Some aspects concerning the transfer of the theory of local community organization into practice

In order to establish the differences in conceiving the fundamental aims of social work in organizing the community and to determine certain aspects of transfer into practice of the theory of community organization, research was conducted on two groups of examinees; a group of 187 social workers employed in various governmental and nongovernmental institutions and organizations and on a group of 52 students in their final year at the Study Centre of Social Work in Zagreb. The results of discriminant analysis indicate the existence of a statistically significant difference between the groups. While students see the goals of community organization more in the struggle of the local community's population for citizens' rights and the development of democracy, the social workers define these goals primarily as the development of integration, identification and development of communal values of the local community's population. Possible implications of the results obtained regarding the further theoretical and practical development of social work in community organization in Croatia are analysed in the paper.