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About the Community Study Knowledge Base

This site is a set of resources for health science or other students who are required to study a community as part of a University course, and for community workers who need to produce a community directory or profile as part of their work, with some theoretical background. 

Although this is a brief guide, you will not use all the information in one project or assignment. Choose the topics which are useful to you.  The topics listed in Title Case are practical and those in UPPER CASE introduce key theoretical ideas.

A longer book which I have found useful is Community Profiling: Auditing Social Needs by Murray Hawtin, Geraint Hughes and Janie Percy-Smith, published in 1994 by the Open University in Britain This text is grounded in practical experience, and guides students through the entire process of producing a community profile from planning to publication. Learning about Community may be used as an Australian supplement to Hawtin, Hughes & Percy-Smith 1994, or as a brief guide on its own.

Learning about Community is a revision of two previous student guides 'Community Profiling' and 'How to Make a Community Directory' which I first wrote in 1995. In 1997 a revised 'How to Make a Community Directory' was included in Community Based Learning kits produced by Yooroang Garang, the Centre for Indigenous Health Studies at The University of Sydney.

I would like to say 'thank you' to the members of communities, students and colleagues who, directly and indirectly, have helped to shape this guide. A community profile has been a major project in Aboriginal Health and Community Development courses at The University of Sydney for more than ten years. I especially thank the Aboriginal health workers and students in those courses, from whom I learned a lot about community, and I thank my colleague Susan Page for comments on a previous version. This document is a work in progress, which has many shortcomings. I would welcome comments and suggestions.

Copying and Printing

You must obtain permission for printing, photocopying or distributing (electronically or in print) part of all of the knowledge base (other than printing your own copy of a web page for your personal use). To obtain permission to copy or use this site in courses, please contact: 

Ian Hughes
School of Behavioural & Community Health 
The University of Sydney