Understanding the community

Community Defined

⚫the people in a given geographical locality

⚫ any group sharing something in common.
⚫ This may refer to smaller geographic
areas -- a neighborhood, a housing
project development, a rural area --
⚫number of other possible communities
within a larger, geographically-defined
community.
⚫A human system composed of an aggregation of
people interacting with each other over time, their
behavior and activities are guided by a set of
collectively-evolved norms or collective decisions,
from which the members experience mutual support
and fulfill their basic needs.
⚫ race or ethnicity,
⚫professional or economic ties,
⚫religion,
⚫culture,
⚫shared background or interest:
 Types of Community as a social system

⚫ 
a. Geographic community a. Functional or sectoral
⚫  community
⚫ 
⚫ It refers to the people in a
specific area or location in a ⚫ It is composed of people who
hold common values, share
microcosm. For example, common functions or express
village, district, province, some common interest such as
nation or the world. It may education, health, livelihood,
also refer to the people and labor, welfare or recreation. For
their natural habitat such as example, the professional
the watershed community. community, farmers community,
⚫  the banking community, the
international community.
 Approaches in Understanding the Community

⚫Ecological
⚫Structural
⚫ Normative
 ⚫Geographical features
E
⚫Demography
C
O
⚫Resources
L ⚫Space Relations
O
G
I
C
A
L
 ⚫Institutions/Organizations
S
⚫Leadership/government
T
R
⚫Positions
U ⚫Status/Roles
C ⚫Communication Pattern
T
U
R
A
L
 ⚫Values and Norms
⚫History
⚫Language
N
⚫Customs and Traditions
O
R
⚫Knowledge
M ⚫Beliefs
A ⚫Aspirations
T
I
V
E
Basic Social Processes
1.1. Competition- forms of opposition and
struggle. A less violent forms of opposition
in which two or more persons or group
struggle for some end or goal but in the
cause of which attention is formed chiefly
on the reward rather than the competition
(Young and Mack).
2. Conflict
• May develop from competition
• Forms of emotionalized and violent
opposition in which the major concern
is to overcome the opponent as a
means of securing a given goal or
reward.”
• Motivated by the desire to secure a
scarce goal or common values.
• Focus of the attention is the opponent
with the intention of blocking,
destruction and defeat accompanied
by fear, hate or anger.
 3. COOPERATION

• A more specific aspect of human intercourse

having to do with mutual aid or alliance of
persons seeking some common goals or
reward (Young & Mack).
• Important characteristics is the mutual
advantage to be gained by cooperating
members through sharing the performance of
common tasks.
• Pattern of cooperation is acquired in the family
and friendship groups.
 DERIVED PROCESSES

• 1. Amalgamation
• Intermarriage of persons coming from
different ethnic groups.
• Hastens assimilation by making the
physical and cultural characteristics of
the two ethnic groups similar.
2. Assimilation

• It is a process of interpenetration and

fusion in which persons and groups
acquire the memories, sentiments, and
attitudes of other persons or groups and
by sharing their experiences and history
are incorporated with them in a common
cultural fusion- a blending of values,
attitudes, and beliefs (Park and Burgess).
3. Acculturation

• Process by which societies of different

cultures are modified through fairly
close and long-continued contact but
do not blend with one another.
• Usually a 2-way process, society
borrows from the culture of the other
without losing its identity.
4. Accommodation

Accommodation- used by Young and mack in

two senses: as a condition and as process .“
As a condition, it refers to the fact of
equilibrium between individuals and groups
and the “rules of the game” which has
developed.. as a process it refers to the
conscious efforts of men to develop such
working arrangements among themselves as
will suspend conflict and make their
relationships more tolerable and less wasteful
of energy.
 Value Assumptions as Guide

❖ People want change and they can change

❖Changes in community living that are self-imposed or self-
developed have a meaning and a permanence that imposed
changes do not have.
❖People should participate in making, adjusting, or controlling the
major changes taking place in their communities.
❖Democracy requires cooperative participation and action in the
affairs of the community, and that people must learn the skills
which make this possible.
❖Communities of people can develop capacity to deal with their
own problems.
❖‘Holistic approach’ can cope with most of the problems with
which a ‘fragmented approach’ cannot cope.