Social Capital and Participation in Community Improvement Activities by Elderly Residents in Small Towns and Rural Communities*

Abstract This study critically reviews theoretical concepts and measurements of social capital and tests hypotheses that elaborate how four dimensions of social capital (informal social ties, formal social ties, trust, and norms of collective action) and sense of community are related to participation in community improvement activities for elderly residents in small towns and rural communities. Mail surveys of 2,802 elders in 99 small towns and rural communities in Iowa reveal that many elders are actively involved in their community. Social capital and sense of community are very important in predicting elderly participation in community improvement activities, but they relate differently to elderly community involvement. Formal ties and sense of community have much stronger relationships with community involvement than informal ties and norms of collective action. Generalized trust is not significantly related to elderly community involvement.     

Toward a Social Theory of Resilience: Social Systems,Cultural Systems,and Collective Action in Transitioning Forest‐Based Communities

Impacts from post‐Fordist and poststaples economic transition in the Canadian natural resource sector have resulted in dramatic challenges to the livelihoods of many rural residents and the viability of many rural communities. This study seeks to understand community response to economic transition through a lens of social ecological resilience. This article puts forward Archer's theory of cultural morphogenesis as an analogous model of social ecological change that focuses attention on cultural systems, cultural elaboration, and collective action within an adaptive cycle of resilience. With case material from focused ethnographies of two forest‐dependent communities, we identify distinctive interactions between culture and agency over time that condition community response to change, and we make an analytical distinction between the social system and cultural system. These insights point to catalysts for collective action and adaptation within a resilient cultural realm that extend beyond institutional factors such as economic dependency or political opportunity. By integrating culture, we also deepen the social theory contribution to social‐ecological resilience.     

Exploring the Ebbs and Flows of Community Engagement: The Pyramid of Engagement and Water Activism in Two Canadian Communities

In this article, we share results from a comparative study exploring the dynamics of community engagement surrounding local water advocacy organizations in two Canadian communities. Although emergent local issues and the perception of crisis triggered some short-term community engagement, social factors such as collective identity, a sense of community, and sense of efficacy appear to be more important for sustaining and deepening engagement. Drawing on the results, we show how the pyramid of engagement, by depicting activist engagement as a multilevel, developmental process, can serve as a useful tool for community engagement scholars and practitioners alike.     

Environmental Controversies,Interactional Resources,and Rural Communities: Siting Versus Exposure Disputes1

Abstract Differences in the types of social conflict occuring in facility siting disputes and toxic contamination cases are compared. An ecological-symbolic perspective and the concept of strong and weak ties are used to interpret the nature of social conflict in two rural Pennsylvania communities and in cases in the literature. Overall, community solidarity appears likely to be enhanced in siting disputes and undermined in exposure situations. To explain this, two conflict paths are developed that move from the presence or absence of the hazard agent to individual perceptions, the generation of collective threat beliefs and the formation of strong ties, the emergence of alternative leadership and its relationship to official authorities, and finally the formation of weak ties. In each case, the type of community conflict results from the nature of the perceived environmental threat and the social process that threat sets in motion. Practical implications for rural community development are discussed.     

Preventing violence in disadvantaged communities: Strategies for building collective efficacy and improving community health

ABSTRACT

Violence is a critical health issue that compromises the strength of communities and permanently damages the lives of individuals and families. The impact of violence on health and well-being is particularly devastating in disadvantaged and minority communities, leading to negative health outcomes, including premature death. However, research suggests that communities can prevent violence and negative health outcomes by developing collective efficacy, which happens when neighbors share norms and values, trust one another, and are willing to intervene to address problems. Despite the importance of collective efficacy in preventing violence and improving health, almost no research has investigated actionable strategies to build collective efficacy in disadvantaged neighborhoods. This article describes a theoretical and conceptual model that illustrates how collective efficacy impacts community violence and related health outcomes. We begin by reviewing other approaches to community violence prevention, including criminal justice and developmental approaches. We then discuss how collective efficacy works and why it matters, including theoretical and empirical research explaining collective efficacy and its impact on community violence and health. We then discuss a research-based intervention that social workers can use to facilitate collective efficacy, including our conceptual model and the key components of the intervention. Finally, we discuss implications for social workers who are working with communities to address violence and related health issues.     

Collective Efficacy and Crime in Los Angeles Neighborhoods: Implications for the Latino Paradox*

We use data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Study (LAFANS) to examine the degree to which social ties and collective efficacy influence neighborhood levels of crime, net of neighborhood structural characteristics. Results indicate that residential instability and collective efficacy were each associated with lower log odds of robbery victimization, while social ties had a positive effect on robbery victimization. Further, collective efficacy mediated 77 percent of the association between concentrated disadvantage and robbery victimization, while social ties had no mediating effect. The mediation effect for concentrated disadvantage, however, was substantially weaker in the Latino neighborhoods (where it was 52%) than in the non‐Latino neighborhoods (where it was 82%), suggesting that a “Latino paradox” may be present in which crime rates in Latino neighborhoods appear to have less to do with local levels of collective efficacy than in non‐Latino neighborhoods. Implications for future research bearing on both the Latino paradox and the systemic model of social control are discussed.     

Being involved in the country: Productive ageing in different types of rural communities

Productive ageing recognises the contribution of older people to economic, social and cultural growth and helps build a sustainable community. Being involved in community life is good for individuals and good for society. However, we know very little about the participation of and contribution by people aged 50 and over in rural communities. This research aimed to develop a better understanding of productive ageing in different types of communities in rural Victoria, Australia. An anonymous self-complete postal questionnaire was distributed to a sample of households in twenty rural communities using the Australia Post Unaddressed Select Service. Those householders 50 years of age and older were invited to complete the survey. Data collected allowed examination of social and civic engagement, familiarity with community, the value placed on social relations by people aged 50 years and over, and how community involvement was linked to community sustainability. In particular it attempts to address the question ‘Does social and civic engagement differ across declining, stable and growing rural communities?’ Despite differences among rural communities, this study showed that older people develop and maintain strong community connections and well-functioning social capital and that participation in social activities was associated with feelings of being connected with community. It also identified health issues and lack of options as the main constraints on participation. A key message for policy makers is that older people play an important role in the sustainability of rural communities. There is much to be gained from actively supporting their participation in activities that are connected to ageing well.     

How Theory and Research Inform Citizen Participation in Poor Communities: The Ecological Perspective and Theories on Self- and Collective Efficacy and Sense of Community

The engagement of residents in poor, disadvantaged communities has been a focus of social work practice since the early part of the twentieth century. In the person:environment configuration, a renewed appreciation is building for community-level factors in human behavior and functioning. Poor neighborhoods are transactional settings that can negatively impact human behavior and development. However, active citizen participation can positively impact neighborhoods, including strengthening residents' individual and collective capacities and relationships. This article uses the ecological perspective to examine the neighborhood as a transactional setting that influences individual and collective behavior and outcomes and citizen participation as vehicle for improving outcomes for residents living in poor communities. The article also discusses theory and research on self- and collective efficacy and sense of community to understand the motivation for and benefits of citizen participation. Implications for social work research and practice are discussed.     

“We don't want to talk about that”: Overcoming barriers to rural aging research and interventions on sensitive topics

Geographical, economic, social and cultural barriers to accessing services in rural areas are widely reported. Less widely discussed are dilemmas posed by individual and community reluctance to address sensitive health issues. This article, focusing on the highly sensitive area of mental health, and employing a participatory action approach, describes the natural history of a project, the Mental Health and Aging Initiative (MHAI) to enhance awareness of mental health issues in rural Kentucky-Appalachian communities and overcome the reluctance of individuals in these communities to seek assistance. Funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), MHAI involved an educational intervention to improve knowledge about mental health and aging in rural Appalachian counties. The need to overcome significant community reluctance to engage in discussion of mental health resulted in significant modification of the protocol. The intervention was grounded in recognition of four key aspects of the local situation: (1) the need to understand the sensitivity of mental health as an element of rural culture; (2) the critical role of local community leaders as points of entry, acceptance, and action; (3) the need to overcome social stigma and reframe the topic of mental health in a more positive light; and (4) the need for methodological innovation in developing an empowering educational action plan oriented toward community-wide long-term impact. The intervention model that emerged from these considerations was based on engaging community leaders, providing educational and technical resources, and nurturing the acceptance by individual rural residents of responsibility for monitoring community mental health. This motif became a central theme in a strategy designed to facilitate culture change and acceptance of mental health as a community concern. It involved active engagement of community representatives in defining and implementing an intervention consistent with participatory action research as a means of empowering rural residents in monitoring and addressing sensitive health care issues. Given that many issues in rural health are difficult to address because of such sensitivity, the approach described is considered to have application in other contexts.     

Social Capital and Communities of Place1

Abstract This paper develops a framework for examining the questions: Does social capital make a difference for well being in communities of place? How might rural sociologists utilize social capital to further well being in communities? The author reviews social capital literature, contrasting rational choice and embeddedness perspectives. Opting for a marriage between embeddedness and conflict theory, he introduces entrepreneurial social infrastructure (ESI) as an alternative to social capital. ESI adds to social capital the notions of equality, inclusion, and agency. Research results are presented which support the embeddedness approach: community-level action (the community field) is not simply an aggregation of individual or organizational actions within the community; social capital and ESI contribute jointly and independently to community action. Examining economic development as a form of collective action, the author concludes?the following: a) ESI contributes to economic development, and b) inclusiveness (internal solidarity) is more closely related to community self-development while industrial recruitment is better predicted by strong external ties.     

Organizational Responsibility for Age-Friendly Social Participation: Views of Australian Rural Community Stakeholders

This qualitative study critically explores the barriers experienced by diverse rural community stakeholders in facilitating environments that enable age-friendly social participation. Twenty-six semi-structured interviews were conducted across two rural Australian communities with stakeholders from local government, health, social care, and community organizations. Findings identify that rural community stakeholders face significant difficulties in securing resources for groups and activities catering to older adults, which subsequently impacts their capacity to undertake outreach to older adults. However, in discussing these issues, questions were raised in relation to whose responsibility it is to provide resources for community groups and organizations providing social initiatives and whose responsibility it is to engage isolated seniors. These findings provide a much-needed critical perspective on current age-friendly research by acknowledging the responsibilities of various macro-level social structures—different community-level organizations, local government, and policy in fostering environments to enable participation of diverse rural older adults.     

Toward a Radical Model of Social Work in Rural Communities

“Rural” areas as distinct from “urban” continue to be defined by greater personal interactions and less emphasis on formal systems of support. This reality rests in contradiction to the overwhelming majority of social work scholarship and theory development which takes place in an urban context. As such the present-day act of being a “social worker” in a rural community can, in many ways, feel like a bad fit, back-applying the model of an urban generalist into an environment whose organic community ties the social work model itself was originally designed to substitute for. In recognition of this, it is necessary to develop a “combined” model of practice for social work with rural communities and peoples. The fundamental distinction to be made is that rural social work, in its most radical form, is less concerned with adapting persons to the Gesellschaft than it is with strengthening the capacity of the Gemeinschaft to provide the kind of support capacity it historically has, taking into account changes and challenges resulting from factors such as globalization, urban sprawl, and cultural change.     

Neighborhood Structure,Social Organization,and Number of Short‐Term Sexual Partnerships

We examine the relationship between neighborhood structural characteristics, social organization, and the sexual partnering practices of adults. Analyses of 1990 census and 1995–1997 survey‐based data on Chicago neighborhoods and adult sexual activity reveal for men a number of neighborhood influences on sexual partnering practices. First, residential stability is negatively associated with having a short‐term sexual partner in the last year. Second, neighborhood social ties are positively associated with short‐term sexual partnering in neighborhoods with low levels of collective efficacy—the combination of cohesion and shared expectations for beneficial action among neighbors—but this effect is substantially reduced as collective efficacy increases. Moreover, neighborhood collective efficacy and social ties mediate the effect of residential stability on sexual partnering practices. Neighborhood characteristics were not associated with short‐term sexual partnering for women.     

These white walls: The dialectic of retirement communities

In 1960, Del Webb launched a grand social experiment: the nation's first large-scale ‘active adult’ community, Sun City, Arizona. Forty-four years hence, it is instructive to take stock of Sun City and its progeny. This paper excavates the social and cultural significance of age-restricted retirement communities, drawing on the voices of Sun City residents. Three tropes are revealed in interviews with Sun Citians about community and community life: birds of a feather, idyllic havens, and fortress mentality. Retirement communities display a striking dialectic, as they are places rich in meaning and collective identity in aging and, simultaneously, places of separation that speak to the potency of age, social class, and ethnicity as social borders. Retirement enclaves served as forerunners in the proliferation of master-planned, lifestyle communities that engender both resident well-being and social fragmentation in metropolitan America.     

Using Photovoice to Empower Youth and Adults to Prevent Crime

Photovoice empowers residents to use photographs to identify neighborhood concerns. Although Photovoice has been used to facilitate dialogue and action among residents to address a variety of issues, including neighborhood crime, it has not been used as part of an intervention to promote collective efficacy. This project integrated Photovoice into a crime-prevention program the goal of which was to facilitate collective efficacy, which. in turn, has been associated with lower levels of neighborhood crime and violence. Twenty-four racially diverse youth and adults participated in a crime-prevention training where Photovoice was used first to identify neighborhood characteristics that participants believed contributed to and alleviated crime, and then to develop a community project. Participants worked together to reuse a highly visible vacant lot to create an inviting neighborhood art and garden space that was open to the whole community. This process facilitated stronger social ties among neighborhood residents, as well as strategies for intervening in neighborhood problems, both of which are important components of collective efficacy.     

Unveiling the mantra. The salience of network-based community belonging in understanding the structural and agentic conditions of the migration-development nexus

There is more and more evidence that migration and development cannot be considered as two dimensions, whose nexus emerges naturally as a mantra with reciprocal advantages both in developing and in developed countries. This article investigates the theoretical framework of a migration-development nexus as a double time-dependent process of social change, at the same time embedded both in the long durée of the reproduction/innovation of social practices and in the short durée of an agent's personal reflectivity. I argue that the wide scenario of this interplay is the place for the cultural, symbolic, and moral dimensions of a migrant's membership of a network-based community, which acts as a cultural compass in determining migrants' attitudes towards the development of their home country. Strong community membership can be associated with real engagement in the development issues of members left behind (as part of the collective self), only if we assume that membership and belonging are not necessarily shaped by kinship or ethnic considerations, but vary according to the structural features of migrants' social networks – for example the way in which migrants define networks as their own communities, the results of past community memories, and how they imagine their future community on the basis of current experience and perception. The paper discusses these issues in the light of the structure-agent debate in social sciences and migration studies.     

She Was Born in a Small Town: The Advantages and Disadvantages in Political Knowledge and Efficacy for Rural Girls

Recent work suggests that girls learn more about politics and are more efficacious in places with less conflict and greater homogeneity. Given that rural communities are often more homogeneous than metropolitan areas across several dimensions, this article asks whether young girls growing up in rural communities have higher levels of political knowledge and efficacy than those in more urban, diverse communities. It argues that the average girl benefits from the stronger social bonds between residents in smaller places, but young women who hold minority views about the importance of equality are likely to suffer in their levels of knowledge and efficacy. Being in the minority seems to be particularly difficult for girls in smaller places. This article raises questions about the ways in which gender gaps vary across different places and the varying effects of minority status.     

Moral economies of a translocal village: obligation and shame among South Indian transnational migrants

Abstract In this article, we develop the concept of the translocal village as a subset of transnationalism to describe the highly circumscribed social relations that often emerge from small‐scale translocalized rural villages. In the article we explore the translocal dimensions of a rural South Indian village in Tamil Nadu as a case study to advance this theoretical position. Like all transnational communities involved in the production of locality, identity and social viability, Soorapallam villagers and fellow Musuguntha Vellalar caste members now based in Singapore maintain strong social and cultural ties with their village. However, what is most interesting about this community is that its involvement in translocal practices is determined by a moral economy of obligations and responsibilities based on caste membership, which, in turn, is regulated by regimes of affect and policed through the gaze of fellow translocals. We will demonstrate the specific ways in which this moral economy is reproduced and maintained across distance.     

Community,Ethnicity, and Class in a Changing Rural California Town*

Abstract This study investigates how community is constructed, maintained, and contested among diverse residents of a rural town in California's Central Valley. Drawing on observations, interviews, and archival material, I examine the way in which ethnicity and class play a significant role in recasting how community is organized and interpreted by Mexicans and long‐term white residents. In my field site, Mexicans have long been involved in (in)formal community‐making, yet long‐term white residents perceive a “loss of community” because social relations are no longer structured around an agrarian culture that at one time reinforced ties through volunteerism and interaction in local mainstream institutions. This article demonstrates the continual significance of place and interaction in defining community, but suggests that immigrants develop communities of need aimed at providing important social, emotional, and political support absent in mainstream society. Finally, this study also speaks of the competition for representation and respectability among rural residents developing a sense of belonging. “Community” is never simply the recognition of cultural similarity or social contiguity but a categorical identity that is premised on various forms of exclusion and constructions of otherness     

Spicing Up a 150-Year-Old Porcelain Factory: Art,Localism and Transnationalism in Arita's Happy Lucky Kiln

The Kouraku Kiln, a 150-year-old Japanese porcelain factory in the traditional rural pottery town of Arita, has been struggling with the economic decline brought by the burst of the bubble in the mid-1990s, rural migration and changes in lifestyle and tastes. Using ethnographic fieldwork, I look at the independent innovative activities that the Kouraku Kiln factory has put into place to overcome such problems: an artist-in-residence program and a treasure hunt, both coordinated by Brazilian ceramic artist and cultural agitator Sebastião Pimenta. By making use of the local history, identity, and infrastructure to attract visitors from all over the world to the production site, Kouraku Kiln has changed its focus from its products by selling knowledge and experiences. Besides contributing to the revitalization of the local economy, the constant presence of Pimenta and other international artists at the factory has added to the creation of multicultural exchanges in the local community, raising issues about social integration and local citizenship. With this case study, I aim to add to discussions about the revitalization of rural places and the regeneration of Japanese traditional crafts through the acknowledgment of globalization and mobility. By addressing issues related to the impact of transnational flows in rural communities, this article argues for the contributions of migrants in their communities of destination and examines the transforming relationships between art, society, and local development.