Should we standardize community development professional degrees?

Margaret Stout

Community Development, 2025, vol. 56, issue 6, 987-1008

Abstract: Community Development is a broad field with numerous potential concentrations that foster fragmentation around which specific knowledge areas, skills, and principles are necessary to ensure a shared approach to both theory and practice. The lack of a common core limits knowledge building across academic programs and collaboration among specializations. To address this concern, this paper proposes potential content for a comprehensive graduate curriculum in Community Development, undertakes an exploration of the benefits and drawbacks of standardization, describes a flexible approach to accreditation that has proven useful in a related profession, and discusses which existing professional organizations might best take the helm to establish an accrediting body.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/15575330.2025.2464603

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