Community Size,Individual Social Position,and Community Attachment1

Abstract The objective of this investigation is to elaborate and test the linear development and systemic models of community attachment. We focus on the interplay of community size, five social position variables, and three dimensions of community attachment, namely, involvement, amity, and sentiment. Data are obtained from a statewide migration telephone survey of 851 respondents aged 18 and over, conducted in Utah in October 1988. We focus on a weighted subsample of 415 nonmetropolitan respondents. Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA) techniques are employed. Contrary to the linear development model, community size did not have an independent inverse impact on community involvement, amity, and sentiment. Results do vary by social position and community attachment dimensions.     

Cults,Culture, and Community

No abstract available for this article.     

Community Control,Community Mobilization,and Community Political Structure in 57 U. S. Cities*

This paper describes the results of a comparative study of the factors which inhibited or facilitated the development of the issue of community control of schools in fifty-seven cities in the United States. The findings suggest that the degree to which blacks and the poor were mobilized for political action and the political characteristics of the city were important in determining whether or not the issue entered the political arena.     

Schizophrenia,Community Integration,and Recovery

Abstract

Rooted in deinstitutionalization policy, the community inclusion required by the Olmstead case, and the grass roots recovery movement, community integration for those who have diagnoses of serious mental illnesses has become an increasingly important policy goal. The purpose of this project was to examine empirical evidence describing experiences with social or community integration for people with psychiatric disabilities, with a particular interest in the schizophrenias. Studies chosen for review all involved direct survey or interview data from people with psychiatric disabilities and examined subjective experiences with social relationships or linked social participation with clinical, functional, or quality of life outcomes. Experiences involving the dynamics of social stigma, the achievement of personal agency, and innovative pathways to satisfying social inclusion are core themes found that are highly relevant for practitioners. Social work, with its ecological perspective, is well suited to address the complexities of conflicting interests and objectives that have arisen in mental health care in the pursuit of community integration. Suggestions for fruitful responses are presented.     

Building Community, Empowerment and Self-sufficiency

Started in January 2000, the Camfield Estates-MIT Creating Community Connections Project, a partnership between the Camfield Tenants Association (CTA) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has the goal of establishing Camfield Estates as a model for other housing developments as to how individuals, families, and a community can make use of information and communications technology to support their interests and needs. To achieve this goal, CTA and MIT have formed a unique partnership and an infrastructure that combines the three primary models for community technology - a community network where state-of-the-art desktop computers, software, and high-speed Internet connectivity have been offered to every family, a community technology center (CTC) located on the premises in the community center, and community content delivered through a community-based web system, the Creating Community Connections (C3) System - along with an agenda to build community, empowerment, and self-sufficiency amongst the residents. This paper is a case study of the Camfield Estates-MIT project to date, including the history and background of the project, the approaches taken to build community, empowerment and self-sufficiency, the methodology that has been employed, and early results from the initiative.     

Community Attachment,Communication Mediation,and Nonprofit Participation: An Integrated Community Communication Approach

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Nonprofit participation in the form of giving and volunteering has long been viewed as the building blocks of...     

Individual and Community Factors Affecting Psychological Sense of Community,Attraction, and Neighboring in Rural Communities*

L'échelle de Buckner, qui comporte trois dimensions—sentiment communautaire (SC), attractivité et voisinage—, fut appliquée à 1,995 personnes de 20 villages canadiens afin d'y mesurer le sentiment de cohésion sociale. Le nombre d'enfants, un revenu dépassant 20,000 $, l'âge, le lieu de naissance et le nombre d'années dans la collectivité exercent une influence positive sur le SC et l'attractivité. Le nombre d'enfants, un revenu dépassant 40,000 $, le lieu de naissance et le nombre d'années dans la collectivité influent de manière significative sur le voisinage. L'interaction accroît généralement la cohésion sociale individuelle. La localisation sur une île étant la seule variable communautaire significative, les politiques individuelles sont à privilégier pour accroître la cohésion. One thousand nine hundred ninety‐five individuals in 20 rural Canadian communities were measured on perceived social cohesion by the three Buckner scale subdimensions: psychological sense of community (PSOC), attraction, and neighboring. Number of household children, income over $20,000, age, birthplace in, and years lived in the community significantly positively influenced PSOC and Attraction. Number of household children (positive for income over $20,000; otherwise negative), income over $40,000, birthplace, and years in the community significantly influenced neighboring. Increased interaction generally increases individuals' social cohesion. As the only significant community variable was being on an island province, individual‐oriented policies are recommended to increase cohesion.     

Community standards,conservatism, and judgments of pornography

In an attempt to determine if a community standard existed and to relate judgments of pornography to conservatism, scores on Wilson and Patterson's Conservatism Scale, yes‐no judgments on whether 25 pictures were or were not pornographic, and demographic data were obtained from a random sample (N = 114) of a community. Results were as follows: (1) suggestive evidence for the existence of a community standard; (2) the c‐scale correlated .57 (N = 114, p < .01) with number of pictures judged pornographic; (3) the 25 pictures met Guttman requirements of unidimensionality (reproducibility of .925); and (4) factor analysis of the pornography judgments yielded three clear‐cut factors and one ambiguous factor which were ordered along the Guttman dimension.     

Community Context,Land Use,and First Birth

This article examines the influence of community context and land use on the monthly odds of first birth in a society in the midst of dramatic fertility transition. The theoretical framework guiding our work predicts that proximity to nonfamily services should delay first births by creating opportunities for competing nonfamily activities and spreading new ideas that change expectations about family life. On the other hand, living in agricultural settings that provide opportunities for higher returns to child labor should speed first births. We use a longitudinal, multilevel, mixed‐method data from the Nepalese Himalayas to test these predictions. The empirical results reveal that nonfamily services during childhood and during early adulthood both have important independent influences on the odds of first birth. Also, as predicted, a high density of agricultural land use affects the odds of first births in the opposite direction, speeding first births. This clear pattern of contrasting effects provides important new evidence of the contextual dynamics that produce watershed changes in postmarital birth timing.     

Community,the private and the individual

Attempts are being made to associate a supposed ‘return to the private’ with a parallel phenomenon of a ‘return to community’. Both terms, private and community, are central to sociological theory, but are surrounded with confusion and a profusion of historical referents which confirms their importance but obscures their significance. This review of the literature and of the various problematics for which the ‘private sphere’ is a key concept concludes that it is civil society which determines the modalities of discussion as well as the actual degree of autonomy of the ‘private’, and thus that an approach from the side of the ‘private’ (or of ‘community’) can be of only restricted value.     

Community health needs, community participation, and evaluation research

The values which underlie a social program, and the ways in which they are realized in the program itself, are often left unspecified by the program planners. Two procedures to give practical effect to social values in a community health project are discussed in this paper: careful and systematic assessment of need; and community participation and involvement.     

Social Work,Economic Conversion,and Community Practice:

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, and a new administration in Washington, hope is renewed for a peace economy. This hope is evidenced in the growth of new economic conversion projects ranging from legislative initiatives to new grassroots organizations. This exploratory survey of 15 directors of conversion projects sought to discover the kinds of strategies used and the degree of social work participation. Although results indicate that only one-third of the organizations involved social workers, there is much common ground between conversion strategies, community practice, and social work.     

Coordinating Health,Extended Care,and Community Support Services

Abstract

Under pressure to maximize the cost-effectiveness of programs, efforts to improve coordination have become increasingly central to the development of the broader health and welfare service delivery system in Australia in the past few years. This article reviews recent experience in two related fields: (1) the coordination of different community care services for older people and people with disabilities, funded by the Home and Community Care program; and (2) the attempt to enhance links between community and residential care services, hospitals, and other health care providers. Why coordination has emerged as such an important issue in the field of community care and, increasingly, across the entire system of what the Australian government now terms health and family services is discussed. A number of measures that have been introduced or are proposed to improve a coordination of services are briefly reviewed. These range from individualistic approaches based on information and referral, through schemes involving gatekeeping, case management and brokerage of services, to models involving the reconfiguration of organizational structures, linkages, and finances. These measures are not mutually exclusive and are increasingly likely to be applied in more complex mixed models of service coordination. It is argued that coordination at the level of direct-service provision is difficult if government policies that direct services lack coordination.     

Individual,Group, and Community in the Behavior Sequence

In higher education today planning for the future is viewed as a difficult, yet essential task in relation to educational decision making. This paper identifies key components of a long-range planning process and argues that schools of social work must engage in thinking about the future in systematic and informed ways in order to reach their program objectives.     

The Geography and Disparities of Community Philanthropy: A Community Assessment Model of Needs,Resources, and Ecological Environment

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Community foundations exemplify a growing form of place-based philanthropic efforts for addressing public problems....