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This exploratory study investigates what adults learn through participation in community groups. An iterative content analysis was conducted on transcripts from ten in-depth interviews with active members of community groups throughout upstate New York. This process yielded 259 learning statements which were then classified into 8 learning categories. Here we present a rich description of what people learn in the context of local group activities. Understanding the learning that occurs in community group contexts has implications for adult educators and extension workers, as well as for the development of theoretical models of adult learning.

Social movements provide a natural laboratory for the study of community development principles in operation. The Sarvodaya Movement, a vehicle for participative education and development programming among Sri Lanka's rural poor, aims to strengthen social solidarity and to maintain cultural continuity while helping the rural people to acquire knowledge and skills basic to their coping with a changing world.The history and philosophy of the Movement are discussed as well as its structural and functional components. An illustration showing the major interrelated organizational and process-oriented features and an analytical framework is used to evaluate the operational soundness of the Movement. The fact that two-thirds of the world's population is Asian and more than one-half of that resides in rural villages provides an important context for this report on Sarvodaya's accomplishments in promoting mass participation in rural community development.

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