Chapter 5 Lecture 1 Flashcards
What are Common community definition concepts? (4 words/ concepts) (PISS)
space, people, interaction, and shared identity are repeated over and over again.
What three dimensions does community occur around? (psp)
physical, social and political
What are the Seven functions of community? PSS - SMDC (Suck My DiCk)
- Production/distribution and consumption (activities that meet peoples’ needs (jobs eg. Medical care/sanitation/transportation ect.)
- Socialization (norms, traditions and values of community members)
- Social control (the process by which community members ensure compliance with norms and values).
- Social participation (interaction with others in the community)
- Mutual support (caring for the sick/unemployed and distressed).
- Defense: the ways that communities take care of and protect its members. Eg. Gay or black communities against hate crimes
- Communication: eg. The debate about whether and how forcefully English proficiency should be demanded of immigrants / technology blurring community boundaries
What are the 6 Descriptive Approaches to understanding community?
- Boundaries
- Mechanical analogy
- Organismic
- Morphogenic
- Factional
- catastrophic
What is boundary maintenance?
• The ways in which societies (or social systems) maintain distinctions between themselves and others.
Macro practitioners will witness the struggle for boundary maintenance in their work with communities and organizations. For instance, residents in a neighborhood that has just altered school attendance boundaries may face major changes in how they view their community. The annexation of previously unincorporated areas into the city limits may bring protesters to city hall. The reconfiguration of a planning and service area that alters agency’s boundaries may mean that clients formerly considered part of one’s Community will no longer be eligible for service.
What is a mechanical analogy?
- Sees the system as a machine
- Assumes all parts work well together in an integrated manner
- Focuses on order over instability
- Avoids conflict if possible
- Maintains the status quo
Further explanation:
- Views a social system as a machine in which all the parts work closely together, are well coordinated, and integrate smoothly
- When one part of the system changes, it is expected that other parts will adapt to reestablish equilibrium.
- In this analogy, order is emphasized over change and conflict
If the practitioner approaches a community using this analogy, his or her task will be seen primarily as one of reducing conflict and restoring a sense of order, connectedness, and mutual purpose.
- For example, a local community whose members are comfortable with their lifestyles
would be disrupted by an influx of immigrants from other cultures who represent difference.
Instead of welcoming immigrants, the community members may impose strict
boundaries, not be welcoming to outsiders, and work toward maintaining the status quo.
What is the organismic analogy?
- Sees the system as a biological unit (e.g., the human body)
- Assumes each part will perform its prescribed function
- Focuses on making adjustments to maintain equilibrium
- Keeps conflict to a minimum
- Engages in incremental change if needed
Further explanation:
- Assuming that each unit within the community performs
its respective role, the organismic analogy predicts that community members will work
toward a common good.
- It argues that structures arise to serve particular functions, and
within the range of normal variability they should allow the community as a whole to
function effectively and for community members to agree on what needs to happen.
- In practice, however, social workers often discover that consensus among diverse community
members can be elusive. For example, immigrants coming into this type of community
may find that they are cautiously welcomed, but only if they behave in ways
that fully acculturate them into established community norms and maintain a sense of
stability. As long as they agree to play by the established rules, conflict will be kept to a
minimum (at least on the surface).
What is a morphogenic analogy?
- Assumes system must adjust to change (morphing)
- Assumes there is no chance of returning to a former state of homeostasis
- Focuses on adjusting to unpredictability
- Expects conflict
- Is open to new possibilities
- Further explanation:
is applicable when change is ongoing and the structure of the system is continually emerging. Fundamental change can occur in this type of situation because there may be no chance of returning to a former state of homeostasis (balance or equilibrium). This highly open approach to systems thinking means that change may be just as likely to be unpredictable as it is to be orderly. It is this unpredictability that requires the community practitioner to be open to clues about how things are changing and to be open to new possibilities. For example, immigrants arriving in this community can expect some conflict as community members adjust to one another’s differences. Expectations will be that the community will change in some ways, and that the acceptable way to incorporate new members into the community will be through open dialogue and recognizing that the community will be changed in the process.
What is a factional analogy?
- Similar to morphogenic
- Sees system as composed of competing factions
- Assumes system is rapidly changing
- Expects contentiousness among units within the system
- Sees conflict as inevitable and ongoing
- Assumes that factions will constantly be disrupting
Further explanation:
contentiousness in a community system is open and obvious. Conflict may be so basic in some community systems that change is likely to remain disorderly and subject to instability. Approaching this type of system with assumptions that order can be reestablished may be a setup for failure. On the other hand, for the practitioner who can face conflict head-on, this type of community can be a stimulating challenge. Immigrants relocating to a factional community will find local groups in disagreement over how to handle their integration. Conflict will be a normal part of this community’s operation, and groups
will be trying to convince one another about what approaches should be taken. There will be no attempt to deny that change can be disruptive, and debates over the pros and cons of immigration will be ongoing, sometimes heated.
What is a catastrophic analogy?
- Sees system as having no recognizable order
- Views change as the only constant
- Is characterized by deep distress
- Sees no sense of order
- Emphasizes chaos over stability
Further explanation:
is defined by contentiousness and conflict taken to extremes. Such a community system will be characterized by deep fissures and distress. Without order or predictability, there will be a sense of chaos in which no one can determine future directions. Communication may have broken down in the process, and subsystems are warring. Intervention in this type of community would look different than it would from mechanical or organismic analogies. In catastrophic communities, there will
be protests about how to handle immigration and what course the country (and communities) should take with the volatile issues surrounding immigration. The volatility might even lead to violence.
What are the 8 ways to understand communities from human behavior theories? (IS- EH -ICCH)
- Interactions & values (boundaries as racial, ethnic, linguistic or religious)
- Social capital (beliefs/values that contribute to the wellbeing of all) (A community with high social capital, for instance, would be expected to have low crime rates because the majority of persons perceive the benefits of not preying on each other.)
- Economic capital (investable funds)
- Human capital (education or expertise)
- Interactional field theorists (believes that social capital is a by-product of community fields, rather than a pre-existing condition)
- Community action field (when multiple “social fields: overlap. Social field as an interactional process in which a sense of unity emerges as individual efforts turn toward collective action with common goals.)
- Collective identity (shared sense of solidarity based on psychological identifications with others. - a sense of “we-ness” that is can be either place specific or can transcend place.)
Human needs (maslow’s hierarchy of needs)
What is Power Dependency theory?
the more a person values resources controlled by another, the more dependent that person is and the less power he/she has in the relationship.
What is Conflict Theory?
Conflict theory, first developed by Karl Marx, is a theory that society is in a state of perpetual conflict because of competition for limited resources. Conflict theory holds that social order is maintained by domination and power, rather than by consensus and conformity.
What is Resource Mobilization Theory?
- Social movements need a collective identity.
- Resource mobilization theory draws from both conflict and power dependency theories to address social movements and the reasons they occur
- Movements need a structure
- Success depends on a collective identity for those involved in protest
- Strength depends on the quality of the message
Funding without compromising the group’s position is often a problem
Example of Community Diversity?
- Because civil society is valued by dominant groups, it reflects the values and norms of those in power; those same groups will resist the development of civil rights associations and other organizations that are dedicated to changing the status quo through political and economic empowerment
- Eg. the gay men’s health crisis in New York City. Kayal analyzed how volunteerism among those in the gay community became necessary at a time when government support was not forthcoming. He explained how members of the gay community responded to the problem of AIDS, representing the way in which groups become committed to sharing the burden when crises arise.
