Evaluating the National Outcomes: Community--Policy Development; Introduction

Citizen Development

A Brief Review of the Literature
Lisa Cassidy and Susan Jakes

Human Capital
Citizen capacity building involves improving individuals' human capital, which is their ability to make a difference in their community. Human capital includes cognitive skills, knowledge, training, and other personal skills and resources. Beaulieu and Mulkey (1995) discuss how individuals' investments in human capital, such as education and or job training, can improve their human capital. This improved human capital can then benefit the individual, by providing him or her with the means to get a good job, and the community, by enhancing the individual's productivity in the community.

Community Assets
Community assets involve the characteristics of the social, physical, and economic context in which the program or collaborative group exists and functions. Community assets consist of social community assets, physical community assets, and economic community assets. Social community assets are often reflected in policies or networks. For example, a community with policies that allow all community members to be involved in decision-making processes demonstrates more community assets than a community with policies that discourage involvement. Social community assets are also reflected in the atmosphere, or climate, surrounding a community. For example, a community that supports collaborations between law-makers and citizens has more community assets than one that does not support such collaborations. According to this definition, community assets involve both the collaborations and networks in the environment and the quality of those collaborations and networks. For example, a community with no networks has fewer community assets than one with many networks. Likewise, a community with high quality networks has more community assets than one with low quality networks.

Social community assets involve the degree to which the environment in which a community operates promotes citizen development and include the following factors:

Physical community assets are evidenced in the physical aspects of the community context. For example, a community with a low rate of vandalism and a low incidence of litter has more community assets than one with a great deal of vandalism and litter. Likewise, a community with a supportive built environment (e.g., neighborhoods with areas conducive to community meetings, communities with ample green space for community beautification programs) has more community assets than one with a nonsupportive built environment (e.g., buildings that segregate groups, neighborhoods with no common meeting places).

Finally, economic community assets encompass a community's financial resources, including monetary resources contributed by organization in collaborative groups and outside monetary resources secured to further the collaborative group's efforts. For more information about economic community assets, see Resource Development.

Perkins, Florin, Rich, Wandersman, and Chavis (1990) demonstrate the importance of community assets in their study investigating the relationship of various social and environmental conditions on participation in block associations. They found that the permanent and transient physical environment and the social climate were all related to collective citizen participation after controlling for demographic conditions. Specifically, they found a positive relationship between block-level participation and several features in the built environment, such as fewer barriers on residents' property and greater street width and lighting. In addition, they found that several factors of the transient environment were related to participation such as: evidence of dogs (positively associated) and exterior maintenance and tress, shrubbery, and gardens (unexpectedly negatively associated). The results of their study suggest that aspects of a community's social and physical environment are more important for participation at the block-level than demographic attributes or crime-related problems, perceptions, or fears. Based on the model developed in this research, Perkins, D. D., Brown, B. B., and Taylor, R. B. (1996) developed a model containing five major clusters of predictor variables. The first cluster comprises the physical environment, which contains both distal and relatively stable factors (e.g., architectural characteristics and features of the built environment), and more proximal and transient factors (e.g., incivilities such as litter, vandalism, etc.). The second cluster of variables includes economic factors, such as income and home ownership. The third cluster encompasses social demographics, such as race and length of residence. The fourth cluster involves community cognitions (e.g., sense of community), and the fifth cluster involves community behaviors (e.g., volunteering), both of which are the most proximal variables affecting participation. This model demonstrates the ways in which social, physical, and economic factors associated with a community can influence participation in community organizations.

James Garbarino (1999) also highlights the importance of a quality environment in his article addressing issues surrounding educating children in a toxic environment.

Empowerment
Israel, Checkoway, Schulz, and Zimmerman (1994) discuss citizen empowerment, which they characterize as the capacity to understand and control various factors so that one can act in ways to better one's life circumstances. These researchers discuss different levels of empowerment, including individual or psychological empowerment, organizational empowerment, and community empowerment. Individual empowerment refers to an individual's ability to make decisions and maintain control over his or her personal life. Zimmerman and Rappaport (1988) define psychological empowerment as "the connection between a sense of personal competence, a desire for, and a willingness to take action in the public domain" (p. 725). Organizational empowerment includes processes allowing individuals to increase their control within an organization to affect decisions made in the community. Community empowerment occurs when both individuals and organizations employ their assets in consolidated efforts to achieve goals.

Perkins, D. D., Florin, P., Rich, R. C., Wandersman, A., & Chavis, D. M. (1990) note the importance of understanding that empowerment happens in a context. The following passage highlights their view of empowerment:

On theoretical grounds alone however, we feel that empowerment, even at the psychological level, should have a clear communitarian, or collectivist orientation. This would have the conceptual benefit of distinguishing empowerment from self-efficacy and internal focus of control. It might also have the practical benefit of focusing interventions on collective action, which is likely to be more effective than individual action in solving collective problems (p. 108).

Researchers posit that a multilevel notion of community empowerment implies that changes at any one level will be associated with changes at the other levels of empowerment (Schultz, Israel, Zimmerman, & Checkoway, 1994, as cited in Israel, Checkoway, and Zimmerman, 1994). Israel, Checkoway, Schulz, and Zimmerman (1994) assert that "in accordance with this model, as action at the organizational or community level results in enhanced collective problem-solving capabilities and increased influence and control over resources, those individuals involved in the process will experience greater control, and individual empowerment will be increased" (p.154). These researchers maintain that an empowered community with a history of cohesion and common influence over decision-making that impacts the community should be more able to handle stressful situations than a community that is not empowered.

Zimmerman and Rappaport's view of empowerment highlights the contributions of self-efficacy and motivation to empowerment. Self-efficacy is one's perception of competence, or one's feelings that one can personally cause and affect one's outcomes. Self-efficacy is often derived from human capital. Motivation involves increasing citizens' perceived importance of community activities and perceived seriousness of community problems. Motivation often arises due to personal involvement in an issue, such as due to having children in school, being from a troubled neighborhood, knowing someone who is personally affected, etc. Motivation generally comes from an awareness of an issue and wanting to get involved. Motivation generally serves as the driving force behind participation. If citizens are motivated to get involved, they generally feel compelled to do something. Another component of empowerment concerns citizens' perceptions of community support. People who are empowered generally perceive the community as supportive of their efforts to facilitate community change.

A definition of empowerment that includes self-efficacy, motivation, and perceived community support implies that empowerment is influenced by both internal and external factors. For example, internal factors, such as one's cognitions about one's abilities, will likely affect how capable one views oneself. However, one's beliefs about one's competence to produce a change are often influenced by external factors, such as whether the environment is conducive to change (community assets). In addition, external factors such as leaders who want to listen to citizens, influence how supportive citizens perceive their environment.

Citizen Participation
Citizen participation encompasses increasing citizens' mobilization and involvement in the community. [For more information on mobilizing a community, see the Ohio State University Fact Sheet]. According to Schmidt (1998), the primary goal of citizen participation is to increase citizen involvement in public decision-making.

Arnstein (1969) posits that "citizen participation is a categorical term for citizen power" (216), and highlights the importance of distinguishing between merely engaging in a superficial act of participation and having the actual power one needs to impact outcomes. Arnstein maintains that true citizen participation allows citizens to bring about social reform and share society's benefits. According to Arnstein, a redistribution of power is important to give all citizens genuine power to affect outcomes. To illustrate the importance of distinguishing between nonparticipation and various types of participation, Arnstein devised a participation typology in the form of a ladder. Each rung of the ladder is comprised of one of eight levels of participation. The first two rungs of the ladder represent nonparticipation, the next three indicate degrees of tokenism, and the last three levels illustrate degrees of citizen power.

The eight levels of participation are as follows:

The last three rungs of the ladder, partnership, delegated power, and citizen control, illustrate true citizen participation. Therefore, outreach professionals trying to increase citizen participation should endeavor to reach these levels. Arnstein posits that an eight-rung ladder is a simplified way to describe citizen participation but that the ladder provides a useful illustration that there are notable levels of citizen participation. Furthermore, Arnstein acknowledges that in the real wold, there might be many more rungs, and the distinctions between the rungs might be less clear. Based on Arnstein's (1969) and Jakes' (1997) work, Jakes (1998) developed a chart that also illustrates different levels of citizen participation. Although Arnstein and Jakes' models both illustrate varying degrees of participation, Jakes modified Arnstein's levels to focus more on community development activities that concern Extension programming and to be easily differentiated for program evaluation purposes. (Chart).

Heberlein, (1976) discusses citizen participation in the form of public involvement. According to Heberlein, the goal of involving the public in decisions is to help planners and managers make better decisions, which should save both time and money by creating inclusive action and decisions that are less likely to be reversed. Heberlein highlights four functions that are served by public involvement:

1. giving and getting information
2. interacting with the public
3. assuring the public
4. ritualism (legal requirements)

Heberlein's forms of participation fall in the consultation and placation rungs of Arnstein's participation ladder. [Note: this may be due to the context in which the paper was developed, a situation in which citizen ownership is unrealistic.] Although Heberlein acknowledges the importance of soliciting participation from all involved and affected citizens, Arnstein focuses more on giving citizens genuine power, which might be the ultimate goal of community capacity building efforts.

Citizen development is a critical component for building healthy communities. Wilkonson highlights this issue in Beaulieu and Mulkey (1995) in a discussion about how social problems confronting communities are unlikely to be solved unless communities are strengthened. Strengthening communities requires an improved capability of citizens to act collectively to achieve goals.

Why Community Development?
Lofquist (1983) discusses the importance of a community development approach to make citizens more likely to take action in preventing community problems. He posits that a community development approach can make people feel empowered to make things better and can mobilize people to take shared responsibility for improving their community. Lofquist's (1983) community development approach to prevention is based on the following premises, which highlight the importance of citizen capacity and participation:

In a paper about citizen participation, Fred Schmidt (1998) discusses that one major goal of community development is to create an infrastructure that will guarantee that all citizens participate in decision making and share responsibility for decisions. Schmidt also discusses contemporary thinking in the citizen participation area and posits that current citizen participation efforts focus on building relationships, involving local people in the process, and fully using strengths, assets, and capacities of individuals in the community. These ideas are very similar to those proposed by Lofquist (1983).

Kretzmann and McKnight (1993) maintain that all communities have assets that they can use. These authors believe that using an assets based approach is especially important when addressing issues of citizen participation in communities that are comprised of low SES groups. The approach to citizen participation in these types of communities often focuses on deficits instead of strengths, which can have negative impacts on these communities. Kauffman and Poulin (1994) discuss the importance of citizen participation and assert that the success of community prevention activities partially depends on the extent to which the entire community is motivated to participate and take responsibility for community problems and changes in attitudes. They maintain that "understanding the process of participation, as well as the specific factors that influence an individual's decision to participate, will help those implementing community prevention activities" (p. 360). These researchers discuss how citizen participation programs face important issues regarding the amount of community support and participation by community members. They discuss several factors that may affect the degree to which citizens participate in community activities including socioeconomic, demographic, program, and contextual variables. Goodbey and Kraus (1973) (as cited in Kauffman and Poulin, 1994) found that lower income individuals tended to participate in community activities less than middle class citizens. Buck and Stone (1981) and Godschalk and Stiftel (1981) (as cited in Kauffman and Poulin, 1994) found that educational level was positively associated with citizen participation in community activities. Demographic variables that are associated with citizen participation include factors such as number of children in the family and gender. Program variables include visibility of or awareness of the program and perceived effectiveness of the program. Contextual variables, such as the degree to which the community perceives a need for a problem to be addressed, might also influence participation.

A Model of Citizen Development
Based on previous research, Kauffman and Poulin (1994) posit that three factors comprise the most likely motivations for citizen participation in alcohol and other drug community based prevention programs including: 1) participation accessibility, 2) the desire to participate, and 3) knowledge about participation. These researchers developed and tested a model (see figure 1) for predictors of prevention participation. Overall, their results either fully or at least partially supported their hypotheses.

Although Kauffman and Poulin's (1994) model provides a useful way to conceptualize influences on participation in alcohol and drug prevention programs, we hypothesize that an empowerment-based model provides a better way to conceptualize citizen development and community change. Our model posits that three main components impact citizen participation and community change: 1) human capital, 2) community assets, and 3) empowerment. Human capital includes education, knowledge, skills, training, and other personal resources. Community assets consist of social, physical, and economic factors and include the networks and coalitions, accessibility of resources, community infrastructure, built environment, etc. Empowerment involves perceived control and capacity to make a difference in one's community and includes self-efficacy, motivation, and perceived community support.

As illustrated in the model (see figure 2), human capital has a direct impact on empowerment (if one has knowledge, skills, training, etc., s/he should feel more capable of making a difference).

Community assets also have a direct impact on empowerment (if the community possesses amble networks and a conducive environment, people will be more empowered). Empowerment (comprised of self-efficacy, motivation, and perceived community support) has a direct impact on participation/ mobilization (if one feels capable, motivated to make a change, and adequate community support, s/he should be more likely to participate). Human capital and community assets both impact participation, but their effects are mediated by empowerment. Participation has a direct impact on human capital (someone who participates in a community program will gain more knowledge, skills, etc.), and it has an effect on community assets that is mediated by community change (participation should lead to community change, which should lead to changes in the community's infrastructure). Participation also has a direct impact on empowerment (someone who participates should feel more competent, motivated, and should perceive a greater amount of community support). However, whether or not one feels that his/her participation was effective depends on whether there was community change resulting from his/her participation.