ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the overall conceptual framework that is the basis for the assessment process developed in the guide and discusses the role of the community in social change and the reasons for using the community as the unit of analysis for social assessment. It introduces the social organization model, developed as the analytic framework for the social assessment process and describes each component of the model. The goal of social assessment is to estimate the effects of a proposed action on the social organization of the community and on the well-being of people over both the short- and long-term. Community social organization refers to the structures and processes that organize how people in a community relate to one another. Diversity/complexity refers to the range of values and interests within a community. The final major topic which the social assessment must address is social well-being.
