Search

“Personal” and “shared” aspects of sense of community identity are explored in a an established community in Durham City, England. Durham City has a history of over 1,000 years of continuous settlement, and is generally viewed as a stable and relatively harmonious setting. In the study 102 residents responded to a Community Response Questionnaire based on Puddifoot's taxonomy of elements of sense of community. The findings suggest the existence of three underlying “personal” dimensions of Sense of Community Identity (SOCI), namely, “Sense of Personal Support,” “Sense of Personal Contentedness,” and “Personal Involvement,” and three “shared” dimensions of SOCI, namely, “Perceived Community Engagement,” “Perceived Neighborliness,” and “Perceived Settledness.” This article discusses these findings and the prospect of creating a measure for comparative analysis around these dimensions. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. This study examines the influence of experi enti al vari ables, such as reported contacts with the poli ce, upon attitudes towards the use of police weaponry i n England and Wales. Method. A factor analysis (N = 605) of response to a special ly devel oped questionnaire l ed to the identification of five underl ying dimensions of publ ic attitudes towards pol ice weaponry. Further anal yses explored the role of demographic and experi ential variables in these attitudes. Results. Neither age nor sex were found to have a significant eVect upon attitudes towards poli ce weaponry, but specific experi ential variables had a significant eVect, notably respondents' personal experi ence of responsible or irresponsible behavi our by the poli ce. For those partici pants who were themsel ves victims of crime, such experiences were i mportant in al tering their views of the poli ce, whether positively or negativel y. Trust i n the police appeared to be a key mediating influence upon attitudes towards poli ce weaponry. Conclusions. Experiential variables relating to perceptions of pol ice behaviour and to actual contacts with police officers appear to be influential in forming attitudes towards poli ce weaponry in England. The perceived character of response, assistance and support received from the pol ice foll owing criminal vi ctimization were found to be significant predictors of favourable or unfavour-able attitudes towards pol ice weaponry, possibly through the mediation of increasing or decreasing trust in the police. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent challenge of Dynamical Systems Theory (also known as ComplexityTheory or Chaos Theory) to the social sciences, is based largely on the beliefthat processes in the social arena can be considered as analogous to those of the natural world, and that in consequence general theoretical advances in explaining the latter might with advantage be applied to the former. This paper aims to show that claims for Dynamical Systems Theory with respect to the understanding or measurement of social processes would be premature; the reasons for this lying not only in the unfamiliarity and operational difficulties of Dynamical Systems Theory in itself, but also in the problematic nature and history of our usage of the term 'social process'. Reviewing some examples of such usage from Sociology and Social Psychology, it is concluded that Dynamical Systems Theory might serve as a catalyst for a re-examination of existing orthodoxies and major concepts, but that progress would be retarded by the uncritical application of it's terminology, concepts, and techniques of mathematical modelling, without this prior and demanding first step. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although community identity is an area of research interest with important ramifications for all those concerned with issues of community. This paper argues that, with the possible exception of the psychological sense of community (PSOC). There is relatively link coordinated research emerging under the influence of a strong body of psychological theory. An approach emphasizing the common ground between this and related psychological approaches is put forward, such that both the common and unique qualities of the identities of communities might be made subject to rigorous and meaningful analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The important research area of community identity has failed to develop a practical means of measurement and comparative analysis. Scrutiny of the research literature suggests that this is in part due to the conceptual difficulties related to community in general, a restrictive emphasis on individual level psychological variables, and a reluctance or inability to proceed beyond exploratory methods of research to fuller field studies. Through a review of the related research in community identity in the UK, and from wider research in the areas of Psychological Sense of Community, Social Cohesion, and Community Satisfaction, a number of underlying dimensions of community identity are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]