Harmful, helpful, or both? A commentary on postmodernism and critical theories in community development education
Brien K. Ashdown
Community Development, 2023, vol. 54, issue 6, 787-796
Abstract:
In this relatively informal commentary, I discuss the potentially helpful and harmful roles that postmodernism and critical theories have in academia in general and particularly in community development scholarship and pedagogy. After introducing postmodernism and critical theories as well as some of the common criticisms of these frameworks, I discuss the importance of cultural capital in community development and how postmodernism and critical theories can protect and maintain cultural capital as well as damage and diminish it. I also discuss the importance of ensuring students in community development courses understand these frameworks and understand that they are but some of the theories and skills students will need to know to be effective and ethical community development scholars and practitioners. The duty of educators is to ensure that students have the abilities and support to do the hard work of critically evaluating and analyzing all viable approaches to community development work.
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/15575330.2021.2006255 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:comdev:v:54:y:2023:i:6:p:787-796
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RCOD20
DOI: 10.1080/15575330.2021.2006255
Access Statistics for this article
Community Development is currently edited by John Green, Rhonda Phillips and Anne Heinze Silvis
More articles in Community Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().