What makes a community desirable? Using a hockey team as an example for a desirable community (desirable for me!).
According to our lecture in Sustainability and Community Relations, social capital plays an imminent role in community. Social capital can be defined as: "developing, renewing and maintaining human cultures that create positive, enduring relationships with other peoples and the natural world" or as "networks of civic engagement" (Putnam, 1993). This essentially means that social capital within the community context is found within the relationships that one member of a community has with one or more other members of the same community.
Social capital contains a variety of features including norms, networks and nodes.
Norms are the rules and standards that the individuals of the community live by. This may mean that in a community, individuals are held to certain expectations, which may be set by either a governing body, or may be a social pressure from the members of the community themselves. Networks refers to how each individual is included in the social fabric of the community, and how they can access local social resources or social resources else where. A network may be selective or broad, hierarchical or flat, homogeneous or heterogeneous, etc. Nodes are the critical connections between people or resources, and are the people that can catalyse information flow, communication, and connectivity between networks.
Each community has their own norms, networks and nodes.
For example, a community I have been part of for the last 3 years was a college ice hockey team. There were many norms in this community, and they were very different or somewhat specific when compared to other communities I was also part of at the same time.
Some of the norms for the team community were that each individual worked her hardest to better the team both on and off the ice, each individual supported each other, and each individual was held accountable for her own actions. There were many other norms associated with the team community, but if I went into all of them we would be here all day. In this community, there were also various networks. Each individual had a reason for being selected for the team, whether it was based on skill, team play, character, leadership, or a combination of attributes, and every member had something they could offer or contribute to the community.
The network between members was very closed, a person who was not part of the team could not have the same relationship with the team that someone who was a member could. This means that if the team consisted of people A to P, persons Q-Z would not have the same relationship as persons A-P to the team. It was a very tight nit social fabric. The network is generally hierarchical, with coaches, captains, and veterans at the top of the hierarchy. Usually on a hockey team, every member is a local social resources or resources elsewhere. Depending on what resource a member is looking for, it can usually be found through another member. Generally, a good team aims to limit or eliminate hierarchy and place the power of the members in their own hands; however, this only works when each member takes full responsibility for their actions and abides by all the norms. If a player does not commit to their off-ice work outs and it is impacting their on-ice performance, the coach, captains, or veterans will usually pull rank and call out the player.
The nodes that existed on the college team I was part of were usually found in either the coaches or other team members. Because the team was made up of players taking various courses and routes of study, there was almost always at least one person who was the expert on a specific topic.
A hockey team is just one example of a community and the social capital that exists within this community. Even across different teams, the social capital including norms, networks, and nodes can vary greatly from one team to another. In other types of teams, such as softball teams, debate teams, chess teams, spelling-bee teams, etc, the types of norms, networks and nodes would vary greatly. These are all just one type of community which is teams, there are a whole lot more communities that exist than just teams. Communities may be in the form of gangs, sororities, families, career pursuits, educational pursuits, people grouped together by municipality designation, etc.
In the above example of a hockey team, social capital is created much the same as we discussed the graphs in class. Sustainable community development within the team grows as each "stage" in creating social capital is achieved. The first stage is engagement. On a team, this might be the group of individuals attending practices, workouts, and games together. They are engaging in activity with one another. By participating and supporting one another to reach a common goal (to win and have fun!) they can build trust between each member. As the season goes on, without the co-operation of every member, the team cannot succeed. Much like a chain, a team is only as strong as its weakest link.
Through the collective norms such as working hard, being committed, and attending team functions, the common goal (above, to win and have fun) can be reached. Of course, your team is not the only team competing for the common goal. Set backs happen, and may cause slight destruction of social capital. Hopefully, on a hockey team, they do not encompass the whole graph of the destruction of social capital we talked about in class. The destruction of social capital is basically the opposite of the construction process, and leads to members deserting the community and the community basically becoming abolished.
According to our lecture in Sustainability and Community Relations, social capital plays an imminent role in community. Social capital can be defined as: "developing, renewing and maintaining human cultures that create positive, enduring relationships with other peoples and the natural world" or as "networks of civic engagement" (Putnam, 1993). This essentially means that social capital within the community context is found within the relationships that one member of a community has with one or more other members of the same community.
Social capital contains a variety of features including norms, networks and nodes.
Norms are the rules and standards that the individuals of the community live by. This may mean that in a community, individuals are held to certain expectations, which may be set by either a governing body, or may be a social pressure from the members of the community themselves. Networks refers to how each individual is included in the social fabric of the community, and how they can access local social resources or social resources else where. A network may be selective or broad, hierarchical or flat, homogeneous or heterogeneous, etc. Nodes are the critical connections between people or resources, and are the people that can catalyse information flow, communication, and connectivity between networks.
Each community has their own norms, networks and nodes.
For example, a community I have been part of for the last 3 years was a college ice hockey team. There were many norms in this community, and they were very different or somewhat specific when compared to other communities I was also part of at the same time.
Some of the norms for the team community were that each individual worked her hardest to better the team both on and off the ice, each individual supported each other, and each individual was held accountable for her own actions. There were many other norms associated with the team community, but if I went into all of them we would be here all day. In this community, there were also various networks. Each individual had a reason for being selected for the team, whether it was based on skill, team play, character, leadership, or a combination of attributes, and every member had something they could offer or contribute to the community.
The network between members was very closed, a person who was not part of the team could not have the same relationship with the team that someone who was a member could. This means that if the team consisted of people A to P, persons Q-Z would not have the same relationship as persons A-P to the team. It was a very tight nit social fabric. The network is generally hierarchical, with coaches, captains, and veterans at the top of the hierarchy. Usually on a hockey team, every member is a local social resources or resources elsewhere. Depending on what resource a member is looking for, it can usually be found through another member. Generally, a good team aims to limit or eliminate hierarchy and place the power of the members in their own hands; however, this only works when each member takes full responsibility for their actions and abides by all the norms. If a player does not commit to their off-ice work outs and it is impacting their on-ice performance, the coach, captains, or veterans will usually pull rank and call out the player.
The nodes that existed on the college team I was part of were usually found in either the coaches or other team members. Because the team was made up of players taking various courses and routes of study, there was almost always at least one person who was the expert on a specific topic.
A hockey team is just one example of a community and the social capital that exists within this community. Even across different teams, the social capital including norms, networks, and nodes can vary greatly from one team to another. In other types of teams, such as softball teams, debate teams, chess teams, spelling-bee teams, etc, the types of norms, networks and nodes would vary greatly. These are all just one type of community which is teams, there are a whole lot more communities that exist than just teams. Communities may be in the form of gangs, sororities, families, career pursuits, educational pursuits, people grouped together by municipality designation, etc.
In the above example of a hockey team, social capital is created much the same as we discussed the graphs in class. Sustainable community development within the team grows as each "stage" in creating social capital is achieved. The first stage is engagement. On a team, this might be the group of individuals attending practices, workouts, and games together. They are engaging in activity with one another. By participating and supporting one another to reach a common goal (to win and have fun!) they can build trust between each member. As the season goes on, without the co-operation of every member, the team cannot succeed. Much like a chain, a team is only as strong as its weakest link.
Through the collective norms such as working hard, being committed, and attending team functions, the common goal (above, to win and have fun) can be reached. Of course, your team is not the only team competing for the common goal. Set backs happen, and may cause slight destruction of social capital. Hopefully, on a hockey team, they do not encompass the whole graph of the destruction of social capital we talked about in class. The destruction of social capital is basically the opposite of the construction process, and leads to members deserting the community and the community basically becoming abolished.
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