Shaw and McKay's influential theory of community social disorganization has never been directly tested. To address this, a community-level theory that builds on Shaw and McKay's original model is formulated and tested. The general hypothesis is that low economic status, ethnic heterogeneity, residential mobility, and family disruption lead to community social disorganization, which, in turn, increases crime and delinquency rates. A community's level of social organization is measured in terms of local friendship networks, control of street-corner teenage peer groups, and prevalence of organizational participation. The model is first tested by analyzing data for 238 localities in Great Britain constructed from a 1982 national survey of 10,905 residents. The model is then replicated on an independent national sample of 11,030 residents of 300 British localities in 1984. Results from both surveys support the theory and show that between-community variations in social disorganization transmit much of the effect of community structural characteristics on rates of both criminal victimization and criminal offending.

https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3226955/Sampson_CommunityStructureCrime.pdf?sequence=2

Community Structure and Crime: Testing Social-Disorganization Theory

This article reviews the American literature in social science for the period 1975–1992 on the determinants of volunteer participation in programs and associations. It finds that most studies are t...

Determinants of Voluntary Association Participation and Volunteering: A Literature Review:

Change in U.S. Womens Sex Role Attitudes, 1969-1974.

A major objective of many neighborhood revitalization programs is to increase homeownership. Conventional wisdom holds that this is one of the best ways to stabilize areas in decline. This article questions convention by presenting a conceptual model of how homeownership rates might affect various indicators of neighborhood stability and by determining whether there is support for this model in the literature. The article also presents an original analysis of the relationship between homeownership rates and two measures of neighborhood stability. The literature review finds considerable support for an association between homeownership and both improved property maintenance and longer lengths of tenure. The analysis of census data similarly indicates less residential mobility and greater property value appreciation in areas with greater home‐ownership. Although initial values and citywide value changes appear to have much stronger effects on changes in property values than the tract home‐ownership...

Homeownership and neighborhood stability

Article portant sur l'importance de l'environnement social et du voisinage, comme facteur d'ajustement psychologique, comme correcteur des sentiments de stress et comme element de la qualite de la vie

The importance of neighbors: The social, cognitive, and affective components of neighboring

The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the literature on formal voluntay organizations in the urban community. The theoretical approaches that guided much of the research in this area are identifid as social structural, social psychological, and organizational. Basic findings suggest that formal participation, including church membership, is a characteristic of urban life. Population characteristics, attitudes, informal interaction, and community involvement are all related to formal membership. Moreover, formal organizations attempt to integrate individuals with the larger community, and such groups, in urbanizing areas, facilitate modernization.

Formal Voluntary Organizations: Participation, Correlates, and Interrelationships

The present study analyzes differences in perception of neighborhood and residential mobility as related to formal and informal participation. Results show that perceived similarity is related to neighborhood participation, while residential mobility is related to formal group membership. These relationships, with very few exceptions, seem to persist even in the presence of other control variables like age, education and religion. A significant proportion of the urban community participates frequently with neighbors and belongs to church and other formal groups. These activities are generally high in the suburb and low in the inner city regardless of differences in perception of neighborhood and residential mobility except for membership in organizational groups: the high membership in the suburb occurs under conditions of perceived similarity. The theoretical implications suggest a re-evaluation of the mode of life in the modern urban community and emphasize the significance of taking the perceptual as well as the behavioral context into account in sociological analysis.

Empirical Considerations on the Problem of Social Integration

This paper examines female and male sex role orientation, with emphasis on the structural correlates of sex role attitudes. Based on a random sample of college students, the data on roles of both s...

Sex Role Orientation and Structural Correlates

(1967). Informal Participation in a Metropolitan Community. The Sociological Quarterly: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 85-102.

Informal Participation in a Metropolitan Community

Summary This study examines alienation in two different cultural groups. One sample is Middle Eastern, and the other is American. Students from a transitional society expressed greater feelings of alienation; they felt more powerless and scored higher on the normlessness, meaninglessness, and social isolation scales. These relationships were not altered when socioeconomic status and sex were controlled with one exception—American students with a professional background showed higher normlessness than Middle Eastern respondents of the same occupational level. The variability in results obtained within and across the cultural groups studied is explained in terms of cultural context effects.

Aida K. Tomeh

Papers

Formal Voluntary Organizations: Participation, Correlates, and Interrelationships

Empirical Considerations on the Problem of Social Integration

Sex Role Orientation and Structural Correlates

Informal Participation in a Metropolitan Community

Alienation: A Cross-Cultural Analysis