隨著台灣目前不斷發展的情況，社區議題也隨之擴張，愈來愈多的民間團體介入社區，但居民才是社區主體，外來民問團體僅是促成社區自主的一種催化劑，故其涉入社區事務程度的多寡，將是本研究探討的重點。本研究目的為瞭解社區意識與社區參與程度對社區自主性之關聯性、不同社區議題的居民其社區意識是否有所差異、不同社區議題的居民在社區參與程度上的差異及不同社區議題的居民自主性是否受到民間團體影響。本研究有關社區居民自主性的研究變項，包括「社區議題」、「社區意識」、「社區參與程度」和「社區自主性」四個構面，並以曾經參與過2003－2010年間「高雄市公共事務管理學會」培力中心的社區為抽樣對象，合計共64個社區，隨機抽取4個社區進行研究調查；另外特殊社區以美濃「吉洋人工湖」及中科三期的「中興新村高等科學園區」為研究對象，並利用問卷調查研究，進行SPSS軟體的統計分析。分析結果發現，本研究所檢驗的五項假設中有三項獲得支持，而有二項並未成立。成立的假設說明社區意識、社區參與程度皆會影響社區自主性，而社區議題的不同也會影響到社區居民參與的程度。在不成立的假設中，發現當地居民社區意識的凝聚，並不會因不同的社區議題而受影響;而不論為何種社區議題的類型，民間團體對於社區居民皆有一定程度的影響。本研究提出三層面的建議，包含社區意識觀點、社區參與程度、社區自主性觀點，以期提供政府組織或社區相關組織參考，並給予後續更為嚴謹的研究建議。

With the rapid social and economic developments of Taiwan, many important community issues are raised. The growing of citizen's organizations participating in the community movements and activities has made the community issues more complicated. Certainly, the residents are the major stakeholder of the community issues. The empowerment of citizens and their organizations may be able to stimulate and strengthen the autonomy of communities. This study is to explore the association between community issues and the autonomy of the community. The variables related to community residents' autonomy was classified into four different types. They are as followed: ”community issues”, ”community awareness”, ”community participation” and ”community autonomy”. Residents of six sampled community organizations were chosen to completed questionnaires. The results showed that the awareness of community residents and the degree of community participation are related to the autonomy of community. In addition, the community issues would affect the community participation. However, no matter what kinds of community issues, the outside groups of citizen's organizations would play an important role.