Action-Research in Community Development

First published in 1975, Action-Research in Community Development discusses experiences of people who worked on the central government sponsored Community Development Project (CDP). Announced with a flourish in 1969 as part of Britain's 'Poverty Programme', CDP represented a new initiative in British social policy. It was described by the Home Office as 'a radical experiment in community development involving central and local government, voluntary agencies and the universities in a concerted search for better solutions to the problems of deprivation than we now possess...' The commitment was open-ended, to action and research, and to the idea of 'experimental social administration' where new policy would be field tested in pilot areas. Experience in CDP undermined this simple idea of action-research, and the original government enthusiasm fell as the programme moved beyond its original brief and began to develop alternative views of poverty and deprivation. Contributors to this book trace some of these changes and the problems of setting up CDP at the centre and in the local project areas. CDP activities cover a wide range, and there are accounts of local information centres, welfare rights campaigns, work on housing and leasehold reform, with immigrants and in education, as well as papers on the problems of research and evaluation. The book will be of interest to administrators, social policy analysts, research workers, social or community workers and those generally concerned with the problems of tackling urban deprivation.

Introduction Part 1: The national community development project 1. CDP: An official view 2. The history and early development of CDP 3. The context of the twelve project areas 4. Extracts from the inter-project report Part 2: Establishing local projects 5. Early stages in North Tyneside CDP 6. Expectations of a local project 7. The action-research relationship Part 3: Action in the local areas 8. Working with tenants: two case studies 9. The leasehold problem in Saltley 10. The Hillfields information centre: a case study 11. Welfare rights: an experimental approach 12. A note on community education 13. Curriculum development and the community approach 14. Social needs of an immigrant population 15. Job-getting and job-holding 16. Mobility deprivation Part 4: Action and research strategies 17. CDP and the urban programme 18. Community Development as a process of emergence 19. The flaw in the pluralist heaven - changing strategies in the Coventry CDP 20. Action-research: experimental social administration?