Macro‐ and microlevel factors related to sense of community: The case of temporary neighborhoods in Israel

Abstract

This study examines macro and micro factors influencing the development of sense of community (Davidson & Cotter, 1980) in two different populations (immigrants and veterans) in new temporary neighborhoods in Israel. At the macrolevel, the major factors examined were population size, population density, number of dwelling units in the site, urbanity of the area, ethnic heterogeneity, and peripheriality of the region. Three kinds of variables were examined on the microlevel: (a) personal attitudes: evaluation of the dwelling unit and satisfaction with public services; (b) social networks; and (c) sociodemographic characteristics. Data were collected from 242 immigrants from the former USSR and from 60 Israeli veterans, residing in 5 different sites. Two different patterns of predictors of sense of community emerged in the two different samples. In the veteran sample, only one macrolevel variable entered the stepwise analysis equation: the number of dwelling units in the site. In the immigrant sample, three significant microlevel factors entered the equation: evaluation of the dwelling unit, external network, and age. The data thus suggest that the major determinant factors underlying sense of community vary for different groups of people.

Territorial sense of community, ethnic prejudice and political orientation

“…Based on these considerations, we hypothesized that ethnic composition of the territory per se is not able to threaten sense of community. Two studies, carried out respectively in Israel (Sagy, Stern, & Krakover, 1996) and the United States (Brodsky, O'Campo, & Aronson, 1999) also revealed that sense of community is not related to ethnic heterogeneity of the community.…”

The discursive construction of community identity

“…In a conceptual framework of community psychology the notion of community identity and the PSOC are closely related to each other and so are the two research fields. Much of the literature on the PSOC has focused on communities that were territorially defined, and on particular neighbourhoods and block groups (Brodsky, O'Campo, & Aronson, 1999;Perkins, Floris, Rich, Wandersman, & Chavis, 1990;Unger & Wandersman, 1985), housing complexes (Sagy, Stern, & Krakover, 1996), towns and cities (Buckner, 1988;Glynn, 1981Glynn, , 1986). More recently, PSOC has also been investigated in relational communities (Pretty, 1990;Pretty, Andrewes, & Collett, 1994;Royal & Rossi, 1996) and organizational settings (Burroughs & Eby, 1998;Fyson, 1999).…”

Sense of community in neighborhoods as a multi-level construct

“…Research on the predictors of neighborhood sense of community has focused to a large extent on individual-level predictors of the individual-level sense of community (e.g., Davidson, Cotter, & Stovall, 1991) with a few exceptions (e.g., Sagy, Stern, & Krakover, 1996;Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997). Buckner (1988), however, suggests that future research focus on determining the extent to which sense of community is influenced by environmental as well as individual variables to determine the degree to which sense of community can be influenced by system-level variables (Buckner, 1988).…”