Community Development Theory

Define: Community Development Theory focuses on a "community" of persons which can be defined in a variety of ways: geographical, cultural, socioeconomic status, language, and more by increasing public participation to use participatory democracy for community decision-making. Key to this theory is creating structural change that is non-reversible by introducing other structural changes or stabilizing current structures to protect from future changes.

Cook, J. (1994, October 1). Community Development Theory. Retrieved November 18, 2015, from http://extension.missouri.edu/p/MP568
Apply: I mean, duh. I feel one of the critical aspects of the theory is participation being view as a mode of self-help, which is an empowering ideal in the United States. Framing and practicing community organization as a mode of self-help is crucial from attempting to gain status as a community organizer, as our role is that of the backstage manager.

Adapt: My time spent overseas was largely focused on making structural changes and stabilizing other structural changes in an attempt to create order in an area of unrest. Using community development theory while working internationally can also help to reduce the paternalistic feel and help to prevent exploitation of the area for capitalist gain.

For more reading on community development theory, see: http://communityandtheories650.blogspot.com/

Berger and Luckmann: The Social Construction of Reality

Ah, a return to why nothing really matters.

Define: "Society is a human product. Society is an objective reality. Man is a social product." - Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann

Source: Robbins, S., Chatterjee, P., & Canda, E. (2012). Contemporary human behavior theory: A critical perspective for social work (3rd ed., p. 329). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Apply: It is up to us to define the life in which we live and to assign value to our lives. Currently, our society values the well-being of the economy of the well-being of other humans; in a recent class, a student commented that material reparations to persons the U.S. has harmed through domestic and international policy would bankrupt our country. As community organizers and very privileged individuals in the U of M system, we must recognize the impact that our country's policies have had on today's landscape of material ownership (cars, land, houses, etc.).

Adapt: This is part of raising the human populations' collective conscious to treat each other, animals, and the world better. This transcends all fields of study and work, becoming a human issue that must be recognized for the continuity of life on earth.

Popular Education

Define: Popular education is focused on the political gain of inequality, oppression, and exploitation and addressing this through community action of education tied to social justice. It is distinct from mercy work (ex: food pantry, clothing drive) in that it is focused on justice and creating an egalitarian society.

Crowther, J., Martin, I., & Shaw, M. (1999). Popular education and the struggle for democracy. Popular Education and Social Movements in Scotland Today,4.

Apply: Biblically, it is called upon us to do justice, mercy, and faith. Nehemiah, chapters 5 and 7, gives us the tools of gathering a great assembly to do justice by holding the powerful accountable for fairness. We gather these great assemblies by learning about the injustices in a community through community members and by teaching ways to address these injustices.

Adapt: I have had a thought of creating a Children's Taskforce that is for children and by children. While I understand the dynamics of having adults making decisions, I feel our society often overlooks the child's actual perspective on their own welfare.

Role Theory

Define: Role theory addresses the development of the self through the roles we are socialized into and the expected behavior patterns set by the norms of our society. Role theory ties into structural functionalism and symbolic interactionism and social roles can be defined by race, ethnicity, sex, and age while achieved roles can be due to personal effort, accomplishment, or choice (Ex: wife or mother).

Source: Robbins, S., Chatterjee, P., & Canda, E. (2012). Contemporary human behavior theory: A critical perspective for social work (3rd ed., p. 62-65). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Apply: Roles are important in the United States and many persons use their roles to establish their identity, particularly through the work we do in our society. Recognizing the importance of roles while organizing communities is important as we work to identify and develop internal leaders. It is also important to find roles for persons that currently do not have one to ensure the movement is invested in them as well as them being invested in the movement.

Adapt: Role Theory can be used for early childhood education to change gender cultural norms. This can be by addressing hyper-masculinity at an early age or by addressing the norm of submissive females in our society.

Marxism

Define: Marxism is the analysis of capitalism and its roots of exploitation, poverty, and alienation of people from the political, religious, and economic arenas. Marxism asserts that capitalism is not a sustainable model of economics and the increasing wage gap (class struggle) between the workers (proletariats) and the capitalists (bourgeoisie) will lead to a revolution.

Source: Robbins, S., Chatterjee, P., & Canda, E. (2012). Contemporary human behavior theory: A critical perspective for social work (3rd ed., p. 62-65). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Apply: Community organization largely revolves around working with the poor-working classes of our society, except for the case of the "rich people's social movement" of Citizens United. Capitalism is a system that can work for all, if heavily regulated, but has increasingly become a system by many, for few. We should be critical of the capitalist economic model to ensure that our social justice reformations have lasting impact and cannot be bought off in the current or in the future.

Adapt: For more ethical business practices and for the sake of preventing a workers' revolution, businesses should adapt ideals of Marxism for more equitable pay for labor. This is evidenced by the profits and worker satisfaction that CostCo enjoys (Cooperstein, 2013).

Cooperstein, P. (2013, November 22). Why Employees Love Working For Costco. Retrieved November 18, 2015, from http://www.businessinsider.com/why-employees-love-working-for-costco-2013-11 

Carol Gilligan's Theory of Moral Development

Define: Since women generally "failed" to reach a "higher" level of moral functioning in Kohlberg's theory and interviews, Carol Gilligan reasoned there must be some gender differences in moral reasoning. This theory says women use relationships and responsibilities to develop morals, as opposed to rules and abstract principles that males use.

Source: Robbins, S., Chatterjee, P., & Canda, E. (2012). Contemporary human behavior theory: A critical perspective for social work (3rd ed., p. 281). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Apply: One of the most important aspects I take from this theory is the removal of age from the theoretical development process. When in the field, I feel it's terribly limiting to tie a person's moral or cognitive development simply to their age, we must also consider their environment. This is a critique of the theory, as it bases differences in gender on psychological differences rather than structural differences. Back to the theory, it is important to recognize that folks develop differently largely in response to the white male dominated world, making it difficult to separate psychological and structural differences.

Adapt: This research is important in itself to move forward the dialogue around the structural impacts of our society. The majority tends to say this kind of research is causing a divide between genders or races or religions but that's just their go-to answer to avoid having to face the injustices they have caused. 

Existentialist Theory or "does anything matter?"

Theory: We must stay vigilante when looking at mortality, injustice, and morality, to correct and prevent oppression and maintain human dignity to not alienate and dehumanize ourselves and each other. If we fail to create meaning through these venues, all hope is lost because there is no other meaning than what we create.

Source: Robbins, S., Chatterjee, P., & Canda, E. (2012). Contemporary human behavior theory: A critical perspective for social work (3rd ed., p. 383). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Apply: Community organizing is creating meaning by challenging injustices. It's absurd that children starve, that folks fear for their lives everyday, or that people believe that a human's worth is based on their paycheck but that's the world we live in and we face it.

Adapt: Who cares? Realistically, this is something, if there were such a thing as inherent human values, that everybody should recognize, to some extent. We only get one life, what right do we have to add any level of misery to another person's life? What right do we have to allow folks to be homeless? But, we do. We lock our doors and close our blinds, worried about myths that prey on our fear.

Shame Resilience Theory

Define: "...shame is an intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging." (Robbins et al., pg 231) Shame is dependent on the individual on how they experience shame and people can develop resiliency by moving out of isolation and fear.

Source: Robbins, S., Chatterjee, P., & Canda, E. (2012). Contemporary human behavior theory: A critical perspective for social work (3rd ed., p. 231-232). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Apply: SRT has a huge focus on awareness and education for moving through shame and those experiences. By helping folks work through their shame, we build community over shared experiences and by going through it together. We also do work at dismantling the patriarchy by addressing and naming shame, as women face a much more complex and layered shame system.

Adapt: Early education professionals can use this theory in the classroom to begin the awareness and education aspect of this up at an early age. At younger ages, it can be framed in a way where people won't see a polarization of genders.

Transculturality

Definition: "A person is able to relate respectfully, comfortably, and competently in many different cultural contexts, while appreciating both differences and commonality." It is a theory that asserts a connection with others based on humanity and the needs we all have of love, meaning, supportive community, and justice.

Source: Robbins, S., Chatterjee, P., & Canda, E. (2012). Contemporary human behavior theory: A critical perspective for social work (3rd ed., p. 156). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Apply: In a U.S. specific context, this is seeing our culture as a salad rather than a melting pot. By organizing communities, folks begin to appreciate the different flavors that cherry tomatoes, onions, croutons, and other ingredients bring rather than melting them into a singular form. We bring this into practice by remaining culturally competent and respecting each culture's unique needs while organizing a community.

Adapt: This a pretty critical and radical theory that politicians could try to wrap their heads around when speaking about our nation. Perhaps it could help ease some tensions, domestically and internationally.

Ecofeminism

Definition: Ecofeminism brings feminist concerns to human-nature relationships and establishes the link between exploiting the earth and women. By drawing from both dynamic systems theory and deep ecology, it rejects the human-centered systems we live in and focuses on feeling, intuition, and empathy.

Source: Robbins, S., Chatterjee, P., & Canda, E. (2012). Contemporary human behavior theory: A critical perspective for social work (3rd ed., p. 45). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Apply: Our material economy is linear, from extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal. By viewing our natural world this way, we also view other persons in this way. By working towards making the materials economy circular, we value the parts in the process. We do this through options such as Zero Waste Solutions for our waste, which lessens the burden of exploiting other countries for inexpensive labor.

Adapt: By challenging current recycling programs to include waste, communities begin to build environmental consciousness. This can lead to large scale changes in the way we handle transportation, energy production, and agriculture.