THE TRADE-OFF STRATEGY IN COMMUNITY RESEARCH.

This article focuses on the trade-off strategy in community research. Most recently, some of the more sophisticated and highly organized low-income communities have developed a modus operandi with outside researchers. It is rooted in the very capitalistic system in which both the poor and the professional live. The human service professions have not been unresponsive to this emerging characteristic of low-income communities. Professional service programs involving low-income people as assistants to professionals and as links between the professional service and the recipients of these services are rapidly being developed. Traditionally, the researcher's approach to the community process has been objective, detached, silent-striving for invisibility. The researcher's model of work has been based on at least the following two values: maximizing the gathering of relevant data and minimizing the contamination of the processes being observed. The immediate objective of this strategy is to set up a symbiotic relationship between the two parties--researchers and the low-income community--which will result in mutual gain.