Community education and community devepolment: the Scottish experience

Behind many of the writings on community development and community education there is a concern about those features of modern technological society, which, whilst raising material living standards for some, appear to create for others, tensions, disadvantage, alienation and social exclusion. These features are listed in the literature as the specialisation of social and economic roles, which it is claimed are increasingly separated from those played in small group life and the wider community; the increase in social and occupational mobility; alienation resulting from powerlessness; lack of involvement in significant decision making and the growing feeling of remoteness from the effective decision making processes in the political life of society (O’Donnell,
1997). There is a central assumption behind the theory and practice of community development and community education that material deprivation alone is not the only factor that creates social exclusion and disadvantage.