and how it is presumed to benefit people. How does
social capital fit into this understanding?
What can we do
to help facilitate development of social capital? (first, do we need
to learn how it works?)
Any dangers associated
with social capital (its use to further parochial interests, when
a minority is well-organized and able to 'outflank' a majority)? How
about using
neighborhood groups to spy on suspicious immigrant groups?
Is the relationship
between politicians and corporate America an example of social capital?
What are some of the forms?
Who's likely left
out in this equation?
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Development
biases: Putting the last first
In Robert Chambers'
1984 book, Rural Development: Putting the Last First, he discusses
how development is often 'biased' against those hardest to reach.
In other words, the kinds of problems development can address are
limited to those expressed by the easiest to reach. Annie talked about
how difficult it is, for instance, to go out and find migrant workers
to talk to. This is the same dynamic at work. Some of the biases include:
-
'Tarmac'--in
other words, the further away from the tarmac (the runway), the
less the chances that one's views will be heard or incorporated;
-
Urban/rural--there
are many ways that development is biased in favor of urban areas.
With respect to political representation, there are more votes to
be had in larger areas. There are more doctors, more specialists,
more services in general, more entertainment, better transportation,
better access to a wide variety of goods and services, etc.
-
Tourism--when
development workers do 'tours' of poverty-stricken areas, for instance,
who do they see? In some cases, they see who the locals, or who
local officials, want them to see. The showcases.
-
Off
the beaten path--once out in the bush, or even in the city, the
further away from main thoroghfares, commercial centers, etc., the
less likely are one's chances of being heard.
-
Household
differences--are single mothers as likely to be represented as others?
They may be at work, doing a child care run, etc., or just may not
have the time to provide input.
-
Meeting
biases--who can make it, who can't? Who's more likely to miss meetings
and why? Does the time in which meetings are held (e.g., after dinner)
make a difference in who can attend?
-
Linguistic,
cultural biases
The point is that
it is difficult to elicit participation, broad-based participation,
and takes a great deal of work. Yet community development, grassroots
community development anyway, depends on this process. Garbage in, garbage
out--if the information on which you're basing policy was collected
haphazardly, or perhaps even to misrepresent some people's views (for
instance, the way that the sampling of homeless populations was done
for the last two censuses), what's likely to come of it won't be a clear
picture of reality.
Social capital
is not a cure-all. In some cases, for instance the proverbial good
ol' boy networks, it may work against others' interests. It may facilitate
development for some at the expense of others. Thus an important element
of bottom-up community development is transparency.
However, if we don't take a grassroots approach, many times
we risk subverting traditional roles of social capital that could
prove quite useful, and replacing them with top-down versions that
may not work very well.
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Sources
Bourdieu, Pierre.
1985. The Forms of Capital. Chapter 9 in JG Richardson (Ed.) Handbook
of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. Greenwood
Press.
Chambers, Robert. 1984. Rural Development: Putting the Last First.
New York: Longman.
Coleman, James. 1988. Social capital in the creation of human capital.
American Journal of Sociology 94 (supplement), s95-s120.
Putnam, R. 1995. Bowling Alone: America's declining social capital.
Journal of Democracy. 6,1 (Jan): 65-78.
Putnam, R. 1995. Bowling Alone. Simon and Schuster.
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