SW 121

• A COMMUNITY is a group of people who are socially interdependent, who participate together in discussion and decision making, and who share certain practices that both define the community and are nurtured by it”
• • Community is “a system of values, norms, and moral codes which provoke a sense of identity to its members”.
• • Community as “people who live within a geographically defined area and who have social and psychological ties with each other and with the place where they live.” 
• • communities as “social units with one or more of the following three dimensions”:

  1. functional spatial unit meeting sustenance needs
  2. unit of patterned interaction
  3. symbolic unit of collective identification” (p. 1)
• • “Communities of interest” without clear geographic bases e.g. the social work community, the LGBTQIA+ communities.
• • REMEMBER: Our clients belong to multiple communities of identity.
• Competent community - a community that “has the ability to respond to the wide range of member needs and solve its problems and challenges of daily living.”
• Community competence is enhanced when residents have the following:

  1. a commitment to their community,
  2. self-awareness of their shared values and interests,
  3. openness in communication,
  4. wide participation in community decision making, and
  5. a sense of collective self-efficacy and empowerment.
• Community - suggests people with social ties sharing an identity and a social system.
• Neighborhood - suggests places that are grounded in regional life where face-to-face relationships are possible.
• Public life - a civic culture, local setting, and institutional context that also are part of the “environment-surrounding-the-person.
• • Drifters: Less than 5 years of stay and a high likelihood of moving away from the community
• Settlers - Less than 5 years of stay and less likelihood of moving away from the community
• Relocators - More than 5 years of stay but likely to move away from the community
• Natives - More than 5 years in the community and unlikely to move away
• Dreamer - someone who lives in a community without commitment to the community and dreams of being somewhere else, either a past community or a mystical one.
• PLACE AND NONPLACE COMMUNITIES

  Place

  • Bounded Location
  • Collective territorial identity
  • Intertwined processes
  • Empathetic connections

  Nonplace

  • Bounded Interest
  • Relationship identity and dispersion
  • Specialized processes
  • Mixed allegiances
• ELEMENTS OF COMMUNITIES

  • geographic area (constructed)
  • social interaction
  • common ties
  • shared sentiments
• Gemeinschaft - Focuses on the mutual, intimate and common bonds that convenes people in one unit (informal system).
• Gesellschaft - Refers to association, representing a formalized relationship (formal system)
• DIMENSIONS OF COMMUNITIES

  1. Physical - Encompasses spatial, geographical or territorial communities
• Horizontal community - a pattern represented by many linkages that are collaboratively working together.
• Vertical community: a pattern of connections of peoples, groups and organizations to a unit from outside.
• DIMENSIONS OF COMMUNITIES

  
  

  Social or Relational (non-place community) - pulls people together based on identifications, and characteristics e.g. religion, profession, etc.)
• DIMENSIONS OF COMMUNITIES

  Political - pulls people together as they engage in action for the good of the community. Participation, deliberation, governance, and organizing.
• COMMUNITY FUNCTIONS

  Warren (1978)

  1. Production, distribution, and consumption
  2. Socialization
  3. Social control
  4. Social participation
  5. Mutual support

  Pantoja and Perry (1998)

  • Defense
  • Communication