Community Education Principles

Developed by Larry Horyna and Larry Decker for the National Coalition for Community Education 1991 -printed in the Community Education Journal (citations): Wisconsin 5 components

Community education provides local residents and community agencies and institutions the opportunity to become active partners in addressing community concerns. It is based on the following principles:

Self-determination: Local people are in the best position to identify community needs and wants. Parents, as children's first and most important teachers, have both a right and a responsibility to be involved in their children's education.
Self-help: People are best served when their capacity to help themselves is encouraged and enhanced. When people assume ever-increasing responsibility for their own well being, they acquire independence rather than dependence.
Leadership Development: The identification, development, and use of the leadership capacities of local citizens are prerequisites for ongoing self-help and community improvement efforts.
Localization: Services, programs, events, and other community involvement opportunities that are brought closest to where people live have the greatest potential for a high level of public participation. Whenever possible, these activities should be decentralized to locations of easy public access.
Integrated Delivery of Services: Organizations and agencies that operate for the public good can use their limited resources, meet their own goals, and better serve the public by establishing close working relationships with other organizations and agencies with related purposes.
Maximum Use of Resources: The physical, financial, and human resources of every community should be interconnected and used to their fullest if the diverse needs and interests of the community are to be met.
Inclusiveness: The segregation or isolation of people by age, income, sex, race, ethnicity, religion, or other factors inhibits the full development of the community. Community programs, activities, and services, should involve the broadest possible cross section of community residents.
Responsiveness: Public institutions have a responsibility to develop programs and services that respond to the continually changing needs and interests of the their constituents.
Lifelong Learning: Learning begins are birth and continues until death. Formal and informal learning opportunities should be available to residents of all ages in a wide variety of community settings.

For questions about this information, contact Stephen P. Kretzmann (608) 267-9278

Last updated on 2/25/2008 9:08:00 AM