Understanding Community

1. Understanding Community

2. Defining Community . . . It’s the interaction of people or groups of individuals who live within some geographic area that provides for most of their daily needs. They share certain values and meanings about their common life situation. Further, these individuals work together to address local problems, concerns, and opportunities.

3. Key Elements of Community • Geographic area that provides for most of their daily needs • Social interaction • Common ties or bonds among community members • Locality-oriented collective actions

4. Functions that Communities Perform – Systems Approach • Production-distribution-consumption • Socialization • Social Control • Access to social participation • Mutual support

5. A Further Look at the Functions of the Community • Production-Distribution-Consumption • Includes those goods and services that are part of daily living • Reflects economic activities • Encompasses educational services, local government services, religious activities, recreational/leisure activities, media services • Socialization • Process by which the community transmits its knowledge, values and behavior patterns to its individual residents. • It is at the local level that individuals encounter and learn about their culture

6. A Further Look at the Functions of the Community • Social Control • The process through which a group influences the behavior of its members toward conformity with is norms • Local Access to Participation • We are distinctively human through our participation in human groups; most are with friends and neighbors from the same community • Many organizations we belong to are local chapters • Mutual Support • Care in time of sickness, the exchange of labor, helping out in times of distress, are often performed locally

7. Communities are Structured • Communities are not mere masses of people who happen to live in a given locality. Rather, they are structured entities. • Structure refers to the underlying “anatomy” of the community -- the set of mutual relations that exist among its various parts. • Want to look at the institutional and leadership structure of the community.

8. Key Institutions inthe Community– Systems Approach • Kinship (Family) • Economic • Education • Political (Governmental) • Religious • Associations

9. Community Institutions • Represent patterned activities that are intended to meet important social and economic needs existing among community residents • They perform crucial functions that must be performed if the community is to persist through time

10. Family Institution • Regulate the nature of sexual relations between people • Biological reproduction • Care and socialization of the young • Economic functions of providing food, shelter and warmth for family members • Emotional intimacy

11. Economic Institution • Encompasses the roles, norms, and activities associated with the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in a community. • It influences the nature of work, where individuals get jobs, how much they earn, the conditions of their work, their prospects for future jobs, their spells of unemployment.

12. Education Institution • Major functions of education within the local community are twofold: • Cultural transmission and socialization • Selection and allocation to adult positions

13. Political Institution • Its major functions include: • Protecting life, liberty and property of local residents • Regulating conflict • Planning, coordinating and providing public facilities and services

14. Religious Institution • Its functions are threefold: • Provides an ongoing system of shared customs that offer purpose to its participants • Serves as an important source of social control by supporting certain values and norms • Provides personal support to local residents

15. AssociationalInstitution • Represent the variety of civic, service, social, fraternal and other voluntary organizations that exist in the community. • These offer residents a mechanism for participating in a variety of local activities.

16. Linking Functions and Institutions Community Functions

17. The Great Change in Communities • Roland Warren states that there is a “Great Change” happening in contemporary community living. This shift is changing the complexion of local communities.

18. What are the Great Changes Occurring? • An elaborate division of labor and specialization • Individuals are becoming increasingly engaged in associations and organizations based on interests, not residence • Various sectors of the community are becoming increasingly linked to people, communities, and organizations outside the local area • Greater share of functions once performed by individuals, families and neighborhoods are being shifted to government, volunteer sector, and/or private enterprise • People’s values are shifting -- commitment to community is declining

19. Increasing Division of Labor • Elaborate division of labor and specialization of occupations is taking place • Functions are becoming narrowly defined and work specialized • Increasing interdependence of people on one another • Persons produce a smaller portion of the things the family consumes • People in the same locality have no strong occupational bonds to unite them • Increasingly, the individual wage owner doesn’t know what his/her neighbor does for a living

20. Differentiation of Interests and Associations • The principal basis for social participation shifts from the locality to that of interest groups • The individual often turns away from other individuals in the immediate locality and associates with individuals from other localities on the basis of selective interests • Shift is from primary to secondary group relationships • As association with neighbors decline, individuals often find themselves strangers in their own localities, knowing few neighbors

21. Increasing Systemic Relationships to the Larger Society • Many organizations are becoming more a part of their extra-community systems than they are of the community in which they are located • The seat of decision-making is less local, and more at the district, state, or national decision-making levels • This relationship of local units to extra-community system is known as the community’s “vertical ties.” • Given that decision-making is transferred elsewhere, the community’s autonomy is jeopardized

22. Transfer of Functions to Profit Enterprise and Government • Refers to a change from the performance of functions by individuals to functions performed by business and government involving a direct or indirect payment of money • As people specialize, they depend on others to perform functions that use to be performed themselves • Food for home use • Painting • Lawn and pool service • Recreation • Restaurants • Car washing • Child and elder care

23. Changing Values • Gradual acceptance of governmental engagement in a number of fields (child care, housing, health) • Change in community approach to social problems from that of moral reform to that of rational planning to address the community’s problems • Loss of civic involvement or willingness to serve in community leadership positions

24. In Sum (from Horizontal to Vertical Linkages) • There’s an increasing orientation of local community units toward extra-community systems of which they are a part • As such, the decision-making is shifting to places outside the community • The result is that ties between local community units are weakening, and community autonomy is reduced

25. Changing Nature of Relationships in Communities • Horizontal Integration: the strength of the linkages that exist among institutions and people at the local level • Vertical Integration: reflects the extent to which ties exists between local community institutions (or units) and units located at higher levels outside the community

26. Horizontal & Vertical Integration American Trinity Church First Union National Office Goodhearts National Glendale Community Glendale Trinity Church First Union Branch Jones Family Goodhearts of Glendale Interaction Roosevelt High School City Police Dept. Kroger Food Store Kroger Food Chain U.S. Dept. of Education

27. What are the “Great Changes” in your community?

28. An Exercise • Identify two key dimensions of “The Great Change” that you feel have had the greatest impact on your community? How has it affected the well-being of people who live in your community? • Assemble in a small group (5-6 persons). Have each person share his/her list of items. Agree on three key items to share with other Groups.