Community Involvement: Opportunities and Challenges in Socializing Adults to Participate in Society

The concluding article of this issue devoted to community involvement considers the unique perspective offered by each article on this topic in this issue, yet does so in the context of the commonalities among them. Most important of these commonalities, perhaps, is that all of the articles address, to some degree, the question of how adults can best be socialized to develop a habit of community participation. Some articles consider this question of encouraging community involvement in educational settings, while others consider the question in more general settings. Some articles focus on key conceptual processes, whereas others concentrate on practical issues in promoting involvement. Finally, virtually all of the articles consider the benefits of community involvement; some of the articles also explore the downside to efforts to promote community involvement.