| A Study on Community Development Approaches in Rural Korea | |||
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| Author | Kim, Jeongseop | ||
| Views | 95895 | Publication Date | 2018.02.14 |
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Backgrounds & Purpose of Research There have been various community development practices in rural Korea. After the decentralization of government in the mid-1990s, people in rural communities made so many community organizations that managed to address their own needs or problems. However, there were not many studies which tried to analyze those community development projects and development of communities in depth and comprehensively. In this study, many community development projects were analyzed in the perspective of 'collective action' and 'community development as a process', so as to propose community development approaches appropriate to the context of rural Korea. Method of Research The main research method is qualitative analysis through interviews with persons who participate in a community organization. We interviewed the 60 people at two rural areas, Jinan and Hongseong and collected data on their action for community development. Also, we analyzed 173 articles that introduced community development projects in rural areas, which were published in newspapers in 1995~2016. Results of Research Based on the collected data, we concluded that development of community should be understood as a sequence of various projects that are implemented by community people. We identified some steps that construct the community development projects as follows: problem identification, social learning, and making a community organization. The number of community development projects increased recently owing to some legislations such as the 'Framework Act on Cooperatives' and the 'Social Enterprise Promotion Act'. Because of these acts, it has become easier for rural people to make diverse community organizations. Therefore, the fields of community development projects have been differentiated. Community people try to form social networks of diverse community organizations. These networks would evolve to the community's fields, which can contribute to the development of the community. We can understand these phenomena as formation of social capital. Researchers: Kim Jeongseop, Jeong Yuri, You Eunyoung Research period: 2017. 1. ~ 2017. 10. E-mail address: jskkjs@krei.re.kr |
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