Investigating engaged scholarship among community development faculty in the Southern African development community

Today's higher education institutions face societal expectations to produce research that is impactful and responsive to the problems facing their wider communities. The Community Development discipline provides an ideal example of a field of study that can illuminate the reciprocal relationship between universities and their communities. This study sought to ascertain whether and how Community Development faculty members at public universities within the Southern African Development Community region publish the scholarship of engagement. The study utilized an interpretative content analysis of faculty profiles on university websites. Findings revealed that although a significant proportion of Community Development faculty members publish scholarship of engagement that address community problems, few publish engaged scholarship specifically designed to solve practical community problems. Technical reports, rather than journal articles, disseminate the outcomes of research directed toward solving community problems. © Common Ground Research Networks, Dawn Lyken-Segosebe, John M. Braxton, Some Rights Reserved.