A Study On the Poor Area Resident’s Individual Differences Responding to Community Organizing Program’s Empowering Characteristics of Community Welfare Centers: With the Application of the ODCE (Organizational Domains of Community Empowerment) Approach Framework

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify how the community organizing program’s empowering characteristics discriminate the poor-area resident’s individual characteristics like gender, education, service use duration, and residency time. For this, the author applied the Kasmel & Tanggaard’s Organizational Domains of Community Empowerment (ODCE) approach framework to the community organizing program of community welfare centers and employed stepwise discriminant analysis, using data collected from 182 residents participating in community organizing programs. The findings are as follows: Firstly, gender and residency time were found to be significant discriminant variables. In the discriminant functions of residency time, however, there was no significant empowering variable. Secondly, the empowering variables which discriminated significantly between the male and female residents were community competence and program management skills, with an overall correct classification percentage of 62.1%. Thirdly, female residents perceived more empowering experience in acquiring information necessary for decision-making, while, male perceived more in acquiring skills relevant to the actual operation of the programs.