What do social scientists understand by term 'community'? How important are communities in contemporary British society?

What do social scientists understand by term ‘community’? How important are communities in contemporary British society?

Community is a large word to explore, the term of community is one of the largest areas to cover the social scientists specific many meaning of community. The concept of ‘community’ has been a matter of debate for 100 years or more. I shall explore what the social scientists understand by term ‘community’ and how important are communities in contemporary British society.

‘Community’ embodies the notion of shared goals and values, of everyone working together, and form a unity.

Britain, the first society to under go industrialization, was also the earliest to move from being a rural to a predominantly urban country. In 1800 well under 20 per cent of the population lived in towns or cities of more than 10,000 inhabitants. By 1900 this proportion had become 74 per cent. The capital London was home to about 1.1 million people in 1800, it increased in size to a population of over 7 million by the start of the twentieth century. London was then by for the largest city ever seen in the world, a vast manufacturing, commercial and financial centre at the heart of a still-expanding British empire.

How Britain has manage to form large community, with different ethnic back ground. After the new common wealth migration to the UK was part of a word wide process. In Second World War around 30 million people entered Western Europe and have form a community.

Ethnic minorities are strong basis community because of the distinctive linguistic, cultural, and religious traditions that can bind members of an ethnic minority together. However it’s always been hard for ethnic minority community to exist in British society, they face racism. Indeed, racism is as Jewson has put it, a particularly intrusive, explicated, involuntary, and powerful determinant of collective identity’.

Ethnic minorities have been discriminate in terms of jobs, housing and education.

However ethnicity has then provided a basis for community in the ethnically diverse cities of contemporary Britain, but ethnic communities was not only generated by the distinctive customers and cultures of groups. They also arose because of patterns f exclusion, racial discrimination, and the competition of groups for resources. Attempts have been made to reduce ethnic conflicts by constructing multi-ethnic organizations, which have tried to establish communities on a residential rather than an ethnic basis.

Community is a big word to explore it has many ...

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Ethnic minorities have been discriminate in terms of jobs, housing and education.

Community is a big word to explore it has many meaning to explore. However the social scientists has understood the term of community, and how important are community in contemporary British society.

The sociologic listed definition of community is varying in their emphasis the definition of community. They summarise community in four different area which as follow. Common situation, those living in a community will share some common feature that’s binds them together this may be their place, or residence, their class, their ethnicity, their religion.

Common activities. Communities involve all-round relationship between people. They are all-round in the sense that they are not limited to work or politics or sport or any other single activity but extends into most areas of life.

Collective action. People have some sense of a common interest, and may well organize collective action in pursuit of this common interest. Thus, those living in a particular place organize action to prevent a road being built through it or to raise money for community centre.

Shared identity. There is a sense of belonging to a distinct group that has an identity. With this identity goes a certain emotional charge, a feeling of belonging to a larger unit and some loyalty to it.

Sociologists studying communities it is not simply a matter of whether a community exists or not, for many. Tonnies and Durkheim, writing at the turn of the century they identified ‘community’ as existing in pre-industrial, rural societies, but were more sceptical about whether it could exist in the ‘new’ industrial, urbanized societies.

What is it that makes living in cities different from living in the country side, some argued that cities by their very nature are disintegrated places, where people are isolated and have little sense of belonging together other claim that strong communities can form in city.

However some of the sociologist debate on the difference between urban and rural areas, and community may not always be the utopia

Many sociologists have presumed it to be positive of having community they serve to bring people together, giving them a common identity and sense of purpose. Also to develop and support network and proactive political movements of informal and

Formal kinds.

Community life can have negative consequences for individuals and groups inside and outside of the perceived boundaries. Insiders may have differing levels of commitment to their group yet feel pressure to conform in their thinking. Speaking and acting this may differ according to circumstances but could cause psychological tensions and stresses. The development of cultural norms also means that there will be resulting boundaries and ‘outsider’ beyond, with all the potential for conflict this may entail.

How different was the social life of the city from the social life or rural areas, well Simmel explored the individualism of city life and its consequences, Simmel argued that in cities, endless variety and constant change result in a continuous stimulation of the senses that leads to an ‘intensification’ of emotional life. People experience a more intense loneliness in the city individualism become extreme.

The mental life of the city meant that the city life was unstable and social order was liable to break down.

People living in the cities were more likely then those living in the rural areas to suffer mental break downs, commit suicide, or become victims of crime.

According to Wirth, urban society was weakly integrated city-dwellers had frequent but brief and superficial encounters with many different people rather than enduring relationships. Relationships were segmental because people did not each other as rounded individuals and saw only the segment or section of personality related to a persons role as, say, shop assistant or employer.

Wirth’s notion of a distinctive urban way of life was criticized by, Gans (1998) he argued that Wirth focused too much on inner city and ignored the majority of the urban population who lived in quite stable communities which protected them from the worst consequences of urban living.

Gans argued that ways of life depended not so much on people’s urban or rural location as their class situation and stage in life. He concluded that there were no such things as ‘an urban way of life’ and also nothing distinctive about suburban life either (Gans 1995)

Giddens (1981) too has rejected Wirths idea that there is a distinctive urban way of life. He argued that there were sharp differences between urban and rural society at the time of the pre-capitalist city but modern capitalism has eliminated them.

Wirth defined cities in terms of their size population density, and diversity, which he saw as producing a distinctive urban way of life. Gans and Giddens argued that way of life are shaped by class, life cycle and capitalism rather than location.

Wirth and Tonnies saw the city as incompatible with community, but others argued that communities can thrive in cities.

Ferdinand Tonnies distinguished between community (Gemeinschaft) and association (Gesellschaft).

Tonnies (1855-1936), for example, argued that urbanisation transformed the basis and character of social contacts. He charted a shift from Gemeinschaft or community, characterised by close-knit, personal and stable relationships between a clear understanding of social position, to Gesellschaft or association, based on transitory, instrumental relationships.

Community plays a very important roles in contemporary British society, there are now some of 2.6 million non-whites in the United Kingdom compared with perhaps 100,000 before1950 (Coleman and Salt,19992).

According to Mark Kirby et al some of the evidence in this section has shown that there can be high rates of interaction between members of a community, but more important may be a shared consciousness and a capacity to support each other in times of need. Importantly, we do know that contemporary communities do not exist in vacuous isolation. They are subject to internal changes, with members constantly leaving and new members arriving. The infrastructure, economic, political and religious arenas change with a resulting impact on the culture of the area.