CONSTRUCTING A TREE FOR COMMUNITY LEADERS - CONTEXTS AND PROCESSES INCOLLABORATIVE INQUIRY

This paper presents collaborative research between a university-based team and a grass roots community organization on the south side of Chi cago. The purpose of the work is to document the nature of community l eadership as expressed by members of the host organization. Using a se mistructured interview, 77 community members nominated by the host org anization were asked about various aspects of their community work. Qu alitative analyses of interview text generated a set of 56 codes conce rning different aspects of community leadership as reported by grassro ots leaders. These codes were subsequently grouped together into five conceptually linked dimensions of community leadership. A ''leadership tree'' that simultaneously analyzes and visually displays each of the se five dimensions of community leadership was created. implications o f the methodology used to create the leadership tree are discussed for the salience of qualitative methods in community research.