Chapter Overview
This chapter focuses on applications of participatory action learning and action research (PALAR) to community development. I argue that beyond education and development through formal institutions, PALAR is practicable and especially suitable to the development of lifelong learning and action leadership for individuals, groups and whole communities, especially in developing countries and in natural-disaster crisis situations. This knowledge claim is substantiated by examples of community development in many parts of the world – from both the literature and my own experience. The new concept of PALAR is important in this chapter because both action learning and action research need to be participatory in the three areas discussed: (1) community development, (2) action leadership development and (3) development of lifelong learning. This chapter introduces a new approach to development that serves all three areas. The new system using this approach, designed and offered by the Global University for Lifelong Learning (GULL), is explained and illustrated by examples from many parts of the world, including two case studies – of Haiti and of Samoan migrants in Australia. Only about 3 years old (at the time of writing), GULL has spread like a breath of fresh air across the world.
If you’ve come to help us, you are wasting your time. But if you’ve come because your liberation is bound up with ours, then let us work together.
Lilla Watson, Aboriginal social worker
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Zuber-Skerritt, O. (2011). Community Development. In: Action Leadership. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3935-4_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3935-4_7
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