This paper contains reflections about our experiences in employing a capacity building model for training students to conduct social work community development in rural China mainland. Our capacity building approach subscribes to views from critical pedagogy，mainly Freirean pedagogy，which calls for a reinvention of self by challenging tradition and culture and by transforming instituted selves to become a reflexive subjectivity with critical curiosity about society，power，inequality，and social change. By advocating equality of participation in community development practices，through employing method of oral history and the approach of dialogical education，we aim to transform participants into and embody the critical subjectivity.