Community Social Organization: Key to Studying Families in Communities, Lecture notes of Literature

Download Community Social Organization: Key to Studying Families in Communities and more Lecture notes Literature in PDF only on Docsity! 1 Families and Communities: A Social Organization Theory of Action and Change Jay A. Mancini and Gary L. Bowen Jay A. Mancini is Haltiwanger Distinguished Professor of Child and Family Development at The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Gary L. Bowen is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Social Work at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599. Citation: Mancini, J. A. , & Bowen, G. L. (in press). Families and communities: A social organization theory of action and change. In Peterson, G. W. , & Bush, K. R. (Eds), Handbook of marriage and the family (3rd Edition). NY: Springer. 2 Families and Communities: A Social Organization Theory of Action and Change Families are embedded in multiple contexts that reflect community structure and process. Though families influence those contexts to some degree, in the main families are the recipients of events, values, and norms that comprise community collective life. Families are rarely isolated, and their boundaries are permeable, whether by the media, neighbors, confidants, or social institutions. Community social organization is a comprehensive descriptor of the contexts in which families live. “Social organization is how people in a community interrelate, cooperative, and provide mutual support; it includes social support norms, social controls that regulate behavior and interaction patterns, and networks that operate in a community” (Mancini, Martin, & Bowen, 2003; Mancini and Bowen, 2005; Mancini, Bowen, & Martin, 2004). From a social action and change perspective, social organization supports building community capacity, in effect, shared responsibility and collective competence as primary situations and processes that enable communities to provide desired supports to families (Bowen, Martin, Mancini, & Nelson, 2000; Mancini & Bowen, 2009). Our focus in this expansive chapter on families and communities locates families as the pivot-point in the discussion, and assembles community structures and processes around them, mirroring what occurs in everyday life. Our discussion seeks to answer several primary questions. First, to what extent have family social scientists included aspects of community structure and process in their analysis of family-related processes and outcomes? Second, in what ways does our work inform efforts to conceptualize ways in which communities influence families? Our aim is to offer a conceptual model as a heuristic for theory development and future research efforts. Although community can be defined from multiple perspectives (Coulton, 1995; 5 (Litwak, 1960a, b). Mogey speaks about social norms and their role in regulating internal family dynamics and decisions, such as that governing marriage and sexual behavior. At that time, over 100 definitions of community were documented and common elements across definitions included culture and social interaction. Of note is the separation of community from society, the former considered a subculture, and consistent with how we view community (that is, community with a lower case “c”, and focused on social interaction and neighborhood structures and processes). There was a substantial focus on the structural aspects of community rather than on the interactional (neighborhood relations and friendship cliques). The association that individuals and families had with formal organizations was a greater focus, principally because functions of the family in the society were a primary concern. Mogey’s discussion often went along anthropological lines, where lineage was discussed in the context of Western and non- Western societies and cultures. The chapter is rich in comparative culture information and research findings. Several concepts are presented in the chapter to facilitate capturing the essence and character of a community. Closed community describes collections of families centered on common beliefs and traditions, homogeneous in culture values, and said to be closed against nonmembers. Members of an open community have a much broader range of associations and attachments to other groups of people. Research in that day indicated that when comparing closed and open communities, the former had a greater impact on childhood socialization, parental roles, and marital roles. Three hypotheses were suggested to explain what Mogey called neighboring relations among families. The phase hypothesis states there is considerable initial interaction between newly-settled families but that interaction declines as families learn more about their neighbors’ 6 values and practices. The status hypothesis is especially centered on United Kingdom working class families, using the terms “respectables” and “roughs,” the former seemingly desiring to keep distance between them and their neighbors and focusing their attention within the family, and the latter developing more expansive and intense relationships with other families; when asked to identify a friend, respectables chose each other, whereas roughs chose a neighbor as a friend. The siteing hypothesis involves propinquity as an explanation for how neighbors interact, particularly in homogeneous communities. Community and neighborhood cohesion is also addressed, with research indicating that satisfaction with housing and community is largely influenced by having a sense of cohesion with neighbors. Neighbors are identified as alternative kin, being available for practical support. The strain of being close to neighbors but not too close is also discussed. It is pointed out that the similarities and differences between neighbor, kindred, and friend roles were not then adequately explored by researchers. Some attention is given to the idea of neighborhood and its meaning, it being a “place” and a social system where neighboring occurs. When discussing families and mobility, Mogey notes that “since family mobility is an essential consequence of the social structure of industrial societies, the sociology of neighbor relations offers virtually untrodden ground for the testing of propositions about family roles, behavior, and belief” (p. 522). Toward the end of this chapter, Mogey presents a community typology. The first dimension was called closed or open (somewhat synonymous with isolated or non-isolated, and corporate or non-corporate). The second was homogeneous or heterogeneous regarding values, and the third element was social structure, either based on hierarchy of statuses or on collective action. Much of the discussion in that day about families seemed to be about comparing extended families vs. nuclear families. When discussing family well-being, Mogey concluded unstable 7 families were more likely to be where community structures, other than family and peer groups, are absent. In many respects, Mogey’s handbook chapter parallels contemporary research and theorizing, which is often focused on either community structures or processes, and seeking to demonstrate effects on families. Though he did not use the term social organization, a great deal of his discussion was consonant with that umbrella for describing the multiple layers that comprise collective life. Handbook of Marriage and the Family (1987). The first edition of the current Handbook of Marriage and the Family series contained a greater number of chapters in which either community or neighborhood was explicitly discussed. However, unlike the 1964 handbook no chapter was dedicated to linking families and communities, although invoking the term community appeared in various forms. For example, Withers-Osmond (1987), in her chapter on radical-critical theories as applied to families, stated “ if survey methods were designed to provide data not only on individuals but also on their family and community contexts, the data could be linked with macrosociological information (on organizations, classes, ethnic groups and societies) in an effort to understand the reciprocal influences between behavior in families and behavior in the larger contexts” (p. 121). Settles (1987), in discussing the future of families, stated that, “Shaping life around an industry (such as high tech), an enterprise (like farming), or a service (like government or education) gives a common meaning and destiny to the families in a community” (p. 170), and Wilkinson (1987), as part of a larger focus on ethnicity and families, discussed micro communities of immigrants that inhabit blocks within communities. Boss (1987) presents a contextual model of family stress, which includes forces external to families, such as historical (when the event takes place), economic (state of the overall economy), developmental (stage of the life cycle of the family), constitutional (health of family members), religious (role 10 systems, social organization, and so on. We selectively extract material from the chapters on anthropological (Berardo), structure-functional (McIntyre), institutional (Koenig & Bayer), and situational (Rallings) theoretical approaches. Berardo (1966) offers a vast discussion of concepts employed from an anthropological perspective. Of note is a primary definition of community, which includes recognition that it pertains to group (collective) life, and emphasizes “living together” in space and time. The idea of a collective sharing activities and connected by multiple relationships is also present, as is a very important function of community life, that is, how participation in collective life furthers individual achievement and success, which closely resembles current discussions of social capital (Bowen et al. , 2000). McIntyre’s (1966) discussion of the structural-functional framework also has implications for understanding families and communities (though we acknowledge the problem this framework had with explaining pivotal aspects of family life, such as role differentiation, and with family diversities). According to this approach, “To the community the nuclear family gives adherence and group participation and from it receives support and identity” (McIntyre, 1966, p. 68). An important underlying aspect of this framework was the interchange between the family as an institution, and primary societal systems such as the economy and the community. Another primary idea is that the functional interchanges between the family and societal subsystems would balance out in the long run, and that change occurs when there is an imbalance. In McIntyre’s (1966) analysis, important networks were mainly defined as kin networks. In simpler societies families were seen as more responsible for societal functions but in complex societies families are more specialized and therefore less responsible for these other functions. A 11 function more relevant for exploring families and communities was termed integration, and pertains to blending parts and activities of a system. This is said to be accomplished by creating and maintaining patterns of accepted behavior and employing social controls to lead people toward conformity. This functional sub-system is termed “community” (networks of diffuse affective relationships, see p. 68). While we do not intend to revive the structure-functional approach to families, its intentionality about how families are affected by external systems is applicable for understanding families and communities. The institutional and situational approaches were not the theories of choice even in that day (the 1960’s), though each has a bearing on understanding families and communities. Koenig and Bayer (1966) suggested the institutional approach was one of the earliest family studies frameworks. It, too, had a strong comparative/cross-cultural element. This framework is rich in locating families in an historical perspective. Mainly families were viewed in terms of their reproductive and socialization functions, and this framework was often concerned with whether the family was losing its essential functions. The lesson from this framework is found in its examples of capturing historical events and trends in order to understand contemporary family experiences. A value attributed to the institutional approach is that society and social institutions are of greater importance than the individual (therefore valuing family stability over happiness of the individual). As the name implies, the situational approach examined situations in which individuals find themselves, and that lead to overt behavior. According to our friend and mentor Bud Rallings (1966, p. 132), “A social situation is made up of stimuli which are external to the organism, which have a special relatedness to each other, and which operate as a unit. ” Note that very often this approach went no further than family situations which impacted individual 12 behavior, rather than broader situations that impacted families as a group. However, scholars began to expand the framework to account for more collective influences on individual behavior, if not on family behavior (for example, Rallings notes that W. I. Thomas maintained that situational studies should be discovering how relationships with others affect individual behavior). A basic assumption of the situational approach was that “each social situation is the result of the interaction of social, physical, and cultural elements” (Rallings, 1966, p. 140). At best, these early theoretical references to community represented mere footings from which to build a more intentional discussion of the interface of families and communities. Contemporary Theories about the Family, Volumes 1 and 2 (1979). Burr, Hill, Nye, and Reiss (1979a and 1979b) embarked on an ambitious analysis of family theories, with volume one focused on research-based theories, and volume two on general theories and theoretical orientations. Lee’s (1979) chapter in volume one on effects of social networks on the family contains the preponderance of information related to families and communities, though much of what is included in that chapter is focused on kin networks rather than broader networks. Lewis and Spanier (1979) discuss marital relations in a community context but otherwise this volume does not elevate the relationships between families and communities. Our colleague, Gary Lee (1979) points out a number of propositions supported by the literature on social networks. Within several models that Lee presents, the following network concepts are cited: strength of network ties, integration into monosex networks, participation in voluntary associations, participation in kin and friend networks, interaction with friends, connectedness of friendship network, and service assistance from neighbors. Socioconomic status appears in all the models, reflecting its prominence in research on social networks, whether the criterion variable is conjugal power, marital solidarity, migration, or assistance from 15 social organization. The discussion is directed more at a broad, societal level (Big “C”). Nye also applies choice and exchange principles to the Lee (1979) chapter on social networks, in particular to family recreation and the costs a couple may encounter by being part of external networks. In the Broderick and Smith (1979) chapter on general systems theory, the term social organization is used (a primary term in our own conceptualization of understanding families and communities) but these authors do not provide detailed descriptors of it and which of its elements affects families. This is surprising given that systems theory provides ready concepts for conceptualizing a dynamic interface between families and the broader context in which they are embedded. By inference the reader can see where systems and social organization touch, for example, with regard to family boundaries; a perfect lead toward discussions of how community forces impact families. These theory chapters can accommodate discussions of families in the contexts of communities; however, like Nye and Berardo’s (1966) earlier volume, an intentional extension in that direction is mainly absent. In a sense this is not surprising because general theories are just that, however, most use “instances” to inform the theorizing. Those instances have not typically included the intersection of families and communities, or how collective entities may influence family processes and dynamics. What we have done in this section is to interject along the way several logical connections between general theorizing and the families/communities interface. Sourcebooks Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methods: A Contextual Approach (1993). Although this 1993 publication by Boss, Doherty, LaRossa, Schumm, & Steinmetz does not include community or neighborhood in its index, some of the chapter contributions included in it 16 enlighten our understanding of the multiple levels of relationships between families and communities. Note that the term contextual in this volume mainly pertains to researchers and theorists recognizing the contexts in which they are doing their work, rather than families and community contexts (though a few authors do explicitly discuss those relationships). Schvaneveldt, Pickett, and Young (1993), when discussing historical methods in family research, offer that, “one of the most productive sources of contemporary work in family history has been the so-called community study. ” They are referring to studies of 19th century families in the contexts in which they lived and worked. Bretherton’s (1993) discussion of developmental psychology theory invokes ecological theory of human development to discuss research on attachment, and cites several studies that account for contexts outside of the family, such as social support and social networks. McAdoo (1993), in a chapter focused on social cultural contexts of ecological developmental family models, speaks to the importance of considering the mesosystem-the concept that captures what occurs when families interact with other important societal systems, such as schools and communities. Whitchurch and Constantine’s (1993) chapter on systems theory, discusses the suprasystem, that is, how family systems interact with other systems, such as community; this is especially important from their perspective for understanding changes in families. Bengtson and Allen (1993) presented a comprehensive exploration of a life course perspective, and state that the life course approach accounts for social context or social ecology as essential for understanding individual lives and development. The life course perspective accounts for context but less so at the small “c” community level, but rather seems to look more at large societal waves that influence all families in some way (e. g. , historical and economic shifts). The contexts Bengtson and Allen discuss really seem more individual, such as gender and socioeconomic status, though by extrapolation we can see where 17 research from this perspective can account for community structure and processes because it places a premium on “history,” and also accounts for process over time. In this same volume Bubolz and Sontag (1993) discuss human ecology theory that focuses on how individuals interact with their environments. Human ecology theory recognizes the significance of interdependence that families have with the environment, defined broadly. From this approach, the quality of human life and quality of the environment are interdependent. One assumption is that families are semi-open, goal directed, dynamic and adaptive systems. Environments are said to pose limitations and constraints, as well as possibilities and opportunities for families. Included in the social-cultural environment are other human beings, such as neighbors, semi-formal groups that neighbors might form, norms and cultural values and patterns, and social institutions. Sourcebook of Family Theory and Research (2005). The most recent sourcebook (Bengtson, Acock, Allen, Dilworth-Anderson, & Klein, 2005) also gives limited attention to intentionally exploring relationships between families and communities. A methods chapter by Sayer and Klute (2005) focused on analyzing couple data, our own brief discussion of families in community contexts that accompanies that chapter, and a brief discussion of the Sayer and Klute chapter by White and Teachman (2005) provide the most intentionality. White and Teachman (2005) discuss the role of multilevel methods in family research noting that micro and macro level variables are often not independent (for example, individual socioeconomic status determines where a person lives or can live). They also raise the important issue of how we define a neighborhood. For example, we might use census data to define a neighborhood but our definition may not be one to which people actually think about or respond or that has any conceptual meaning, such census track boundaries. They note two companion fallacies in 20 mediating or moderating those effects. They include quantitative and qualitative studies in building their review. Their work is especially instructive because their critique encompasses issues of theorizing and of research designs. Of particular note is their conclusion, at least for that decade of research, that family-related variables often were vaguely specified and researched. They note the preponderance of studies using family structure and socioeconomic indicators, to the exclusion of more nuanced indicators of family processes (an argument aligned with our own discussion of community structure rather than social organizational processes in communities). The significance of the Burton and Jarrett review lies in its attention to marking how theory was accessed in the decade, how research was conducted, and what was learned as a result. Our view is they gave average marks to all of them, in effect, exposing how that most important of social groups, families, were at the margins of theoretical development and research advances as they involved the multiple contexts that influence families. A Review of Three Principal Journals in Family Studies The second component of our data analysis included an identification of peer-review journal articles in family studies addressing aspects of the influence of communities on families. Although the boundaries of the family studies field are not fixed, the review included three core family studies journals which included basic and applied research journals: Journal of Marriage and Family (JMF), Family Relations (FR), and Journal of Family Issues (JFI). Two additional journals were considered for inclusion: the Journal of Family Psychology (JFP) and Family Process (FP). However, in the first stage of review, these journals were found to have fewer articles than the ones selected for review that addressed the community and family interface, especially the Journal of Family Psychology. This review focused on articles published between 2000 and 2009 and the review sought to identify empirical articles as well as theoretical and 21 conceptual articles that addressed some aspect of the interface between families and communities. Empirical articles were defined as articles that included results based on the manipulation of data (see Taylor & Bagd, 1993), including those using quantitative, qualitative, or mixed method methodologies. We focused our attention on articles addressing community as a single construct or articles in which some aspect of community was used as a primary independent construct in examining variation in family behavior. As discussed by Lee (1979) 30 years ago, the decision to focus on families as the dependent construct does not imply that we do not appreciate that families and family members may also exert an influence on larger social processes at the community level. However, reviews require explicit boundaries, and our interest centered on the effects of communities on families. As a starting framework for the review, we defined community from a little “c” perspective as the proximal setting in which families live and work, which may be in the form of blocks, neighborhoods, communities, census tracks, zip codes, towns, cities, and counties. However, we attempted to identify all community-related articles, including those that addressed the nature of the family-community interface in the context of larger, nonlocal, institutional contexts that include federal and state policies—the big “C” perspective (Arum, 2000). We developed two data extraction forms for purposes of the review: one for review/theoretical articles, one for quantitative or qualitative empirical articles. The forms included a category to identify the use of an explicit theory or theories to frame and inform the authors’ perspective or approach, the specification of an empirical model for testing, the formulation of research hypotheses or expectations, the identification of relevant concepts for measurement, the method for analyzing data, or to explain results. The forms also included a 22 category to identify the level at which community was discussed or captured: little “c” (e. g. , zip code, census track, block) or big “C”. For empirical articles, we identified the research design (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods), the source(s) of data, and the approach for measuring community context and/or community process. The analysis included extracting which community-level independent variables, control variables and dependent family-level variables were used in the quantitative empirical articles. Themes from the qualitative articles were included instead of variables. Articles using a mixed methods approach (qualitative and quantitative) were included and both quantitative and qualitative methods were cataloged (themes and variables). On the basis of earlier work by Mancini, Bowen, & Martin (2005), three measurement approaches were identified for classification purposes of articles incorporating quantitative and mixed methods research designs: microlevel (relies on individual reports and perceptions of community characteristics, such as the perceptions of individual residents about neighborhood safety within one or across a number of different census traits); compositional (attempts to account for community effects with aggregate social structural measures of the community’s social, demographic, and institutional infrastructure, such as administrative data on the violent crime rate for a defined period of time within each census trait for a number of census traits in a geographic area); and social organizational (attempts to assess directly or input macrolevel processes and mechanisms from survey or administrative data at the community level, such as the average perception of individual residents about neighborhood safety within each census trait for a number of census traits in a geographic area). These classification types are neither exhaustive nor necessarily independent. Compositional approaches may also include microlevel community-related variables. Social organizational measurement models may use a combination 25 This study serves as an example of an intervention that accounts for multiple levels of influences on family outcomes, with particular attention on family processes. Qualitative and mixed methods approaches most typically used open-ended interviews and focus groups as data collection strategies. Rieboldt’s (2001) ethnographic investigation of two Mexican American Families living in impoverished urban neighborhoods, Letiecq and Koblinsky’s (2004) focus group interviews with African American fathers of preschoolers about ways in which they protect their children in violent neighborhoods, and MacTavish and Salamon’s (2006) exploration of “Pathways of Youth Development in a Rural Trailer Park” demonstrate the descriptive power of focus groups and open-ended interviews in research on community and family linkages. Dependent Variables The quantitative and mixed-method empirical articles (N = 64 articles combined) addressed a range of dependent variables. Sixty different dependent variables were identified across these empirical investigations. The majority of articles focused on some aspect of child and adolescent behavior, including teenage sexual behavior (e. g. , timing of first intercourse, pregnancy experience), adolescent school success and failure (e. g. , high school dropout, school engagement, grades), child and adolescent well-being (e. g. , depressive symptoms, internalizing/externalizing behavior), adolescent risk taking (e. g. , problem behavior, severity of violence and conflict), and adolescent social networks and social support (e. g. , friendship networks, mentoring). Dependent variables associated with some aspect of parenting were also well-represented in these articles, including a focus on parenting warmth, discipline, harsh interactions, and support and nurturing. Other dependent variables included a focus on fathers (e. g. , psychological distress, job-role quality), marriage (e. g. , dissolution), family adaptation 26 (e. g. , military family adaptation), community (e. g. , family friendliness), living arrangements, and service delivery. Theories The majority of the empirical articles appearing in the journals were theoretically informed, although we had to dig deep in some cases to identify the underlying theory or theories. Approximately 3 in 4 articles (74%) had one or more explicit theories, perspectives or models. In the context of the many theories and perspectives used to anchor these empirical articles, this body of literature reflects a theoretical pluralism rather than the domination of any single theory or perspective. More than 25 different theories were identified, although in most cases the theory was cited in only one or two of the articles. The two theories used with greatest frequency included some form or version of ecological theory and social disorganization theory. Social capital theory, the life course perspective, and family stress theory were used less frequently, followed by social control theory, symbolic interaction, and a risk and resilience perspective. A brief overview of ecological theory and social disorganization theory is provided below in the context of their importance as frameworks in studies on the influence of communities on family-related outcomes. Both theories have their historical roots in the Chicago School, which is sometimes described as the Chicago school of human ecology (White & Klein, 2002). The Chicago School included, but was not limited, to the University of Chicago’s sociology department. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Chicago School conducted a number of research projects focused on the urban environment in the city of Chicago. Ecological Theory. The conceptual foundation of ecological theory can be traced back to the early work of Robert Ezra Park and Ernest Burgess of the Chicago Ecological School in the 27 early 1920s, including the concept of the “natural area” (ecological niches where people of similar history, situation or circumstance group geographically) (Bursik & Grasmick, 1993). Kurt Lewin’s field theory, which focused on person and environment interactions, was also an important forerunner to current ecological approaches, including Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework (White & Klein, 2002). Although journal authors used a variety of labels to reflect their particular ecological perspective (ecological-transactional, ecological developmental, eco-interactional development model, ecological systems theory, social ecology model), the discussion of ecological theory in the articles reviewed was anchored in some aspect of the work of Urie Bronfenbrenner. Sample articles from our review included Bowen, Rose, Powers, and Glennie (2008), Pinderhughes, Nix, Foster, Jones, et. al. (2001), and Bamaca, Umana-Taylor, Shin, and Alfaro (2005). This ranged from his earlier ecological theory of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) to his more recent bioecological theory (Bronfenbrenner, 2005), which includes attention to biological influences and to the role of proximal processes in development (see Tudge, Mokrova, Hatfield, & Karnik, 2009, for an excellent overview of the history and development of Bronfenbrenner’s theory, which informed our current review). Bronfenbrenner’s earlier work drew particular attention to the reciprocal process between individuals and their social environments over time, including the neighborhood, the school, the family, and the peer group. These primary social contexts or microsystems overlap and are nested within each other and are encompassed and influenced by a larger social and cultural context (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Strong, positive, and complementary connections both within (e. g. , neighborhood) and between (e. g. , neighborhood and family) these social environments increase the probability that individuals will experience positive outcomes over time. 30 Ernest W. Burgess, in summarizing Shaw and McKay’s findings in his introduction to the first edition of the book, also linked the concept of social disorganization to the community’s inability to organize itself to deal with conditions that increase delinquency (cited in Short, 1969). From the perspective of social disorganization theory, structural deficits in urban neighborhoods create the conditions for the breakdown of positive social organizational processes between neighbors, which increase the probability of problem behavior among youth. Shaw and McKay focused on three structural conditions: low economic status, ethnic heterogeneity, and residential mobility. In chapter VII of their book, “Differences in Social Values and Organization among Local Communities,” Shaw & McKay discussed some of the mechanisms and problems that link structure (community characteristics and conditions) and action (differential rates of delinquency) in the context of the literature and through case studies of youths living in areas with high rates of delinquency. The publication of William Julius Wilson’s book, The Truly Disadvantaged, in 1987, in combination with a number of highly influential publications by Robert Sampson and colleagues using social disorganization theory as their foundation (e. g. , Sampson & Groves, 1989; Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997), has led to a significant resurgence of social disorganization theory in the behavioral and social sciences since the early 1990s, including its use in family studies. Sampson and colleagues’ (1997) concept of collective efficacy, which involves components of both social cohesion and informal social control, has added clarity to the concept of social disorganization, and Wilson’s concept of social isolation provides a conceptual bridge between ecological theory as advanced by Park and Burgess and social disorganization theory. The development of multilevel analysis also has made it possible to disentangle effects 31 due to the clustering of individuals within areas from effects at the individual level (Teachman & Crowder, 2002). For the most part researchers have pursued community problems (social disorganization) to the partial exclusion of a broader focus on social organization, an approach that elevates a more complex array of elements involved with understanding families and the community contexts that influence them, an approach that leads itself to comprehensive studies of processes. Earlier we have argued for this social organization approach, stating, “We support the emancipation of social organization thinking from social disorganization and from research on delinquency and community disadvantage, and contend social organization has a fundamental role in explaining broader family phenomena” (Mancini, Bowen, & Martin, 2005, p. 573). Our concluding section to this chapter elaborates this social organization approach. Measurement Approach Three measurement strategies had been used to capture the community as an independent variable in the quantitative and mixed method articles reviewed. By measurement approach we include measures and instrumentation, the concepts that are behind them, and also how studies are designed to get at, for example, macro level processes. As we discussed earlier in this chapter, the first strategy, a microlevel approach, relies on individual reports and perceptions of community characteristics; the second strategy, a compositional approach, attempts to account for community effects with aggregate social structural measures of the community’s social, demographic, and institutional infrastructure; the third strategy, a social organizational approach, attempts to directly assess macrolevel processes and mechanisms at the community level. By far, the majority of the quantitative and mixed methods articles in the three journals used either a microlevel approach or a compositional approach in the specification of community variables; 32 relatively few articles incorporated a social organization approach to measurement and instrumentation of community variables. Each of these strategies is reviewed below, which draws from an earlier summary by Mancini et al. (2005) and prior work by Bowen and Pittman (1995) in discussing the merits of contextual effects models in family science. A Microlevel Approach. The most common approach in these studies was to rely on the individual as the unit of analysis—a microlevel approach. Any grouping or clustering of these individuals within communities or other units is neglected. Mancini, Bowen, and Martin (2005), in an earlier article, referred to a microlevel approach as the contextual approach. However, the use of this descriptor may be confusing given that all three approaches have an orientation to context. Consequently, we have chosen to relabel this approach. These investigations were often framed by an ecological perspective, which addresses the microsystems in which individuals and families are embedded (e. g. , neighborhood). Individual reports or perceptions about these environments were used as independent variables to examine variation in individual and family outcomes and often were analyzed in the context of other influences at the individual level, such as background characteristics, attitudes, and experiences. In such cases, respondents report on their own situation (e. g. , self-reported personal friendship networks in the neighborhood); the situation of significant others (e. g. , parents’ views of children’s friendship networks in the neighborhood); or more general perceptions of the situation (e. g. , the nature of relationships among residents in the neighborhood). A recent article by Bowen, Rose, Powers, and Glennie (2008) appearing in Family Relations is a case in point. Using an eco-interactional developmental model of school success, the authors assessed various neighborhood, school, peer, and family variables on the basis of the self reports of adolescent respondents. In the analysis, Time 2 school success measures were 35 inadequacy of simple categorical distinctions for capturing the complexity of a community’s social context. (p. 402) Nevertheless, studies, such as the one by South & Baumer, have heuristic implications in the process of identifying social organizational mechanisms that may account for the link between structure and action. Thus, the use of “omnibus variables” may be useful in the process of identifying potentially important social organizational processes that require further specification and testing (cf. Blalock, 1985). A Social Organizational Approach. The third approach used in these articles to capture community reflects a social organizational approach. In our earlier work (Mancini et al. , 2005), we referred to this measurement strategy as a contextual effects approach, which remains a descriptive label for this approach and is considered synonymous by us with a social organizational approach. However, in an attempt to align our theoretical perspective with our measurement perspective, we have evolved to this new label for this measurement approach. As described by Blalock (1984), “the essential feature of all contextual-effects models is an allowance for macro processes that are presumed to have an impact on the individual actor over and above the effects of any individual-level variables that may be operating” (Blalock, 1984, p. 354). Consequently, a hierarchical data structure is used to order variables, including those that describe individuals and those that capture the properties and social organizational features of groups in which they are located (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992). These group-level variables may be aggregates of data collected at the individual level (e. g. , average attributes) or may be information that is not wholly dependent on individual reports—what Blalock (1984) refers to conceptually as “global variables” (e. g. , ratio of formal child care slots to children under the age of 4 within counties across all counties in a specified state). Unlike the 36 compositional approach, one or more of these aggregate variables capture social organizational processes. For example, using social disorganization and social control perspectives as theoretical anchors, Wickrama and Bryant (2003) examined the joint effects of community- and family- level processes on adolescent depression. Their model included two blocks of variables at the community level: structural community adversity (concentration of poverty and ethnic heterogeneity) and community social resources (social integration and collective socialization). Aggregate, higher-order measures of social integration and collective socialization were captured across census track areas by averaging survey responses from parent sample members. Using adolescent depressive symptoms as the dependent variable, Wickrama and Bryant (2003) examined the direct effects of community-level factors, the indirect effects of community-level factors via family-level factors (called cross-level mediation), and the interactive effects of community-level and family-level effects (called cross-level moderation). The data were examined in the context of statistical controls and using multilevel regression models (individual, family, and community characteristics). The results support the importance of accounting for community effects in research examining the relationship between family-level factors and adolescent outcomes. Equally important, the study represents the increasing sophistication of research that examines the influence of community context on individual and family outcomes, and it serves as a model for other researchers who are interested in assessing the effects of social organizational processes on families and individuals. Families and Communities: Representative Findings (2000-2009) In this section we organize representative findings from the 89 articles from Family Relations, Journal of Marriage and Family, and Journal of Family Issues in order to indicate 37 overall themes portrayed in this literature. As is often the case in the social and behavioral sciences, there is no lack of approaches, definitions, methods, and so on in this literature. A primary limitation is the few agreed-upon definitions in the literature focused on families and communities. In fact it seems from our review of these articles that very little has changed since the 1950’s and 1960’s regarding the multiple ways communities are conceptualized and defined, and then investigated (see Mogey, 1964). Neighborhood Risk Very often research has attended to neighborhood risk as a primary influence on how well families experience their surroundings. For example, Henry, Merten, Plunkett and Sands (2008) reported that perceptions of neighborhood risk negatively affect student grades, more than structural neighborhood adversity (poverty measures). When Casper and Smith (2002) examined self-care arrangements of children, they discovered that children were less likely to care for themselves when parents viewed the neighborhood as less safe. Roche, Ensminger and Cherlin (2007) reported that in higher risk neighborhoods, there are more negative outcomes for youth from families where parents are either uninvolved or permissive. Bowen, Rose, Powers, and Glennie (2008) reported that perceptions of neighborhood safety has a positive influence on grades, as well as on trouble-avoidance. The exposure of children to neighborhood violence has been found to be associated with their symptoms of psychological distress (Ceballo, Dahl, Aretakis, & Ramirez, 2001). Kotchick, Dorsey and Heller (2005), for example, reported a path involving neighborhood risk and stress which indicates that exposure to neighborhood problems leads to greater psychological distress among mothers, which in turn leads to being less engaged with their children. Another study by Roosa et al. (2005) also focused on how mothers mediate children’s experiences and reported 40 Kosutic (2007) reported that adolescent adjustment was related to neighborhood youth center involvement, and particularly significant was the degree of youth participation in activities. Doherty, Jacob, and Cutting’s (2009) discussion argues the importance of community engagement as a modality for teaching parent education. Mancini and Marek (2004), in developing a multi-factor assessment of program sustainability, isolated several elements related to community contexts and involvement as important for successful prevention and intervention. Birch, Weed, and Olsen (2004) reported that divorce rates appear to decline more rapidly following the signing of a community marriage policy than would be expected (a community marriage policy reflects a commitment on the part of helping professionals to intentionally enact programs and policies that revitalize marriages). Moderators Several important moderators are also found in this literature, including gender, ethnicity and culture. Bamaca, Umana-Taylor, Shin, and Alfaro (2005) found that the positive relationship between parental support and self-esteem among boys, were stronger for boys who perceived their neighborhood as lower in risks. However, there were no comparable relationships found among girls, nor was neighborhood risk an independent predictor of self-esteem among the girls like it was among boys in the study. Brisson and Usher (2005) reported that women compared to men experience lower levels of bonding social capital (the capital that exists within a neighborhood, that is, what Putnam calls a sociological superglue; bonding social capital promotes in-group cohesion and loyalty). However, they also noted that as the wealth of a neighborhood increases, women experience higher levels of bonding social capital (thus showing the role poverty has among oppressed groups). White, Roosa, Weaver, and Nair (2009) found 41 that perceptions of living in a dangerous neighborhood were associated with higher levels of depression and less positive parenting for fathers but not for mothers. Even as gender is associated with different social organization process experiences, so is culture and ethnicity. Gingrich and Lightman (2006) studied a Mennonite community, noting that, for this particular sub-culture mutual aid groups mitigate mobility and rootlessness, and provide balance in an age of narcissism. Another study on a different sort of sub-cultural group, residents in trailer parks, MacTavish and Salamon (2006) found how little the limited control and influence that parents could exercise had on neighborhood conditions and their ability to improve the lives of their youth. Ornelas, Perreira, Beeber and Maxwell (2009) studied the adjustment of Mexican immigrant mothers and reported the positive significance of their reliance on social networks and on community resources. Sub-culture is defined in diverse ways. For example, Reibolt (2001) found that youth gangs offer family-like ties to adolescents and also offer protection of the new immigrant youth and his family. Rural life and its characteristics is also a focus. Ames, Brosi, and Damiano- Teixeira (2006) examined the costs and reward of rural living, noting that viewing the rural environment as a safe place is a primary positive factor in how life is viewed. However, rurality represents other processes as well. For example, Pinderhughes, Nix, Foster, Jones and others (2001) found that rural families engage in harsher parental practices. Though we have erred on the side of highlighting findings showing important relationships between families and communities, the literature remains equivocal. For example, South & Baumer (2001) addressed the question of how neighborhoods affected marital disruption, focusing on SES disadvantage, and concluded that effects are due to the low incomes of husbands in distressed neighborhoods rather than to neighborhood SES per se. He adds rather 1 Families and Communities: A Social Organization Theory of Action and Change Jay A. Mancini and Gary L. Bowen Jay A. Mancini is Haltiwanger Distinguished Professor of Child and Family Development at The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Gary L. Bowen is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Social Work at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599. Citation: Mancini, J. A. , & Bowen, G. L. (in press). Families and communities: A social organization theory of action and change. In Peterson, G. W. , & Bush, K. R. (Eds), Handbook of marriage and the family (3rd Edition). NY: Springer. 2 Families and Communities: A Social Organization Theory of Action and Change Families are embedded in multiple contexts that reflect community structure and process. Though families influence those contexts to some degree, in the main families are the recipients of events, values, and norms that comprise community collective life. Families are rarely isolated, and their boundaries are permeable, whether by the media, neighbors, confidants, or social institutions. Community social organization is a comprehensive descriptor of the contexts in which families live. “Social organization is how people in a community interrelate, cooperative, and provide mutual support; it includes social support norms, social controls that regulate behavior and interaction patterns, and networks that operate in a community” (Mancini, Martin, & Bowen, 2003; Mancini and Bowen, 2005; Mancini, Bowen, & Martin, 2004). From a social action and change perspective, social organization supports building community capacity, in effect, shared responsibility and collective competence as primary situations and processes that enable communities to provide desired supports to families (Bowen, Martin, Mancini, & Nelson, 2000; Mancini & Bowen, 2009). Our focus in this expansive chapter on families and communities locates families as the pivot-point in the discussion, and assembles community structures and processes around them, mirroring what occurs in everyday life. Our discussion seeks to answer several primary questions. First, to what extent have family social scientists included aspects of community structure and process in their analysis of family-related processes and outcomes? Second, in what ways does our work inform efforts to conceptualize ways in which communities influence families? Our aim is to offer a conceptual model as a heuristic for theory development and future research efforts. Although community can be defined from multiple perspectives (Coulton, 1995; 5 (Litwak, 1960a, b). Mogey speaks about social norms and their role in regulating internal family dynamics and decisions, such as that governing marriage and sexual behavior. At that time, over 100 definitions of community were documented and common elements across definitions included culture and social interaction. Of note is the separation of community from society, the former considered a subculture, and consistent with how we view community (that is, community with a lower case “c”, and focused on social interaction and neighborhood structures and processes). There was a substantial focus on the structural aspects of community rather than on the interactional (neighborhood relations and friendship cliques). The association that individuals and families had with formal organizations was a greater focus, principally because functions of the family in the society were a primary concern. Mogey’s discussion often went along anthropological lines, where lineage was discussed in the context of Western and non- Western societies and cultures. The chapter is rich in comparative culture information and research findings. Several concepts are presented in the chapter to facilitate capturing the essence and character of a community. Closed community describes collections of families centered on common beliefs and traditions, homogeneous in culture values, and said to be closed against nonmembers. Members of an open community have a much broader range of associations and attachments to other groups of people. Research in that day indicated that when comparing closed and open communities, the former had a greater impact on childhood socialization, parental roles, and marital roles. Three hypotheses were suggested to explain what Mogey called neighboring relations among families. The phase hypothesis states there is considerable initial interaction between newly-settled families but that interaction declines as families learn more about their neighbors’ 6 values and practices. The status hypothesis is especially centered on United Kingdom working class families, using the terms “respectables” and “roughs,” the former seemingly desiring to keep distance between them and their neighbors and focusing their attention within the family, and the latter developing more expansive and intense relationships with other families; when asked to identify a friend, respectables chose each other, whereas roughs chose a neighbor as a friend. The siteing hypothesis involves propinquity as an explanation for how neighbors interact, particularly in homogeneous communities. Community and neighborhood cohesion is also addressed, with research indicating that satisfaction with housing and community is largely influenced by having a sense of cohesion with neighbors. Neighbors are identified as alternative kin, being available for practical support. The strain of being close to neighbors but not too close is also discussed. It is pointed out that the similarities and differences between neighbor, kindred, and friend roles were not then adequately explored by researchers. Some attention is given to the idea of neighborhood and its meaning, it being a “place” and a social system where neighboring occurs. When discussing families and mobility, Mogey notes that “since family mobility is an essential consequence of the social structure of industrial societies, the sociology of neighbor relations offers virtually untrodden ground for the testing of propositions about family roles, behavior, and belief” (p. 522). Toward the end of this chapter, Mogey presents a community typology. The first dimension was called closed or open (somewhat synonymous with isolated or non-isolated, and corporate or non-corporate). The second was homogeneous or heterogeneous regarding values, and the third element was social structure, either based on hierarchy of statuses or on collective action. Much of the discussion in that day about families seemed to be about comparing extended families vs. nuclear families. When discussing family well-being, Mogey concluded unstable 7 families were more likely to be where community structures, other than family and peer groups, are absent. In many respects, Mogey’s handbook chapter parallels contemporary research and theorizing, which is often focused on either community structures or processes, and seeking to demonstrate effects on families. Though he did not use the term social organization, a great deal of his discussion was consonant with that umbrella for describing the multiple layers that comprise collective life. Handbook of Marriage and the Family (1987). The first edition of the current Handbook of Marriage and the Family series contained a greater number of chapters in which either community or neighborhood was explicitly discussed. However, unlike the 1964 handbook no chapter was dedicated to linking families and communities, although invoking the term community appeared in various forms. For example, Withers-Osmond (1987), in her chapter on radical-critical theories as applied to families, stated “ if survey methods were designed to provide data not only on individuals but also on their family and community contexts, the data could be linked with macrosociological information (on organizations, classes, ethnic groups and societies) in an effort to understand the reciprocal influences between behavior in families and behavior in the larger contexts” (p. 121). Settles (1987), in discussing the future of families, stated that, “Shaping life around an industry (such as high tech), an enterprise (like farming), or a service (like government or education) gives a common meaning and destiny to the families in a community” (p. 170), and Wilkinson (1987), as part of a larger focus on ethnicity and families, discussed micro communities of immigrants that inhabit blocks within communities. Boss (1987) presents a contextual model of family stress, which includes forces external to families, such as historical (when the event takes place), economic (state of the overall economy), developmental (stage of the life cycle of the family), constitutional (health of family members), religious (role 10 systems, social organization, and so on. We selectively extract material from the chapters on anthropological (Berardo), structure-functional (McIntyre), institutional (Koenig & Bayer), and situational (Rallings) theoretical approaches. Berardo (1966) offers a vast discussion of concepts employed from an anthropological perspective. Of note is a primary definition of community, which includes recognition that it pertains to group (collective) life, and emphasizes “living together” in space and time. The idea of a collective sharing activities and connected by multiple relationships is also present, as is a very important function of community life, that is, how participation in collective life furthers individual achievement and success, which closely resembles current discussions of social capital (Bowen et al. , 2000). McIntyre’s (1966) discussion of the structural-functional framework also has implications for understanding families and communities (though we acknowledge the problem this framework had with explaining pivotal aspects of family life, such as role differentiation, and with family diversities). According to this approach, “To the community the nuclear family gives adherence and group participation and from it receives support and identity” (McIntyre, 1966, p. 68). An important underlying aspect of this framework was the interchange between the family as an institution, and primary societal systems such as the economy and the community. Another primary idea is that the functional interchanges between the family and societal subsystems would balance out in the long run, and that change occurs when there is an imbalance. In McIntyre’s (1966) analysis, important networks were mainly defined as kin networks. In simpler societies families were seen as more responsible for societal functions but in complex societies families are more specialized and therefore less responsible for these other functions. A 11 function more relevant for exploring families and communities was termed integration, and pertains to blending parts and activities of a system. This is said to be accomplished by creating and maintaining patterns of accepted behavior and employing social controls to lead people toward conformity. This functional sub-system is termed “community” (networks of diffuse affective relationships, see p. 68). While we do not intend to revive the structure-functional approach to families, its intentionality about how families are affected by external systems is applicable for understanding families and communities. The institutional and situational approaches were not the theories of choice even in that day (the 1960’s), though each has a bearing on understanding families and communities. Koenig and Bayer (1966) suggested the institutional approach was one of the earliest family studies frameworks. It, too, had a strong comparative/cross-cultural element. This framework is rich in locating families in an historical perspective. Mainly families were viewed in terms of their reproductive and socialization functions, and this framework was often concerned with whether the family was losing its essential functions. The lesson from this framework is found in its examples of capturing historical events and trends in order to understand contemporary family experiences. A value attributed to the institutional approach is that society and social institutions are of greater importance than the individual (therefore valuing family stability over happiness of the individual). As the name implies, the situational approach examined situations in which individuals find themselves, and that lead to overt behavior. According to our friend and mentor Bud Rallings (1966, p. 132), “A social situation is made up of stimuli which are external to the organism, which have a special relatedness to each other, and which operate as a unit. ” Note that very often this approach went no further than family situations which impacted individual 12 behavior, rather than broader situations that impacted families as a group. However, scholars began to expand the framework to account for more collective influences on individual behavior, if not on family behavior (for example, Rallings notes that W. I. Thomas maintained that situational studies should be discovering how relationships with others affect individual behavior). A basic assumption of the situational approach was that “each social situation is the result of the interaction of social, physical, and cultural elements” (Rallings, 1966, p. 140). At best, these early theoretical references to community represented mere footings from which to build a more intentional discussion of the interface of families and communities. Contemporary Theories about the Family, Volumes 1 and 2 (1979). Burr, Hill, Nye, and Reiss (1979a and 1979b) embarked on an ambitious analysis of family theories, with volume one focused on research-based theories, and volume two on general theories and theoretical orientations. Lee’s (1979) chapter in volume one on effects of social networks on the family contains the preponderance of information related to families and communities, though much of what is included in that chapter is focused on kin networks rather than broader networks. Lewis and Spanier (1979) discuss marital relations in a community context but otherwise this volume does not elevate the relationships between families and communities. Our colleague, Gary Lee (1979) points out a number of propositions supported by the literature on social networks. Within several models that Lee presents, the following network concepts are cited: strength of network ties, integration into monosex networks, participation in voluntary associations, participation in kin and friend networks, interaction with friends, connectedness of friendship network, and service assistance from neighbors. Socioconomic status appears in all the models, reflecting its prominence in research on social networks, whether the criterion variable is conjugal power, marital solidarity, migration, or assistance from 15 social organization. The discussion is directed more at a broad, societal level (Big “C”). Nye also applies choice and exchange principles to the Lee (1979) chapter on social networks, in particular to family recreation and the costs a couple may encounter by being part of external networks. In the Broderick and Smith (1979) chapter on general systems theory, the term social organization is used (a primary term in our own conceptualization of understanding families and communities) but these authors do not provide detailed descriptors of it and which of its elements affects families. This is surprising given that systems theory provides ready concepts for conceptualizing a dynamic interface between families and the broader context in which they are embedded. By inference the reader can see where systems and social organization touch, for example, with regard to family boundaries; a perfect lead toward discussions of how community forces impact families. These theory chapters can accommodate discussions of families in the contexts of communities; however, like Nye and Berardo’s (1966) earlier volume, an intentional extension in that direction is mainly absent. In a sense this is not surprising because general theories are just that, however, most use “instances” to inform the theorizing. Those instances have not typically included the intersection of families and communities, or how collective entities may influence family processes and dynamics. What we have done in this section is to interject along the way several logical connections between general theorizing and the families/communities interface. Sourcebooks Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methods: A Contextual Approach (1993). Although this 1993 publication by Boss, Doherty, LaRossa, Schumm, & Steinmetz does not include community or neighborhood in its index, some of the chapter contributions included in it 16 enlighten our understanding of the multiple levels of relationships between families and communities. Note that the term contextual in this volume mainly pertains to researchers and theorists recognizing the contexts in which they are doing their work, rather than families and community contexts (though a few authors do explicitly discuss those relationships). Schvaneveldt, Pickett, and Young (1993), when discussing historical methods in family research, offer that, “one of the most productive sources of contemporary work in family history has been the so-called community study. ” They are referring to studies of 19th century families in the contexts in which they lived and worked. Bretherton’s (1993) discussion of developmental psychology theory invokes ecological theory of human development to discuss research on attachment, and cites several studies that account for contexts outside of the family, such as social support and social networks. McAdoo (1993), in a chapter focused on social cultural contexts of ecological developmental family models, speaks to the importance of considering the mesosystem-the concept that captures what occurs when families interact with other important societal systems, such as schools and communities. Whitchurch and Constantine’s (1993) chapter on systems theory, discusses the suprasystem, that is, how family systems interact with other systems, such as community; this is especially important from their perspective for understanding changes in families. Bengtson and Allen (1993) presented a comprehensive exploration of a life course perspective, and state that the life course approach accounts for social context or social ecology as essential for understanding individual lives and development. The life course perspective accounts for context but less so at the small “c” community level, but rather seems to look more at large societal waves that influence all families in some way (e. g. , historical and economic shifts). The contexts Bengtson and Allen discuss really seem more individual, such as gender and socioeconomic status, though by extrapolation we can see where 17 research from this perspective can account for community structure and processes because it places a premium on “history,” and also accounts for process over time. In this same volume Bubolz and Sontag (1993) discuss human ecology theory that focuses on how individuals interact with their environments. Human ecology theory recognizes the significance of interdependence that families have with the environment, defined broadly. From this approach, the quality of human life and quality of the environment are interdependent. One assumption is that families are semi-open, goal directed, dynamic and adaptive systems. Environments are said to pose limitations and constraints, as well as possibilities and opportunities for families. Included in the social-cultural environment are other human beings, such as neighbors, semi-formal groups that neighbors might form, norms and cultural values and patterns, and social institutions. Sourcebook of Family Theory and Research (2005). The most recent sourcebook (Bengtson, Acock, Allen, Dilworth-Anderson, & Klein, 2005) also gives limited attention to intentionally exploring relationships between families and communities. A methods chapter by Sayer and Klute (2005) focused on analyzing couple data, our own brief discussion of families in community contexts that accompanies that chapter, and a brief discussion of the Sayer and Klute chapter by White and Teachman (2005) provide the most intentionality. White and Teachman (2005) discuss the role of multilevel methods in family research noting that micro and macro level variables are often not independent (for example, individual socioeconomic status determines where a person lives or can live). They also raise the important issue of how we define a neighborhood. For example, we might use census data to define a neighborhood but our definition may not be one to which people actually think about or respond or that has any conceptual meaning, such census track boundaries. They note two companion fallacies in 20 mediating or moderating those effects. They include quantitative and qualitative studies in building their review. Their work is especially instructive because their critique encompasses issues of theorizing and of research designs. Of particular note is their conclusion, at least for that decade of research, that family-related variables often were vaguely specified and researched. They note the preponderance of studies using family structure and socioeconomic indicators, to the exclusion of more nuanced indicators of family processes (an argument aligned with our own discussion of community structure rather than social organizational processes in communities). The significance of the Burton and Jarrett review lies in its attention to marking how theory was accessed in the decade, how research was conducted, and what was learned as a result. Our view is they gave average marks to all of them, in effect, exposing how that most important of social groups, families, were at the margins of theoretical development and research advances as they involved the multiple contexts that influence families. A Review of Three Principal Journals in Family Studies The second component of our data analysis included an identification of peer-review journal articles in family studies addressing aspects of the influence of communities on families. Although the boundaries of the family studies field are not fixed, the review included three core family studies journals which included basic and applied research journals: Journal of Marriage and Family (JMF), Family Relations (FR), and Journal of Family Issues (JFI). Two additional journals were considered for inclusion: the Journal of Family Psychology (JFP) and Family Process (FP). However, in the first stage of review, these journals were found to have fewer articles than the ones selected for review that addressed the community and family interface, especially the Journal of Family Psychology. This review focused on articles published between 2000 and 2009 and the review sought to identify empirical articles as well as theoretical and 21 conceptual articles that addressed some aspect of the interface between families and communities. Empirical articles were defined as articles that included results based on the manipulation of data (see Taylor & Bagd, 1993), including those using quantitative, qualitative, or mixed method methodologies. We focused our attention on articles addressing community as a single construct or articles in which some aspect of community was used as a primary independent construct in examining variation in family behavior. As discussed by Lee (1979) 30 years ago, the decision to focus on families as the dependent construct does not imply that we do not appreciate that families and family members may also exert an influence on larger social processes at the community level. However, reviews require explicit boundaries, and our interest centered on the effects of communities on families. As a starting framework for the review, we defined community from a little “c” perspective as the proximal setting in which families live and work, which may be in the form of blocks, neighborhoods, communities, census tracks, zip codes, towns, cities, and counties. However, we attempted to identify all community-related articles, including those that addressed the nature of the family-community interface in the context of larger, nonlocal, institutional contexts that include federal and state policies—the big “C” perspective (Arum, 2000). We developed two data extraction forms for purposes of the review: one for review/theoretical articles, one for quantitative or qualitative empirical articles. The forms included a category to identify the use of an explicit theory or theories to frame and inform the authors’ perspective or approach, the specification of an empirical model for testing, the formulation of research hypotheses or expectations, the identification of relevant concepts for measurement, the method for analyzing data, or to explain results. The forms also included a 22 category to identify the level at which community was discussed or captured: little “c” (e. g. , zip code, census track, block) or big “C”. For empirical articles, we identified the research design (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods), the source(s) of data, and the approach for measuring community context and/or community process. The analysis included extracting which community-level independent variables, control variables and dependent family-level variables were used in the quantitative empirical articles. Themes from the qualitative articles were included instead of variables. Articles using a mixed methods approach (qualitative and quantitative) were included and both quantitative and qualitative methods were cataloged (themes and variables). On the basis of earlier work by Mancini, Bowen, & Martin (2005), three measurement approaches were identified for classification purposes of articles incorporating quantitative and mixed methods research designs: microlevel (relies on individual reports and perceptions of community characteristics, such as the perceptions of individual residents about neighborhood safety within one or across a number of different census traits); compositional (attempts to account for community effects with aggregate social structural measures of the community’s social, demographic, and institutional infrastructure, such as administrative data on the violent crime rate for a defined period of time within each census trait for a number of census traits in a geographic area); and social organizational (attempts to assess directly or input macrolevel processes and mechanisms from survey or administrative data at the community level, such as the average perception of individual residents about neighborhood safety within each census trait for a number of census traits in a geographic area). These classification types are neither exhaustive nor necessarily independent. Compositional approaches may also include microlevel community-related variables. Social organizational measurement models may use a combination 25 This study serves as an example of an intervention that accounts for multiple levels of influences on family outcomes, with particular attention on family processes. Qualitative and mixed methods approaches most typically used open-ended interviews and focus groups as data collection strategies. Rieboldt’s (2001) ethnographic investigation of two Mexican American Families living in impoverished urban neighborhoods, Letiecq and Koblinsky’s (2004) focus group interviews with African American fathers of preschoolers about ways in which they protect their children in violent neighborhoods, and MacTavish and Salamon’s (2006) exploration of “Pathways of Youth Development in a Rural Trailer Park” demonstrate the descriptive power of focus groups and open-ended interviews in research on community and family linkages. Dependent Variables The quantitative and mixed-method empirical articles (N = 64 articles combined) addressed a range of dependent variables. Sixty different dependent variables were identified across these empirical investigations. The majority of articles focused on some aspect of child and adolescent behavior, including teenage sexual behavior (e. g. , timing of first intercourse, pregnancy experience), adolescent school success and failure (e. g. , high school dropout, school engagement, grades), child and adolescent well-being (e. g. , depressive symptoms, internalizing/externalizing behavior), adolescent risk taking (e. g. , problem behavior, severity of violence and conflict), and adolescent social networks and social support (e. g. , friendship networks, mentoring). Dependent variables associated with some aspect of parenting were also well-represented in these articles, including a focus on parenting warmth, discipline, harsh interactions, and support and nurturing. Other dependent variables included a focus on fathers (e. g. , psychological distress, job-role quality), marriage (e. g. , dissolution), family adaptation 26 (e. g. , military family adaptation), community (e. g. , family friendliness), living arrangements, and service delivery. Theories The majority of the empirical articles appearing in the journals were theoretically informed, although we had to dig deep in some cases to identify the underlying theory or theories. Approximately 3 in 4 articles (74%) had one or more explicit theories, perspectives or models. In the context of the many theories and perspectives used to anchor these empirical articles, this body of literature reflects a theoretical pluralism rather than the domination of any single theory or perspective. More than 25 different theories were identified, although in most cases the theory was cited in only one or two of the articles. The two theories used with greatest frequency included some form or version of ecological theory and social disorganization theory. Social capital theory, the life course perspective, and family stress theory were used less frequently, followed by social control theory, symbolic interaction, and a risk and resilience perspective. A brief overview of ecological theory and social disorganization theory is provided below in the context of their importance as frameworks in studies on the influence of communities on family-related outcomes. Both theories have their historical roots in the Chicago School, which is sometimes described as the Chicago school of human ecology (White & Klein, 2002). The Chicago School included, but was not limited, to the University of Chicago’s sociology department. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Chicago School conducted a number of research projects focused on the urban environment in the city of Chicago. Ecological Theory. The conceptual foundation of ecological theory can be traced back to the early work of Robert Ezra Park and Ernest Burgess of the Chicago Ecological School in the 27 early 1920s, including the concept of the “natural area” (ecological niches where people of similar history, situation or circumstance group geographically) (Bursik & Grasmick, 1993). Kurt Lewin’s field theory, which focused on person and environment interactions, was also an important forerunner to current ecological approaches, including Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework (White & Klein, 2002). Although journal authors used a variety of labels to reflect their particular ecological perspective (ecological-transactional, ecological developmental, eco-interactional development model, ecological systems theory, social ecology model), the discussion of ecological theory in the articles reviewed was anchored in some aspect of the work of Urie Bronfenbrenner. Sample articles from our review included Bowen, Rose, Powers, and Glennie (2008), Pinderhughes, Nix, Foster, Jones, et. al. (2001), and Bamaca, Umana-Taylor, Shin, and Alfaro (2005). This ranged from his earlier ecological theory of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) to his more recent bioecological theory (Bronfenbrenner, 2005), which includes attention to biological influences and to the role of proximal processes in development (see Tudge, Mokrova, Hatfield, & Karnik, 2009, for an excellent overview of the history and development of Bronfenbrenner’s theory, which informed our current review). Bronfenbrenner’s earlier work drew particular attention to the reciprocal process between individuals and their social environments over time, including the neighborhood, the school, the family, and the peer group. These primary social contexts or microsystems overlap and are nested within each other and are encompassed and influenced by a larger social and cultural context (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Strong, positive, and complementary connections both within (e. g. , neighborhood) and between (e. g. , neighborhood and family) these social environments increase the probability that individuals will experience positive outcomes over time. 30 Ernest W. Burgess, in summarizing Shaw and McKay’s findings in his introduction to the first edition of the book, also linked the concept of social disorganization to the community’s inability to organize itself to deal with conditions that increase delinquency (cited in Short, 1969). From the perspective of social disorganization theory, structural deficits in urban neighborhoods create the conditions for the breakdown of positive social organizational processes between neighbors, which increase the probability of problem behavior among youth. Shaw and McKay focused on three structural conditions: low economic status, ethnic heterogeneity, and residential mobility. In chapter VII of their book, “Differences in Social Values and Organization among Local Communities,” Shaw & McKay discussed some of the mechanisms and problems that link structure (community characteristics and conditions) and action (differential rates of delinquency) in the context of the literature and through case studies of youths living in areas with high rates of delinquency. The publication of William Julius Wilson’s book, The Truly Disadvantaged, in 1987, in combination with a number of highly influential publications by Robert Sampson and colleagues using social disorganization theory as their foundation (e. g. , Sampson & Groves, 1989; Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997), has led to a significant resurgence of social disorganization theory in the behavioral and social sciences since the early 1990s, including its use in family studies. Sampson and colleagues’ (1997) concept of collective efficacy, which involves components of both social cohesion and informal social control, has added clarity to the concept of social disorganization, and Wilson’s concept of social isolation provides a conceptual bridge between ecological theory as advanced by Park and Burgess and social disorganization theory. The development of multilevel analysis also has made it possible to disentangle effects 31 due to the clustering of individuals within areas from effects at the individual level (Teachman & Crowder, 2002). For the most part researchers have pursued community problems (social disorganization) to the partial exclusion of a broader focus on social organization, an approach that elevates a more complex array of elements involved with understanding families and the community contexts that influence them, an approach that leads itself to comprehensive studies of processes. Earlier we have argued for this social organization approach, stating, “We support the emancipation of social organization thinking from social disorganization and from research on delinquency and community disadvantage, and contend social organization has a fundamental role in explaining broader family phenomena” (Mancini, Bowen, & Martin, 2005, p. 573). Our concluding section to this chapter elaborates this social organization approach. Measurement Approach Three measurement strategies had been used to capture the community as an independent variable in the quantitative and mixed method articles reviewed. By measurement approach we include measures and instrumentation, the concepts that are behind them, and also how studies are designed to get at, for example, macro level processes. As we discussed earlier in this chapter, the first strategy, a microlevel approach, relies on individual reports and perceptions of community characteristics; the second strategy, a compositional approach, attempts to account for community effects with aggregate social structural measures of the community’s social, demographic, and institutional infrastructure; the third strategy, a social organizational approach, attempts to directly assess macrolevel processes and mechanisms at the community level. By far, the majority of the quantitative and mixed methods articles in the three journals used either a microlevel approach or a compositional approach in the specification of community variables; 32 relatively few articles incorporated a social organization approach to measurement and instrumentation of community variables. Each of these strategies is reviewed below, which draws from an earlier summary by Mancini et al. (2005) and prior work by Bowen and Pittman (1995) in discussing the merits of contextual effects models in family science. A Microlevel Approach. The most common approach in these studies was to rely on the individual as the unit of analysis—a microlevel approach. Any grouping or clustering of these individuals within communities or other units is neglected. Mancini, Bowen, and Martin (2005), in an earlier article, referred to a microlevel approach as the contextual approach. However, the use of this descriptor may be confusing given that all three approaches have an orientation to context. Consequently, we have chosen to relabel this approach. These investigations were often framed by an ecological perspective, which addresses the microsystems in which individuals and families are embedded (e. g. , neighborhood). Individual reports or perceptions about these environments were used as independent variables to examine variation in individual and family outcomes and often were analyzed in the context of other influences at the individual level, such as background characteristics, attitudes, and experiences. In such cases, respondents report on their own situation (e. g. , self-reported personal friendship networks in the neighborhood); the situation of significant others (e. g. , parents’ views of children’s friendship networks in the neighborhood); or more general perceptions of the situation (e. g. , the nature of relationships among residents in the neighborhood). A recent article by Bowen, Rose, Powers, and Glennie (2008) appearing in Family Relations is a case in point. Using an eco-interactional developmental model of school success, the authors assessed various neighborhood, school, peer, and family variables on the basis of the self reports of adolescent respondents. In the analysis, Time 2 school success measures were 35 inadequacy of simple categorical distinctions for capturing the complexity of a community’s social context. (p. 402) Nevertheless, studies, such as the one by South & Baumer, have heuristic implications in the process of identifying social organizational mechanisms that may account for the link between structure and action. Thus, the use of “omnibus variables” may be useful in the process of identifying potentially important social organizational processes that require further specification and testing (cf. Blalock, 1985). A Social Organizational Approach. The third approach used in these articles to capture community reflects a social organizational approach. In our earlier work (Mancini et al. , 2005), we referred to this measurement strategy as a contextual effects approach, which remains a descriptive label for this approach and is considered synonymous by us with a social organizational approach. However, in an attempt to align our theoretical perspective with our measurement perspective, we have evolved to this new label for this measurement approach. As described by Blalock (1984), “the essential feature of all contextual-effects models is an allowance for macro processes that are presumed to have an impact on the individual actor over and above the effects of any individual-level variables that may be operating” (Blalock, 1984, p. 354). Consequently, a hierarchical data structure is used to order variables, including those that describe individuals and those that capture the properties and social organizational features of groups in which they are located (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992). These group-level variables may be aggregates of data collected at the individual level (e. g. , average attributes) or may be information that is not wholly dependent on individual reports—what Blalock (1984) refers to conceptually as “global variables” (e. g. , ratio of formal child care slots to children under the age of 4 within counties across all counties in a specified state). Unlike the 36 compositional approach, one or more of these aggregate variables capture social organizational processes. For example, using social disorganization and social control perspectives as theoretical anchors, Wickrama and Bryant (2003) examined the joint effects of community- and family- level processes on adolescent depression. Their model included two blocks of variables at the community level: structural community adversity (concentration of poverty and ethnic heterogeneity) and community social resources (social integration and collective socialization). Aggregate, higher-order measures of social integration and collective socialization were captured across census track areas by averaging survey responses from parent sample members. Using adolescent depressive symptoms as the dependent variable, Wickrama and Bryant (2003) examined the direct effects of community-level factors, the indirect effects of community-level factors via family-level factors (called cross-level mediation), and the interactive effects of community-level and family-level effects (called cross-level moderation). The data were examined in the context of statistical controls and using multilevel regression models (individual, family, and community characteristics). The results support the importance of accounting for community effects in research examining the relationship between family-level factors and adolescent outcomes. Equally important, the study represents the increasing sophistication of research that examines the influence of community context on individual and family outcomes, and it serves as a model for other researchers who are interested in assessing the effects of social organizational processes on families and individuals. Families and Communities: Representative Findings (2000-2009) In this section we organize representative findings from the 89 articles from Family Relations, Journal of Marriage and Family, and Journal of Family Issues in order to indicate 37 overall themes portrayed in this literature. As is often the case in the social and behavioral sciences, there is no lack of approaches, definitions, methods, and so on in this literature. A primary limitation is the few agreed-upon definitions in the literature focused on families and communities. In fact it seems from our review of these articles that very little has changed since the 1950’s and 1960’s regarding the multiple ways communities are conceptualized and defined, and then investigated (see Mogey, 1964). Neighborhood Risk Very often research has attended to neighborhood risk as a primary influence on how well families experience their surroundings. For example, Henry, Merten, Plunkett and Sands (2008) reported that perceptions of neighborhood risk negatively affect student grades, more than structural neighborhood adversity (poverty measures). When Casper and Smith (2002) examined self-care arrangements of children, they discovered that children were less likely to care for themselves when parents viewed the neighborhood as less safe. Roche, Ensminger and Cherlin (2007) reported that in higher risk neighborhoods, there are more negative outcomes for youth from families where parents are either uninvolved or permissive. Bowen, Rose, Powers, and Glennie (2008) reported that perceptions of neighborhood safety has a positive influence on grades, as well as on trouble-avoidance. The exposure of children to neighborhood violence has been found to be associated with their symptoms of psychological distress (Ceballo, Dahl, Aretakis, & Ramirez, 2001). Kotchick, Dorsey and Heller (2005), for example, reported a path involving neighborhood risk and stress which indicates that exposure to neighborhood problems leads to greater psychological distress among mothers, which in turn leads to being less engaged with their children. Another study by Roosa et al. (2005) also focused on how mothers mediate children’s experiences and reported 40 Kosutic (2007) reported that adolescent adjustment was related to neighborhood youth center involvement, and particularly significant was the degree of youth participation in activities. Doherty, Jacob, and Cutting’s (2009) discussion argues the importance of community engagement as a modality for teaching parent education. Mancini and Marek (2004), in developing a multi-factor assessment of program sustainability, isolated several elements related to community contexts and involvement as important for successful prevention and intervention. Birch, Weed, and Olsen (2004) reported that divorce rates appear to decline more rapidly following the signing of a community marriage policy than would be expected (a community marriage policy reflects a commitment on the part of helping professionals to intentionally enact programs and policies that revitalize marriages). Moderators Several important moderators are also found in this literature, including gender, ethnicity and culture. Bamaca, Umana-Taylor, Shin, and Alfaro (2005) found that the positive relationship between parental support and self-esteem among boys, were stronger for boys who perceived their neighborhood as lower in risks. However, there were no comparable relationships found among girls, nor was neighborhood risk an independent predictor of self-esteem among the girls like it was among boys in the study. Brisson and Usher (2005) reported that women compared to men experience lower levels of bonding social capital (the capital that exists within a neighborhood, that is, what Putnam calls a sociological superglue; bonding social capital promotes in-group cohesion and loyalty). However, they also noted that as the wealth of a neighborhood increases, women experience higher levels of bonding social capital (thus showing the role poverty has among oppressed groups). White, Roosa, Weaver, and Nair (2009) found 41 that perceptions of living in a dangerous neighborhood were associated with higher levels of depression and less positive parenting for fathers but not for mothers. Even as gender is associated with different social organization process experiences, so is culture and ethnicity. Gingrich and Lightman (2006) studied a Mennonite community, noting that, for this particular sub-culture mutual aid groups mitigate mobility and rootlessness, and provide balance in an age of narcissism. Another study on a different sort of sub-cultural group, residents in trailer parks, MacTavish and Salamon (2006) found how little the limited control and influence that parents could exercise had on neighborhood conditions and their ability to improve the lives of their youth. Ornelas, Perreira, Beeber and Maxwell (2009) studied the adjustment of Mexican immigrant mothers and reported the positive significance of their reliance on social networks and on community resources. Sub-culture is defined in diverse ways. For example, Reibolt (2001) found that youth gangs offer family-like ties to adolescents and also offer protection of the new immigrant youth and his family. Rural life and its characteristics is also a focus. Ames, Brosi, and Damiano- Teixeira (2006) examined the costs and reward of rural living, noting that viewing the rural environment as a safe place is a primary positive factor in how life is viewed. However, rurality represents other processes as well. For example, Pinderhughes, Nix, Foster, Jones and others (2001) found that rural families engage in harsher parental practices. Though we have erred on the side of highlighting findings showing important relationships between families and communities, the literature remains equivocal. For example, South & Baumer (2001) addressed the question of how neighborhoods affected marital disruption, focusing on SES disadvantage, and concluded that effects are due to the low incomes of husbands in distressed neighborhoods rather than to neighborhood SES per se. He adds rather 42 that neighborhood SES seems to increase the prevalence of single-parent families via out-of- wedlock childbearing, and tends not to disrupt extant marriage relationships. There is still much to be accomplished to establish the relationships between families and communities that is not due to other factors, many of them unrecognized. The recent literature found in the three pivotal family science research and practice journals reflect diverse approaches to the examination of families and communities, as noted earlier. Equally diverse are the substantive areas that investigators are focused upon. While this diversity demonstrates the various ways that families and communities intersect, there are few areas in which multiple investigators are conducting research in the same or very similar areas; therefore it becomes more difficult to assert particular relationships between families and communities with confidence. What the past decade of research has shown are the multiple layers of individual, family and community life that intersect, which sets the stage for improved theorizing that captures these layers. Our own approach is to invoke the ideas of social organization theorizing. Toward an Action Theory of Families and Communities We present social organization as a framework that not only helps make sense of existing theorizing and research but also provides a way to frame advances in theorizing and in research. Of particular importance of a social organization theory is how easily it lends itself to an action theory, one not only about describing what is but also about touch-points with community and family change. We began our discussion of families and communities by introducing elements of social organization theory, and by using structure and process as two categories for conceptualizing elements of communities that have importance for understanding families. We have conducted a 45 Our second iteration of a community capacity approach to understanding communities and families reflected our broadened thinking, and was represented by invoking the social organization term as a primary organizing concept (Mancini, Martin, & Bowen, 2003; Mancini, Bowen, & Martin, 2005; see p. 574). At that time we discussed individual and family results (outcomes) within the contexts of social structure and social organizational processes (see Figure 1). We positioned network structures, social capital, and community capacity as examples of social organizational processes. Networks were considered to have both formal characteristics that could be described beyond the individuals involved (e. g. , effects levels) and more dynamic and fluid features (e. g. , evolving types and forms of interaction). We still viewed social structure, social organizational processes, and individual/family results as dynamically and reciprocally related but stated that social structure and individual/family results were mediated by social organizational processes. And within the social organizational black box we viewed all its elements as more associational rather than causal. Network structures, for example, influence community capacity, even as community capacity influences the nature of formal and informal networks. At that time, we did not elaborate social organizational processes beyond network structures, social capital, and community capacity, which was consistent with our earlier work (Bowen et al., 2000). The next major iteration in our thinking is found in a chapter on community resilience (Mancini & Bowen, 2009).1 We invoked community antecedents, social action processes, and community consequences as major categories of interest in a social organizational model 1 In the interim, we had deviated from our 2005 model in an article on preventing intimate partner violence (Mancini, Nelson, Bowen, & Martin, 2006). In this article, we spoke of three intermediate results between community capacity (shared responsibility and collective competence) and community results (safety, health and well-being, sense of community, and family adjustment). These intermediate results were (1) shared norms and values oriented toward reducing social isolation, (2) individual protective factors to reduce risk and to buffer stressors, and (3) mobilization for collective action. 46 (Mancini & Bowen, 2009; see p. 250). In some sense, although we added new rubrics (e.g., community antecedents), we returned to our earlier thinking about how our primary concepts were positioned and sequenced, with network structures as comprising the community antecedents base of the pyramid, with social action processes in the middle social action processes layer (social capital and community capacity), and community consequences (resilience) at the top. Insert Figure 2 About Here This 2009 iteration draws attention to introducing how structural characteristics (community as a physical and geographical place) have an influence on family-oriented results (for example, family adjustment and well-being, and relationships with other families in a community or neighborhood). In this 2009 discussion we explicitly uncovered what this community capacity, social organizational model suggested about the nature of change, and marked how each part of the model possessed a leverage point for prevention and intervention. For example, we contend that the “most likely leverage points in communities are associated with networks, both formal and informal. This is so because networks are visible, vibrant, and where most people connect with each other and with formal systems” (p. 259). We then state, “change is also associated with community capacity itself, if capacity is seen as requisite to community members coming together around shared goals and making decisions to take action” (p. 260). Throughout these phases of theorizing, the need to further explore social organizational processes persisted, as did the need to more fully understand the contexts in which these processes occurred and to uncover other intermediate results between social organizational processes and distal results. Empirical Testing of the Model 47 Our preliminary research work to date provides support for our expectations from the model. As an example, in an analysis focusing on the link between formal and informal community-based social networks and family adaptation and including a sample of more than 20,000 married Air Force members across 82 bases, we found that informal community support had both a direct influence on self-reported family adaptation, as well as an indirect influence via perceived sense of community (Bowen, Mancini, Martin, Ware, & Nelson, 2003). In an investigation with 10,102 married active-duty AF members, positive perceptions of community capacity (shared responsibility and collective competence) had a strong and direct effect on self- reported symptoms of depression. These perceptions were also a significant mediator of the effects of formal and informal networks on depression, including perceptions of agency support, unit leader support, and neighbor support (Bowen, Martin, & Ware, 2004). A Work in Progress Each aspect of our work, model development, application of the model to address practice situations and challenges, and empirical testing of key linkages, has informed the other two. The synergy that has been created, including our ongoing collaboration with colleagues in the field of family studies and community intervention, has resulted in a model that continues to be elaborated. In this process, we have been reminded by our experiences on more than one occasion that theory development is a challenging undertaking. This process includes the occasional break through where the elements of the theory come together to form turrets of conceptual integration and distinction. More often, however, frustration is experienced when confronting conceptual nuances and ambiguities, feeling like the King’s architect in the Far Side cartoon who suddenly realizes that the moat has been built inside the castle! 50 the ease of making connections with others in the community, and increased levels of a sense of responsibility for others in the community (Bowen, Martin, Mancini, & Nelson, 2001). Empirically, sense of community is evidenced by reports of feelings of belonging in the community, feeling close to other community members, a feeling that one’s own circumstances are similar to others in the community, as well as more behavioral indicators including making new friends, spending time with others, and showing concern for others (Mancini, Bowen, Martin, & Ware, 2003). Importantly, we see the operation of formal systems and informal networks as correlates, rather than an indicators, of sense of community, which is consistent with research by Pretty, Conroy, Dugay, Fowler, and Williams (1996). Our research in the military sector provides additional support to Pretty et al. ’s findings and suggests a direct influence of formal systems and informal networks on sense of community. In turn, sense of community had a positive influence on the family adaptation of married Air Force members (Bowen, Mancini, Martin, Ware, & Nelson, 2003). In an earlier study with 180 married Air Force members, we found an indirect effect of informal networks on sense of community via community capacity, which included dimensions of shared responsibility and collective competence (Bowen, Martin, Mancini, & Nelson, 2001). Cantillon, Davidson, and Schweitzer (2003) have also recently discussed the significance of sense of community in understanding social organization, also viewing it as an important mediator for understanding community life and effects on individuals and families. In the context of this review, we propose one’s sense of community as a result that partially mediates the link between social organizational processes and the ultimate results that individuals and families achieve. Although our model directs attention at this particular construct, we do not propose it as the only potential intermediate result in our model. However, 51 in the context of high sense of community, we propose that individuals and families have a greater probability of achieving desired individual and family results. In effect, one’s sense of community helps to explain the motivation to act and to participate in change. As we continue to apply our theory to the world of practice, we anticipate that additional intermediate results will be identified. In general, the application of theories to practice results in more versus fewer concepts and more complexity in the nature of proposed linkages. Community Antecedents In our more recent work (Mancini & Bowen, 2009), we identified community antecedents as an exogenous component in our model, which included community conditions and characteristics and network structures (formal and informal). Remember we make a distinction between the “structure” of these network connections and the “nature of the relationships” that are contained in these structures. In an earlier work (Mancini, Bowen, & Martin, 2005), we placed network structures under social organizational processes and identified social structure as the exogenous component in the model, which was defined in a most general way as the organization, configuration, and composition of community members within a geographic area. Our struggle has been about whether to consider formal systems and informal networks as an aspect of social structure or as an aspect of social action processes. In reality, networks are a component of both community structure and community process—structural in form and dynamic in function. Although, at any one time, networks have relatively stable patterns (structure), we focus our attention on the more dynamic and fluid nature of formal systems and informal networks (process). From an action model perspective, we see formal systems and informal networks as targets for community intervention. Consequently, in our 52 current model, we have shifted formal systems and informal networks back under social organizational processes. We have also given consideration to the influence of physical infrastructure of the community on the functioning and operation of the community. Consequently, we now focus our attention on the both the social infrastructure and the physical infrastructure of the community. Both are considered under the broader label of community antecedents, and we are indebted to the work of Furstenberg and Hughes (1997) in specifying these two community-level features, which will be discussed below. The Social Infrastructure. Communities vary in their social and demographic composition, which inform the nature of sociocultural risks and opportunities in community settings (Bowen, Richman, & Bowen, 2000). The social infrastructure is an important component of social disorganization theory, and Shaw and McKay (1969, revised edition) identified three such structural conditions of the community in their examination of differential rates of juvenile delinquency in Chicago: economic status, ethnic heterogeneity, and residential mobility. Both Wilson (1987) and Sampson et al. (1997) identified the pernicious influence of concentrated disadvantage in communities (poverty, welfare dependency, joblessness, segregation, crime, and oppression) on supportive social organizational processes. In Sampson et al. ’s work, high levels of residential stability were related to supportive patterns of interaction among residents and more effective social control, which they labeled as collective efficacy. Rosenbaum and Harris (2001) have used the term “chaotic” in describing neighborhoods that are disorganized, suggesting confused and disordered structures and processes. If we see infrastructure as a collection of supports within an area, such as a neighborhood or a central part of the city, then the social infrastructure is mainly about people and their interactions. In neighborhoods where 55 We see our model as a work in progress. Although with each iteration we tend to extend or revise some aspect of the model, many nuances of the interface between communities and families remain to be integrated in our theory of community action and change. For example, in a recent discussion of skilled support within intimate relationships, Rafaeli and Gleason (2009) propose that misguided or unskilled support may lead to more problems than solutions in the ways in which couples respond to external stressors. This important caveat in the dyadic support literature can be easily extended to the relationship between community support and individual and family results, and raises important questions about the timing (e. g. , when is it delivered), the nature (e. g. , instrumental versus expressive), the delivery (e. g. , person-focused or situation –focused), and the reciprocation of community support and whether it is viewed as a cost or as a benefit (Rafaeli & Gleason). In another recent article, Fingerman (2009) discusses the important role that peripheral ties, as compared to core ties, may play as support systems for individuals. As a broad-based framework, our theory of community action and change is fully capable of incorporating such refinements. A social organization approach accounts for the multiple permutations and nuances of those processes that surround families, as well as those structures that provide the framing for interaction and transaction. Conclusions: Intersections of Families and Communities In this chapter we have covered an expansive literature that links families and communities, beginning with a review of how the family studies field has intentionally examined the family-community touchpoints. We feel our review of the earlier pivotal treatments of family studies is instructive for understanding where more contemporary theorizing and research might profitably focus. Hopefully we have interested family scholars in pursuing research that is more intentional about community influences on families. We have also attempted to provide a set of 56 handles for not only understanding this literature but also for moving the study of families and communities toward more intentional theorizing and research. This is not to suggest the existing research and theorizing is that deficient, but rather to argue that much more refinement is needed in order to position the literature to effectively inform social action, those processes that actually help families and the communities in which they live. The intersections of families and communities have not been high on the radar of family scholars as a group, though several among us have called attention to the importance of this focus to accounting for variations in individual and family outcomes. We do wonder what would have happened if the excellent work summarized by Mogey (1964) had become a mainstay of family research and of family researchers. Very many years ago this study of community contexts was eclipsed by a far greater preoccupation with looking inside the family, to the exclusion of looking outside the family. We believe that these two perspectives are complementary and that community contexts, whether studied or not, persist in the lives of all families and their individual members. It is not always clear how the collective influences the familial, yet we know some families struggle with their surroundings, both physical and social, whereas others flourish because of their surroundings, both physical and social. Toward the end of this chapter we have presented our own trail of examining the intersections between families and communities. If this part of the chapter seems somewhat disjointed, it does because it is—we have struggled with more fully recognizing the complexity and nuances of the relationship between families and communities with providing a simpler but perhaps more testable model. This is the yin and the yang of theory building, and we appreciate the opportunity to expose the “underbelly” of our efforts. We owe a substantial debt to many of 57 our colleagues, past and present, who both encourage us to go further and who shake their heads when we don’t leave well enough alone. We have proposed and elaborated a social organizational approach to understanding families and communities; this elaboration has occurred in several ways, including our critique of the published theoretical and empirical literature. In the course of that analysis we proposed a way of understanding measurement approaches, arguing for a social organizational schema and providing the indicators of such an approach. The theorizing we have conducted, substantially informed by earlier theory and research, has set out to provide an umbrella for understanding structure and process, and for parsing interdependent aspects of processes. We hope that the discussion will stimulate a call to action in what we consider to be potentially fruitful area of theory development and scholarship. 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Handbook of Marriage and the Family. (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Plenum Press. Sweet, S., Swisher, R., & Moen, P. (2005). Selecting and assessing the family-friendly community: Adaptive strategies of middle-class, dual-earner couples. Family Relations, 54, 596. Swisher, R., Sweet, S., & Moen, P. (2004). The family-friendly community and its life course fit for dual-earner couples. Journal of Marriage and Family, 66(2), 281–292. Taylor, A. C., & Bagd, A. (2005). The lack of explicit theory in family research. In V. L. Bengtson, A. C. Acock, K. R. Allen, P. Dilworth-Anderson, & D. M. Klein (Eds.), Sourcebook of family theory & research (pp. 22-25). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 75 About the Authors Jay A. Mancini is Haltiwanger Distinguished Professor at The University of Georgia, and head of the Department of Child and Family Development (Athens, GA 30602; mancini@uga.edu). His research focuses on the intersection of families and communities, with active projects involving vulnerabilities and resilience among homeless Veterans, community perspectives on elder maltreatment, and the effects of deployment on military children and their families. He is a Fellow of the National Council on Family Relations and of the World Demographic Association. Dr. Mancini received his M. S. degree from Kansas State University and his Ph. D. from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, both in family studies. Gary L. Bowen is Kenan Distinguished Professor in the School of Social Work at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC 27599; glbowen@email.unc.edu). His research focuses on ways in which elements of social structure frame and influence individual and collective orientations and behavioral choices. He serves as Lead Scientist in the Jordan Institute for Military Members, Veterans, and their Families. He is a Fellow and President of the National Council on Family Relations. Dr. Bowen received his MSW in 1976 from UNC-Chapel Hill and his Ph. D. in Family Studies in 1981 from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. 76 Social Organizational Processes Social Structure Individual/Family Results Social Capital  Information  Reciprocity  Trust Network Structure  Informal networks  Fromal networks  Network effect Community Capacity  Shared responsibility  Collective competence Figure 1. Social organization processes, social structure, and individual family results. Reprinted with permission from Mancini, Bowen, & Martin (2005). 77 Figure 2. Model of Social Organization and Change. Reprinted with permission from Mancini & Bowen (2009).