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Community Study

A community directory is a compiled list of resources, agencies and services in a community. A community profile is a full description of the community. A community study goes beyond listing and describing, to include critical analysis. Whereas a directory or profile is made for practical reasons, a community study includes theoretical discussion.

Since the Nineteenth Century Sociologists have produced studies of rural and urban communities in Western societies and anthropologists have produced ethnographic studies of non-Western communities, and other social scientists have produced community studies with political, economic, health or other perspectives. While earlier notions of community focussed on local organisation, especially at village or tribal level, for the last couple of decades communities have been seen as based on many interests. These include village, neighbourhood and local groups as well as church congregations, professional associations, interest groups, cultural minorities and oppressed populations. In contemporary cities, many communitarian associations are not based on what goes on in a particular geographic area.

Most community studies seek to contribute to some theoretical debate in the social science literature through a close case study of a community. Studies of Aboriginality, race, ethnicity, migration, age, class, power, consumerism, gender, professional dominance, technology and other social science issues have been undertaken through studies of particular local communities or communities of interest.

Critical theory provides useful approaches within community studies. Critical theory is interested in the gap between what we (as social actors and as social scientists) expect in society, and what we experience or observe. To be critical in social science is to make explicit the difference between people's experience in interaction, and the explanations which are offered. The ultimate test of theory, then, is whether it makes sense of people's subjective experience as actors in the world. Critical theory claims to have potential to emancipate people from oppressive social situations.