Elsevier

Journal of Criminal Justice

Volume 31, Issue 4, July–August 2003, Pages 321-339
Journal of Criminal Justice

Measuring community social organization: Sense of community as a mediator in social disorganization theory

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0047-2352(03)00026-6Get rights and content

Abstract

The current study utilized an updated systemic model of social disorganization to investigate neighborhood effects on both positive and negative youth outcomes. Although empirical support for updated social disorganization models has increased in recent years, the field continues to rely too heavily on behavioral indicators of community social organization. Unfortunately, these measures do not assess the truly important social processes and dynamics that result in cohesive and supportive neighborhoods. It was proposed that sense of community (SOC) was a more valid, comprehensive, and applicable measure for the mediating variables in social disorganization theory. Results supported the hypothesis that SOC mediates the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on youth outcomes and implications for the field are discussed.

Introduction

Social disorganization theory re-emerged and is once again one of the dominant social theories utilized to explain the influence of neighborhood characteristics on variations in crime and delinquency rates Bursik, 1988, Bursik & Grasmick, 1993, Elliott et al., 1996, Sampson, 1997, Sampson & Groves, 1989, Simcha-Fagan & Schwartz, 1986. The resurgence of social disorganization theory was accompanied by the corresponding need to accurately and validly measure the level of community social organization. The goal of the current study was to assess the viability of using sense of community (SOC) as a measure of community social organization and to evaluate if it mediated the impact of neighborhood disadvantage on the youth outcomes of delinquency, conventional activity, and grade point average.

First, this article reviews social disorganization theory and the advances made in the field of neighborhood effects, with an emphasis on research that focused on the outcomes of delinquency and violence. Specifically, this review explicated the multiple ways the proposed mediating variables of social disorganization theory were measured to date. Second, a brief review of the literature on SOC illustrated the strengths of this construct, how it was measured in the past, and why it deserved inclusion in social disorganization theory. Third, this study demonstrated that SOC mediated the influence of neighborhood disadvantage on youth outcomes and implications for future research within the field of neighborhood effects are discussed.

Section snippets

Social disorganization theory

One of the earliest and most influential social ecological theories of delinquency, social disorganization, was based on an ecological theory of urban dynamics that originated at the University of Chicago (Park, Burgess, & McKenzie, 1967). The old Chicago school examined both the physical expansion of the city of Chicago and the concomitant changes in social life for its residents. Shaw and McKay (1942) extended this ecological approach in social disorganization theory to account for the

Updated systemic social disorganization models

Despite its widespread theoretical acceptance, one of the main and certainly valid criticisms of the social disorganization model was the lack of empirical support for the proposed intervening relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and delinquency. This was due, in large part, to the overreliance on census data. While the important independent variables of social disorganization theory (e.g., low SES, population turnover, cultural heterogeneity, family composition) were easily

Sense of community

SOC has been defined as “a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members' needs will be met by their commitment to be together” (italics added; as cited in McMillan & Chavis, 1986, p. 9). As the definition indicates, SOC is an emotion-laden construct that stresses feelings of togetherness and a communal spirit, variables not typical in psychological or criminological research. As Sarason (1974) sardonically

Measuring SOC

While these four proposed theoretical dimensions of SOC have long been discussed, empirical evidence has not fully supported them and this resulted in varying conceptualizations and measures of SOC over the years (Chipuer & Pretty, 1999) (please see Table 2 for a brief description of prior measures). There has even been considerable disagreement over whether SOC is a unidimensional or multidimensional construct (Hill, 1996). While evidence seems to be in favor of a multidimensional construct,

Research findings on SOC

Since SOC's conceptualization, research demonstrated its importance to both neighborhood-level and individual-level outcomes. For instance, SOC was found to relate to the amount of emotional and instrumental support one provided to neighbors Unger & Wandersman, 1982, Unger & Wandersman, 1983, and communities with greater degrees of SOC were able to communicate important information about neighborhood resources for children (McGuire, 1997). SOC was also found to have a positive effect on

Setting

This research study was conducted in a medium-sized midwestern city with a population of approximately 127,000. The city was the state capital and had a large presence of automobile and related manufacturing companies. All interviews were conducted either in the homes or on the front porches of the respondents from June 1999 to early January 2000.

Participants

A total of 103 tenth-grade males participated in the study along with one of their parents and one of their neighbors. Therefore, for each student

Data analytic strategy

According to Baron and Kenny (1986), three regression equations are required to test for mediating relationships. In the current study, neighborhood advantage was the independent variable and was comprised of block stability, block income, block homogeneity, and block composition. The mediating variable, SOC, also had three components: emotion, action, and safety. The dependent variable consisted of the positive youth outcomes of conventional activity and grade point average, as well as the

Discussion and implications

The results from the current study demonstrated that SOC mediated the effect of neighborhood advantage on conventional activity. Specifically, the action component of SOC mediated the effect of block stability. In this study, conventional activity was defined as the number of school activities in which students participated. This finding indicated that youth reared in communities characterized by high levels of SOC, especially those with an action-oriented or empowering component, were more

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Institute for Children, Youth, and Families at Michigan State University.

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