Needs assessment and community development: an ideological perspective.

Many practitioners of the social sciences have fostered the value-free, apolitical and ahistorical character of their disciplines. This position distorts the real perception that should permeate the theory, methodology, techniques and practices of the social sciences. This paper, by examining the method of needs assessment, focuses on the undesirability of preserving this point of view. Needs assessment is discussed as a political process for the organization, mobilization and consciousness-raising of groups and communities.