ERIC Number: ED232829
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1978
Pages: 21
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Roles of Change Agents in Development. Occasional Paper #3.
O'Gorman, Frances
The roles of change agents in community development are manifest (surface actions of agents interacting with clients) and latent (derived from undercurrents that give directions to the agents' actions). Manifest roles are as starter (facilitator, analyzer, leadership developer); go-between (informer, linker); and accomplisher (organizer, evaluator, administrator of sanctions). Assumptions underlying manifest roles are: the change process is goal directed; alleviation of problems/needs will bring benefits of society to local groups; change agents can foster belief in improvement; change equals development, interpreted as modernization and progress. An emerging human-centered paradigm of development, with economic growth no longer the primary/exclusive goal, questions these assumptions. Manifest roles incorporate the latent roles, which may differ, depending on the agent's view of development. As facilitator, the agent may be alienator or de-alienator; as leadership developer, either mobilizer or consciousness raiser; as analyzer, either dichotomizer or history builder; as informer, either manipulator or sharer; as linker, either modernizer or syncretizer; as organizer, either efficiency promotor or supporter of popular participation; as administrator of sanctions, either liberator from power structures or adjuster to dominant systems; as evaluator, either quantifier or qualifier. Training of change agents should foster awareness of latent as well as manifest roles. (MH)
Descriptors: Agency Role, Attitude Change, Change Agents, Change Strategies, Community Change, Community Development, Economic Development, Professional Training, Role Perception, Social Change, Social Influences, Social Theories, Work Attitudes
NFE Information Center, Michigan State University, 237 Erickson Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824 (while supply lasts).
Publication Type: Opinion Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Agency for International Development (IDCA), Washington, DC.
Authoring Institution: Michigan State Univ., East Lansing. Non-Formal Education Information Center.
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A