Eastern Star Academy, Inc.

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT

Grade Level: Grade 12      Learning Modality:  Modular Distance Learning

  Subject: CSC Subject Teacher:  Jhener Nonesa, LPT

Most Essential Learning Competencies:

1. Explain the importance of studying community dynamics and community action in relation
to applied social sciences and the learners’ future career options.

Duration: Week 1, 3 hours

Community Engagement, Solidarity, and Citizenship

There are many ways to think about community. We will explore four of the most relevant,
each of which provides different insights into the process of community engagement.

Systems Perspective

From a systems perspective, a community is similar to a living creature, comprising

different parts that represent specialized functions, activities, or interests, each operating
within specific boundaries to meet community needs. For example, schools focus on
education, the transportation sector focuses on moving people and products, economic
entities focus on enterprise and employment, faith organizations focus on the spiritual and
physical well-being of people, and health care agencies focus on the prevention and
treatment of diseases and injuries (Henry, 2011). For the community to function well, each
part has to effectively carry out its role in relation to the whole organism. A healthy
community has well-connected, interdependent sectors that share responsibility for
recognizing and resolving problems and enhancing its well-being. Successfully addressing
a community’s complex problems requires integration, collaboration, and coordination of
resources from all parts (Thompson et al., 1990). From a systems perspective, then,
collaboration is a logical approach to health improvement.

Social Perspective

A community can also be defined by describing the social and political networks that link
individuals, community organizations, and leaders. Understanding these networks is critical
to planning efforts in engagement. For example, tracing social ties among individuals may
help engagement leaders to identify a community’s leadership, understand its behavior
patterns, identify its high-risk groups, and strengthen its networks (Minkler et al., 1997) 

Virtual Perspective

Some communities map onto geographically defined areas, but today, individuals rely
more and more on computer-mediated communications to access information, meet
people, and make decisions that affect their lives (Kozinets, 2002). Examples of computer-
mediated forms of communication include email, instant or text messaging, e-chat rooms,
and social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter (Flavian et al., 2005).
Social groups or groups with a common interest that interact in an organized fashion on
the Internet are considered “virtual communities” (Rheingold, 2000; Ridings et al., 2002).

Individual Perspective

Individuals have their own sense of community membership that is beyond the definitions
of community applied by researchers and engagement leaders. Moreover, they may have
a sense of belonging to more than one community. In addition, their sense of membership
can change over time and may affect their participation in community activities (Minkler et
al., 2004).

The philosopher and psychologist William James shed light on this issue in his writings.
James thought it important to consider two perspectives on identity: the “I,” or how a
person thinks about himself or herself, and the “me,” or how others see and think about
that person. Sometimes these two views agree and result in a shared sense of an identity,
but other times they do not. People should not make assumptions about identity based on
appearance, language, or cultural origin; nor should they make assumptions about an
individual’s perspective based on his or her identity (James, 1890). Today, the multiple
communities that might be relevant for any individual — including families, workplace, and
social, religious, and political associations — suggest that individuals are thinking about
themselves in more complex ways than was the norm in years past.

The eligibility criteria that scientists, policy makers, and others develop for social programs
and research projects reflect one way that people perceive a group of proposed
participants, but how much those criteria reflect the participants’ actual view of themselves
is uncertain. Practitioners of community engagement need to learn how individuals
understand their identity and connections, enter into relationships, and form communities.

What is Community Dynamics?

The Community Dynamics Data has been constructed by Social Life; an
organization specializing in research and community projects exploring how people
are affected by changes in the built environment.

The datasets use modeled data from the annual Community Life Survey and
Understanding Society Survey to map this data to Output Areas. This can then be
used to help predict how people are likely to feel about the areas they live in.

The datasets are presented indexed against the country within Local Insight, where
a positive score (greater than zero) indicates that an area is performing better than
the national average and a negative score (below zero) indicates an area is
performing worse than the national average. The datasets available in Local Insight
are:

 Belonging: Shows predicted average levels of belonging for local areas

 Local social relationships: Shows predicted strength of local social relationships
 Satisfaction with local areas as a place to live: Shows predicted average levels of satisfaction
with local area.
 Community Dynamics is the change and development involved in a community that includes all forms
of living organisms. 
Community Dynamics is the process of change and development in communities of
all living organisms—including plants, microorganisms,
and small and large creatures
of every sort. Populations of an organism will appear in an environment as its requirements for
establishment are met.

The Community Dynamics data gives valuable insight into how people feel about the place they live in
and can shape decisions about which services are offered in particular neighbourhoods.

Community Action is putting communities as the center of the services development and services
delivery. This initiative aims to cater the primary needs of the communities before implementing it.

TYPES OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT:

Community Building. Projects that intentionally bring people together to simply get to
know one another.

 Community Education.
 Community Organizing.
 Deliberative Dialogue.
 Direct Service.
 Economic Development.
 Engaged Research.
 Institutional Engagement.

WHAT ARE THE IMPORTANT INGREDIENTS OF COMMUNITY

ACTION?
 Community Context. people live in similar setting and/or locality.
 Common Experience.
 Common Understanding.
 Common Analysis.
 An Acceptable Standard.
 An action that is acceptable to the community.
 4 General phase of community process.
 Issue identification, analysis and dissemination.

DEFINITION OF COMMUNITY:
“Community” is a concept with a messy history. It emerges in classical sociology as a product of
the ideological conflict between tradition and modernity (or between conservatism and liberalism)
that took place in the 19th century. In the context created by the democratic political revolutions of
France and North America and the process of industrialization, the concept of community was a
way of praising the past in order to blame the present. Rather than an objective, analytic concept
--what community “is”--, it became a normative concept --what it “should be”. .
 
Perhaps the best expression of this tendency is the work of Ferdinand Tonnies, Gemeinschaft and
Gesellschaft (roughly translated as Community and Society). Community in this case is
characterized by a “natural will”. Relations between people are governed by natural ties of kinship
and friendship, by familiarity, and by age-old habit and customary ways of doing things. Social
community, for Tonnies, is akin to the natural community of a living organism. It involves an
underlying consensus based on kinship, on residence in a common locality, and on friendship.
Social position in the community is clearly defined by birth, so personal achievements, education,
property, and so, are irrelevant compared with status ascribed by birth. Thus, community is
homogeneous, and socially and geographically immobile and characterized by values such as the
centrality of kinship ties, solidarity as a community and attachment to the locality. Society, or rather
modern society in the perspective of Tonnies, is characterized by “rational will”. Relations between
people are governed by deliberation and evaluation of means and ends, or the advantages that
people expect to gain from others. Thus, society is an association of people based on principles of
contract and exchange.
 
The idea of community as a polar type in this duality informed the development of other
dualities that are also ideologically charged. This is the case of the distinction created
by Simmel regarding rural versus urban settings, a distinction in which the weakening
of communal solidarity in urban areas would lead to the collapse of a stable social
order. The same approach is observed in the differences between urban and rural
settings suggested by Sorokin and Zimmerman. These authors argue that social
interactions in rural settings are permanent, strong and durable, while in urban settings
they are casual, superficial and short-lived. The same ideas are found in Redfield’s
distinction between folk society –the folk communities—and urban society. Folk
communities, in opposition to urban society, are familial, and involve intimate face-to-
face relationships, minimal specialization or division of labor, intense cohesion (people
united by strong bonds of local identity and loyalties and mutual obligations), and a
deep commitment to shared values.
 
 
Definitions:

“A set of interrelationships among social institutions in a locality” (Bell and Newby, p.19).
 
“A community is said to exist when interaction between individuals has the purpose of meeting
individual needs and obtaining group goals…a limited geographical area is another feature…the
features of social interaction, structures for the gratification of physical, social and physical
needs, and limited geographical area are basic to the definitions of community.” (Sussman, in
Bell and Newby, pp. 29 and 30).
 
“Community is, first, a place, and second, a configuration as a way of life, both as to how people
do things and what they want, to say, their institutions and goals” (Kaufman in Bell and Newby,
p. 30).
 
“Community is a number of families residing in a relatively small area within which they have
developed a more or less complete socio-cultural definitions imbued with collective
identifications and by means of which they resolve problems arising from the sharing of an area”
(Sutton and Kolaja, in Bell and Newby, p. 31).
 
“Community refers to a structure of relationships through which a localized population provides
its daily requirements” (Hawley in Bell and Newby, p. 34).
 
“Community is a collection of people who share a common territory and meet their basic
physical and social needs through daily interaction with one another” (in Allan Johnson,  Human
Arrangements, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers: Orlando, 1986, p. 692).
 
“Community is a social group with a common territorial base; those in the group share interests and have
a sense of belonging to the group” (Robert Stebbins, Sociology. The Study of Society,  Harper and Row:
New York, 1987, p. 534).
 
“Community is a body of people living in the same locality…Alternatively, a sense of identity and
belonging shared among people living in the same locality…, Also, the set of social relations found in a
particular bounded area” (Sylvia Dale, Controversies in Sociology. A Canadian Introduction, Copp, Clark
and Pitman: Toronto, 1990, p. 562).

DEFINITIONS OF COMMUNITY (uregina.ca)

 BASIC ELEMENTS OF COMMUNITY

LOCALITY
Locality means a community occupies a territorial area permanent or changing. The people are
having belonging to their locality and develop “we” feeling with each other.

SENTIMENTS
The community sentiment is the social coherence, which the people inculcate within themselves.
This sense of belonging together and to the residence is the real sentiment of community.
Hence a common way of life of people along with its awareness on a common territory is a
community.

WIDER ENDS
Everyone in community share some of their interest. They combine not for the execution of a
specific end. The ends are wider and people work in group to accomplish some interests.

GROUP OF PEOPLE
Community is the totality of individuals with similar conditions of life. Thus it is a group of a
people living together similarly.

COMMON LIFE
One of the elements of community is that there is always common life. There is no up and
downs and inequality in community.

PARTICULAR NAME
A community is always identified by its name. Thus a it is having its own particular name.

A SPONTANEOUS ORIGIN AND GROWTH

There is no community on the global world without its origin and growth. Thus each and every
community has its own origination and growing with the passage of time

PERMANENCE
Permanence one of the basic element of community , the membership of the community is
permanent. An individual is always identified through his community. Thus It is permanent in its
nature.

COMMUNITY TYPOLOGIES

Formal and Informal Group

 In an organization, the formation of groups is very natural, whether it is created by the
management for the purpose of accomplishing the goals of the organization or by the
members of the organizations themselves to fulfill their social needs.

• There are two types of group, namely, formal groups and informal groups. Formal
groups are the ones that are created as per official authority, so as to fulfill the desired
objective. Unlike, informal groups are formed by the employees as per their likes,
interests, and attitudes.

FORMAL GROUP INFORMAL GROUP

 • A formal group is a collection of
persons, who came together for
achieving a specified goal. They are
always created with intent to fulfil
some official requirement. Formation of
the group is done by the management.
It possesses a systematic structure, in
hierarchical form.
• In general, the employees of the
organization are divided into groups,
and a task is a hand over to each group.
In this way, the task of the group
is accomplished along with the fulfilment
of organizational goals. 
•
• The groups that are created naturally,
within the organization, due to social
and psychological forces are known as
Informal groups. 
• Under this group, the employees of the
organisation, themselves enter into
groups, without the approval of the
management to satisfy their social
needs on the job.
• There are no defined rules; that applies
to the informal group. Moreover, the
group possesses a loose structure.

URBAN
• An urban area is the region surrounding
a city. Most inhabitants of urban areas
have nonagricultural jobs. Urban areas
are very developed, meaning there is
a density of human structures such as
houses, commercial buildings, roads,
bridges, and railways.
• "Urban area" can refer to towns, cities,
and suburbs. An urban area includes
the city itself, as well as the surrounding
areas.
RURAL
• Rural areas are the opposite of urban
areas. Rural areas, often called "the
country," have low population density
and large amounts of undeveloped land.
Usually, the difference between a rural
area and an urban area is clear.
• But in developed countries with large
populations, such as Japan, the
difference is becoming less clear. In the
United States, settlements with 2,500
inhabitants or more are defined as
urban. In Japan, which is far more
densely populated than the U.S

• Throughout the world, the dominant pattern of migration within countries has been from
rural to urban areas. This is partly because improved technology has decreased the need
for agricultural workers and partly because cities are seen as offering greater economic
opportunities. Most of the worlds people, however, still live in rural areas.