Content
Discussion
Community
Mobilization: Rothman’s Framework
As was noted
in Module 1, the active involvement
of community members in identifying their health priorities
and developing appropriate actions to deal with these priorities
is a key feature of health promotion practice. A number of
theoretical frameworks have been developed to describe this process.
Perhaps the
most influential framework illustrating the various approaches to
community mobilization is Rothman’s Framework, which
describes three distinct approaches to involving communities in
health promotion work (Rothman and Tropman, 1987). The three approaches
are:
 social
planning
locality development
social action
Social planning
is a task-oriented method stressing rational problem solving, usually
by an outside party, to address community concerns. Outside change
agents gather facts about community problems and recommend the most
appropriate responses.
Locality
development is a more process oriented approach that attempts
to build a sense of group identity and community. Community workers
organize a broad cross-section of people into small, task-oriented
groups to identify and resolve shared problems.
Social action,
a more confrontational approach, seeks to address imbalances of
power between marginalized community groups and dominant segments
of the community.
Table
4.2 provides a clearer distinction between these approaches
according to key variables.
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