Meaning of the word community

A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, town, or neighbourhood) or in virtual space through communication platforms. Durable good relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties also define a sense of community, important to their identity, practice, and roles in social institutions such as family, home, work, government, society, or humanity at large.^[1] Although communities are usually small relative to personal social ties, «community» may also refer to large group affiliations such as national communities, international communities, and virtual communities.^[2]

The English-language word «community» derives from the Old French comuneté (Modern French: communauté), which comes from the Latin communitas «community», «public spirit» (from Latin communis, «common»).^[3]

Human communities may have intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, and risks in common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.^[4]

Perspectives of various disciplines[edit]

Archaeology[edit]

Archaeological studies of social communities use the term «community» in two ways, paralleling usage in other areas. The first is an informal definition of community as a place where people used to live. In this sense it is synonymous with the concept of an ancient settlement—whether a hamlet, village, town, or city. The second meaning resembles the usage of the term in other social sciences: a community is a group of people living near one another who interact socially. Social interaction on a small scale can be difficult to identify with archaeological data. Most reconstructions of social communities by archaeologists rely on the principle that social interaction in the past was conditioned by physical distance. Therefore, a small village settlement likely constituted a social community and spatial subdivisions of cities and other large settlements may have formed communities. Archaeologists typically use similarities in material culture—from house types to styles of pottery—to reconstruct communities in the past. This classification method relies on the assumption that people or households will share more similarities in the types and styles of their material goods with other members of a social community than they will with outsiders.^[5]

Sociology[edit]

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Ecology[edit]

In ecology, a community is an assemblage of populations—potentially of different species—interacting with one another. Community ecology is the branch of ecology that studies interactions between and among species. It considers how such interactions, along with interactions between species and the abiotic environment, affect social structure and species richness, diversity and patterns of abundance. Species interact in three ways: competition, predation and mutualism:

• Competition typically results in a double negative—that is both species lose in the interaction.
• Predation involves a win/lose situation, with one species winning.
• Mutualism sees both species co-operating in some way, with both winning.

The two main types of ecological communities are major communities, which are self-sustaining and self-regulating (such as a forest or a lake), and minor communities, which rely on other communities (like fungi decomposing a log) and are the building blocks of major communities.

Semantics[edit]

The concept of «community» often has a positive semantic connotation, exploited rhetorically by populist politicians and by advertisers^[6]
to promote feelings and associations of mutual well-being, happiness and togetherness^[7]—veering towards an almost-achievable utopian community.

In contrast, the epidemiological term «community transmission» can have negative implications,^[8] and instead of a «criminal community»^[9] one often speaks of a «criminal underworld» or of the «criminal fraternity».

Key concepts[edit]

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft[edit]

In Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887), German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies described two types of human association: Gemeinschaft (usually translated as «community») and Gesellschaft («society» or «association»). Tönnies proposed the Gemeinschaft–Gesellschaft dichotomy as a way to think about social ties. No group is exclusively one or the other. Gemeinschaft stress personal social interactions, and the roles, values, and beliefs based on such interactions. Gesellschaft stress indirect interactions, impersonal roles, formal values, and beliefs based on such interactions.^[10]

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In a seminal 1986 study, McMillan and Chavis^[11] identify four elements of «sense of community»:

1. membership: feeling of belonging or of sharing a sense of personal relatedness,
2. influence: mattering, making a difference to a group and of the group mattering to its members
3. reinforcement: integration and fulfillment of needs,
4. shared emotional connection.

A «sense of community index» (SCI) was developed by Chavis and colleagues, and revised and adapted by others. Although originally designed to assess sense of community in neighborhoods, the index has been adapted for use in schools, the workplace, and a variety of types of communities.^[12]

Studies conducted by the APPA^[who?] indicate that young adults who feel a sense of belonging in a community, particularly small communities, develop fewer psychiatric and depressive disorders than those who do not have the feeling of love and belonging.^[13]

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The process of learning to adopt the behavior patterns of the community is called socialization. The most fertile time of socialization is usually the early stages of life, during which individuals develop the skills and knowledge and learn the roles necessary to function within their culture and social environment. For some psychologists, especially those in the psychodynamic tradition, the most important period of socialization is between the ages of one and ten. But socialization also includes adults moving into a significantly different environment where they must learn a new set of behaviors.^[15]

Socialization is influenced primarily by the family, through which children first learn community norms. Other important influences include schools, peer groups, people, mass media, the workplace, and government. The degree to which the norms of a particular society or community are adopted determines one’s willingness to engage with others. The norms of tolerance, reciprocity, and trust are important «habits of the heart», as de Tocqueville put it, in an individual’s involvement in community.

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Community development is often linked with community work or community planning, and may involve stakeholders, foundations, governments, or contracted entities including non-government organisations (NGOs), universities or government agencies to progress the social well-being of local, regional and, sometimes, national communities. More grassroots efforts, called community building or community organizing, seek to empower individuals and groups of people by providing them with the skills they need to effect change in their own communities.^[17] These skills often assist in building political power through the formation of large social groups working for a common agenda. Community development practitioners must understand both how to work with individuals and how to affect communities’ positions within the context of larger social institutions. Public administrators, in contrast, need to understand community development in the context of rural and urban development, housing and economic development, and community, organizational and business development.

Formal accredited programs conducted by universities, as part of degree granting institutions, are often used to build a knowledge base to drive curricula in public administration, sociology and community studies. The General Social Survey from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago and the Saguaro Seminar at the Harvard Kennedy School are examples of national community development in the United States. The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in New York State offers core courses in community and economic development, and in areas ranging from non-profit development to US budgeting (federal to local, community funds). In the United Kingdom, the University of Oxford has led in providing extensive research in the field through its Community Development Journal,^[18] used worldwide by sociologists and community development practitioners.

At the intersection between community development and community building are a number of programs and organizations with community development tools. One example of this is the program of the Asset Based Community Development Institute of Northwestern University. The institute makes available downloadable tools^[19] to assess community assets and make connections between non-profit groups and other organizations that can help in community building. The Institute focuses on helping communities develop by «mobilizing neighborhood assets» – building from the inside out rather than the outside in.^[20] In the disability field, community building was prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s with roots in John McKnight’s approaches.^[21][22]

Community building and organizing[edit]

In The Different Drum: Community-Making and Peace (1987) Scott Peck argues that the almost accidental sense of community that exists at times of crisis can be consciously built. Peck believes that conscious community building is a process of deliberate design based on the knowledge and application of certain rules.^[23] He states that this process goes through four stages:^[24]

1. Pseudocommunity: When people first come together, they try to be «nice» and present what they feel are their most personable and friendly characteristics.
2. Chaos: People move beyond the inauthenticity of pseudo-community and feel safe enough to present their «shadow» selves.
3. Emptiness: Moves beyond the attempts to fix, heal and convert of the chaos stage, when all people become capable of acknowledging their own woundedness and brokenness, common to human beings.
4. True community: Deep respect and true listening for the needs of the other people in this community.

In 1991, Peck remarked that building a sense of community is easy but maintaining this sense of community is difficult in the modern world.^[25] An interview with M. Scott Peck by Alan Atkisson. In Context #29, p. 26.
The three basic types of community organizing are grassroots organizing, coalition building, and «institution-based community organizing», (also called «broad-based community organizing», an example of which is faith-based community organizing, or Congregation-based Community Organizing).^[26]

Community building can use a wide variety of practices, ranging from simple events (e.g., potlucks, small book clubs) to larger-scale efforts (e.g., mass festivals, construction projects that involve local participants rather than outside contractors).

Community building that is geared toward citizen action is usually termed «community organizing».^[27] In these cases, organized community groups seek accountability from elected officials and increased direct representation within decision-making bodies. Where good-faith negotiations fail, these constituency-led organizations seek to pressure the decision-makers through a variety of means, including picketing, boycotting, sit-ins, petitioning, and electoral politics.

Community organizing can focus on more than just resolving specific issues. Organizing often means building a widely accessible power structure, often with the end goal of distributing power equally throughout the community. Community organizers generally seek to build groups that are open and democratic in governance. Such groups facilitate and encourage consensus decision-making with a focus on the general health of the community rather than a specific interest group.

If communities are developed based on something they share in common, whether location or values, then one challenge for developing communities is how to incorporate individuality and differences. Rebekah Nathan suggests^{[according to whom?]} in her book, My Freshman Year, we are drawn to developing communities totally based on sameness, despite stated commitments to diversity, such as those found on university websites.

[edit]

A number of ways to categorize types of community have been proposed. One such breakdown is as follows:

1. Location-based Communities: range from the local neighbourhood, suburb, village, town or city, region, nation or even the planet as a whole. These are also called communities of place.
2. Identity-based Communities: range from the local clique, sub-culture, ethnic group, religious, multicultural or pluralistic civilisation, or the global community cultures of today. They may be included as communities of need or identity, such as disabled persons, or frail aged people.
3. Organizationally-based Communities: range from communities organized informally around family or network-based guilds and associations to more formal incorporated associations, political decision-making structures, economic enterprises, or professional associations at a small, national or international scale.
4. Intentional Communities: a mix of all three previous types, these are highly cohesive residential communities with a common social or spiritual purpose, ranging from monasteries and ashrams to modern ecovillages and housing cooperatives.

The usual categorizations of community relations have a number of problems:^[28] (1) they tend to give the impression that a particular community can be defined as just this kind or another; (2) they tend to conflate modern and customary community relations; (3) they tend to take sociological categories such as ethnicity or race as given, forgetting that different ethnically defined persons live in different kinds of communities—grounded, interest-based, diasporic, etc.^[29]

In response to these problems, Paul James and his colleagues have developed a taxonomy that maps community relations, and recognizes that actual communities can be characterized by different kinds of relations at the same time:^[30]

1. Grounded community relations. This involves enduring attachment to particular places and particular people. It is the dominant form taken by customary and tribal communities. In these kinds of communities, the land is fundamental to identity.
2. Life-style community relations. This involves giving primacy to communities coming together around particular chosen ways of life, such as morally charged or interest-based relations or just living or working in the same location. Hence the following sub-forms:
   1. community-life as morally bounded, a form taken by many traditional faith-based communities.
   2. community-life as interest-based, including sporting, leisure-based and business communities which come together for regular moments of engagement.
   3. community-life as proximately-related, where neighbourhood or commonality of association forms a community of convenience, or a community of place (see below).
3. Projected community relations. This is where a community is self-consciously treated as an entity to be projected and re-created. It can be projected as through thin advertising slogan, for example gated community, or can take the form of ongoing associations of people who seek political integration, communities of practice^[31] based on professional projects, associative communities which seek to enhance and support individual creativity, autonomy and mutuality. A nation is one of the largest forms of projected or imagined community.

In these terms, communities can be nested and/or intersecting; one community can contain another—for example a location-based community may contain a number of ethnic communities.^[32] Both lists above can used in a cross-cutting matrix in relation to each other.

Internet communities[edit]

In general, virtual communities value knowledge and information as currency or social resource.^{[33][34][35][36]} What differentiates virtual communities from their physical counterparts is the extent and impact of «weak ties», which are the relationships acquaintances or strangers form to acquire information through online networks.^[37] Relationships among members in a virtual community tend to focus on information exchange about specific topics.^[38][39] A survey conducted by Pew Internet and The American Life Project in 2001 found those involved in entertainment, professional, and sports virtual-groups focused their activities on obtaining information.^[40]

An epidemic of bullying and harassment has arisen from the exchange of information between strangers, especially among teenagers,^[41] in virtual communities. Despite attempts to implement anti-bullying policies, Sheri Bauman, professor of counselling at the University of Arizona, claims the «most effective strategies to prevent bullying» may cost companies revenue.^[42]

Virtual Internet-mediated communities can interact with offline real-life activity, potentially forming strong and tight-knit groups such as QAnon.^[43]

See also[edit]

• Circles of Sustainability
• Communitarianism
• Community theatre
• Engaged theory
• Outline of community
• Wikipedia community

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

• Barzilai, Gad. 2003. Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Beck, U. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage: 2000. What is globalization? Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Chavis, D.M., Hogge, J.H., McMillan, D.W., & Wandersman, A. 1986. «Sense of community through Brunswick’s lens: A first look.» Journal of Community Psychology, 14(1), 24–40.
• Chipuer, H.M., & Pretty, G.M.H. (1999). A review of the Sense of Community Index: Current uses, factor structure, reliability, and further development. Journal of Community Psychology, 27(6), 643–58.
• Christensen, K., et al. (2003). Encyclopedia of Community. 4 volumes. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Cohen, A. P. 1985. The Symbolic Construction of Community. Routledge: New York.
• Durkheim, Émile. 1950 [1895] The Rules of Sociological Method. Translated by S.A. Solovay and J.H. Mueller. New York: The Free Press.
• Cox, F., J. Erlich, J. Rothman, and J. Tropman. 1970. Strategies of Community Organization: A Book of Readings. Itasca, IL: F.E. Peacock Publishers.
• Effland, R. 1998. The Cultural Evolution of Civilizations Mesa Community College.
• Giddens, A. 1999. «Risk and Responsibility» Modern Law Review 62(1): 1–10.
• James, Paul (1996). Nation Formation: Towards a Theory of Abstract Community. London: Sage Publications.
• Lenski, G. 1974. Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
• Long, D.A., & Perkins, D.D. (2003). Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Sense of Community Index and Development of a Brief SCI. Journal of Community Psychology, 31, 279–96.
• Lyall, Scott, ed. (2016). Community in Modern Scottish Literature. Brill | Rodopi: Leiden | Boston.
• Nancy, Jean-Luc. La Communauté désœuvrée – philosophical questioning of the concept of community and the possibility of encountering a non-subjective concept of it
• Muegge, Steven (2013). «Platforms, communities and business ecosystems: Lessons learned about entrepreneurship in an interconnected world». Technology Innovation Management Review. 3 (February): 5–15. doi:10.22215/timreview/655.
• Newman, D. 2005. Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life, Chapter 5. «Building Identity: Socialization» Archived 2012-01-06 at the Wayback Machine Pine Forge Press. Retrieved: 2006-08-05.
• Putnam, R.D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster
• Sarason, S.B. 1974. The psychological sense of community: Prospects for a community psychology. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 1986. «Commentary: The emergence of a conceptual center.» Journal of Community Psychology, 14, 405–07.
• Smith, M.K. 2001. Community. Encyclopedia of informal education. Last updated: January 28, 2005. Retrieved: 2006-07-15.

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Late Middle English communite,^[1] borrowed from Old French communité, comunité, comunete (modern French communauté), from Classical Latin commūnitās (“community; public spirit”),^[2] from commūnis (“common, ordinary; of or for the community, public”) + -itās (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts (“suffix forming nouns indicating a state of being”)). Commūnis is derived from con- (“prefix indicating a being or bringing together of several objects”) (from cum (“with”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm (“along, at, next to, with”)) + mūnus (“employment, office, service; burden, duty, obligation”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“to change, exchange”)). Ostensibly equivalent to commune +‎ -ity. Doublet of communitas.

Pronunciation[edit]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kəˈmjuː.nɪ.ti/
• (General American, Canada) enPR: kə-myo͞oʹnə-ti, IPA^(key): /k(ə)ˈmju.nə.ti/, [k(ə)ˈmju.nə.ɾi]
• Hyphenation: com‧mun‧i‧ty

Noun[edit]

community (countable and uncountable, plural communities)

1. (countable) A group sharing common characteristics, such as the same language, law, religion, or tradition.

   • 1586, Giraldus Cambrensis [i.e., Gerald of Wales]; Iohn Hooker alias Vowell [i.e., John Hooker], transl., “The Irish Historie Composed and Written by Giraldus Cambrensis, [… ]”, in The Second Volume of Chronicles: […] , [s.l.: s.n.], →OCLC:

     [W]e are not borne to our ſelues alone, but the prince, the countrie, the parents, freends, wiues, children and familie, euerie of them doo claime an intereſt in vs, and to euerie of them we muſt be beneficiall: otherwiſe we doo degenerate from that communitie and ſocietie, which by ſuch offices by vs is to be conſtrued, & doo become moſt vnprofitable: […]

   • 1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion, being a Portion of The Recluse; a Poem, London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, →OCLC, book the fourth (Despondency Corrected), page 161:

     Nor wanting here, to entertain the thought, / Creatures, that in communities exist, / Less, at might seem, for general guardianship / Or through dependance upon mutual aid, / Than by participation of delight / And a strict love of fellowship, combined.

   • 1827, Henry Hallam, “On the English Constitution from Henry VII to Mary”, in The Constitutional History of England from the Accession of Henry VII to the Death of George II, volume I, Paris: Printed for L. Baudry, at the English, Italian, German and Spanish Library, No. 9, rue du Coq-Saint-Honoré; Lefèvre, bookseller, No. 8, rue de l’Éperon, →OCLC, page 17:

     Henry VII obtained from his first parliament a grant of tonnage and poundage during life, according to several precedents of former reigns. But when general subsidies were granted, the same people […] twice broke out into dangerous rebellions; and as these, however arising from such immediate discontent, were yet connected a good deal with the opinion of Henry’s usurpation, and the claims of a pretender, it was a necessary policy to avoid too frequent imposition of burdens upon the poorer classes of the community.

   • 1891 March 15, Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man under Socialism”, in Oscar Wilde; William Morris; W[illiam] C[harles] Owen, The Soul of Man under Socialism, The Socialist Ideal—Art and The Coming Solidarity (The Humboldt Library of Science; no. 147), New York, N.Y.: The Humboldt Publishing Company, 28 Lafayette Place, →OCLC, pages 14–15:

     As one reads history—not in the expurgated editions written for schoolboys and passmen, but in the original authorities of each time—one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalized by the habitual employment of punishment, than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.

   • 2005, Craig Dykstra, “Growing in Faith”, in Growing in the Life of Faith: Education and Christian Practices, 2nd edition, Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, →ISBN, page 40:

     The process of coming to faith and growing in the life of faith is fundamentally a process of participation. […] The Presbyterian Confession of 1967 says that «the new life takes shape in a community in which [human beings] know that God loves and accepts them in spite of what they are.» In words that capture an older language, God uses the community of faith as «means of grace.»

   • 2013 June 7, Joseph Stiglitz, “Globalisation is about taxes too”, in The Guardian Weekly‎^[1], volume 188, number 26, archived from the original on 16 November 2016, page 19:

     It is time the international community faced the reality: we have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionary global tax regime. It is a tax system that is pivotal in creating the increasing inequality that marks most advanced countries today – with America standing out in the forefront and the UK not far behind.

2. (countable) A residential or religious collective; a commune.

   • 1999, “Fourteenth Century: Before and After”, in Therese Boos Dykeman, editor, The Neglected Canon: Nine Women Philosophers: First to the Twentieth Century, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, →ISBN, page 73:

     The Beguines, an uncloistered religiously inspired woman’s movement began about the year 1210 in Liége, Belgium. Generally the Beguines lived in community or in small cottages behind a wall. At times threatened as heretics, they were finally disbanded by the Reformation.

3. (countable, ecology) A group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other.

   • 1949, G[eorge] E[velyn] Hutchinson; E[dward] S[mith] Deevey, Jr., “Ecological Studies on Populations”, in George S. Avery, Jr., editor, Survey of Biological Progress, volume I, New York, N.Y.: Academic Press, page 325:

     Synecology has for the objects of its study, not individual organisms but biological communities, which are groups of organisms living in a given space, the properties of which space select a certain assemblage of organisms of definite autecological characteristics. Such communities are moreover not merely collections of organisms of restricted autecology, but tend to become organized by the biotic relationships that exist beteen the various individuals comprising the community.

4. (countable, Internet) A group of people interacting by electronic means for educational, professional, social, or other purposes; a virtual community.

   • 2015, Sandy Baldwin, “I Read My Spam”, in The Internet Unconscious: On the Subject of Electronic Literature (International Texts in Critical Media Aesthetics; 9), New York, N.Y.; London: Bloomsbury Academic, →ISBN, section VI, page 89:

     Spam texts are encoded but no decryption is possible. There is no plaintext message. I find them wonderful, and read them as poetics, as odd fragments generative of narrtives and scenography. I find the process of their production wonderful as well. The texts are written to elude community standards and means of censorship, and at the same time to enter and impose themselves into the standards and means for the community to read itself.

   • 2015, Aaron M. Duncan, “Shifting the Scene to Cyberspace: Internet Poker and the Rise of Tom Dwan”, in Gambling with the Myth of the American Dream (Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society), New York, N.Y.; Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, →ISBN:

     Online gaming communities develop their own language, history, routines, and relationships. The online poker community is no different, developing its own culture distinct from the traditional poker community. One asp[ect that differentiates internet poker from other online gaming communities is the presence of money, creating what [Edward] Castronova et al. (2009) refer to as a virtual economic system complete with its own rules and forces.

5. (uncountable) The condition of having certain attitudes and interests in common.

   • 2006, James G[eorge] Samra, “The Role of the Local Community in the Maturation Process”, in Being Conformed to Christ in Community: A Study of Maturity, Maturation and the Local Church in the Undisputed Pauline Epistles (Library of New Testament Studies; 320), paperback edition, London; New York, N.Y.: T&T Clark, published 2008, →ISBN, section 6.1 (Introduction), page 133:

     We hope to demonstrate that Paul understood the local community to be the sphere in which and the means through which the five components of the maturation process were facilitated, thus concluding that Paul expected believers to be confirmed to Christ in community.

   • 2018, Bronwyn T. Williams, “A Sense of Where You Are: Literacy, Place, and Mobility”, in Literacy Practices and Perceptions of Agency: Composing Identities, New York, N.Y.; Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 128:

     Writing groups and community writing spaces can provide that vitally important space for writing as well as potential benefits of support and accountability if people have the chance to talk about writing. Even if all that happens, however, is that people have a space to write in community with each other, the result is usually that writing becomes contagious.

6. (countable, obsolete) Common enjoyment or possession; participation.

   a community of goods

   • 1689, [John Locke], “Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty by Donation, Gen[esis] 1.28”, in Two Treatises of Government: In the Former, the False Principles, and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, and His Followers, are Detected and Overthrown. The Latter is an Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government, London: Printed for Awnsham Churchill, at the Black Swan in Ave-Mary-Lane, by Amen-Corner, published 1690, →OCLC; republished London: Printed for Awnsham and John Churchill, at the Black Swan in Pater-Noster-Row, 1698, →OCLC, page 39:

     To conclude, this Text is ſo far from proving Adam Sole Proprietor, that on the contrary, it is a Confirmation of the Original Community of all Things amongſt the Sons of Men, which appearing from this Donation of God, as well as other places of Scripture; the Sovraignty of Adam, built upon his Private Dominion, muſt fall, not having any Foundation to ſupport it.

   • 1819 October 9, [Washington Irving], “The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. No. III. The Wife.”, in The Literary Gazette, and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, etc., volume III, number 142, London: Printed by William Pople, No. 67, Chancery Lane; published for the proprietors, at the Literary Gazette office, Strand; sold also by Bell and Bradfute, Edinburgh; John Cumming, Dublin; and all other booksellers, newsmen, &c., →OCLC, page 649, column 1:

     Besides, you are depriving yourself of the comforts of her sympathy; and not merely that, but also endangering the only bond that can keep hearts together—an unreserved community of thought and feeling.

7. (uncountable, obsolete) Common character; likeness.

   • 1797, John Wilde, Sequel to an Address to the Lately Formed Society of the Friends of the People, Edinburgh: Printed for Peter Hill; and T[homas] Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies, London, →OCLC, page 1:

     We are now in the ninth year of the anarchy of France. […] A diſpoſition to peace has been diſplayed, without conſideration of the royal family of France. The natural horror at the effuſion of blood cannot be too ſtrong, and might of itſelf perſuade us to any ſort of peace; but it is a great queſtion, whether in this we ſhould loſe our natural horror at crime. Peace with France cannot be friendſhip with France. There can be no community between us and them, unleſs by allying ourſelves with murder, and ſanctioning and ſharing in the pillage of thieves.

   • 1864, Herbert Spencer, “Growth”, in The Principles of Biology (A System of Synthetic Philosophy; II), volume I, London; Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 14, Henrietta Steet, Covent Garden, London; and 20, South Frederick Street, Edinburgh, →OCLC, part II (The Inductions of Biology), § 43, pages 107–108:

     The essential community of nature between organic growth and inorganic growth, is, however, most clearly seen on observing that they both result in the same way. The segregation of different kinds of detritus from each other, as well as from the water carrying them, and their aggregation into distinct strata, is but an instance of a universl tendency towards the union of like units and the parting of unlike units […].

8. (uncountable, obsolete) Commonness; frequency.

   • c. 1597 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The History of Henrie the Fourth; […], quarto edition, London: […] P[eter] S[hort] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1598, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

     So when he had occaſion to be ſeene, / He was but as the Cuckoe is in Iune, / Heard, not regarded: Seene, but with ſuch eie / As ſicke and blunted with communitie, / Affoord no extraordinary gaze.

9. (Wales, countable) A local area within a county or county borough which is the lowest tier of local government, usually represented by a community council or town council, which is generally equivalent to a civil parish in England.

Alternative forms[edit]

• communitie (obsolete)

Antonyms[edit]

• anticommunity
• noncommunity

Hyponyms[edit]

• subcommunity

Derived terms[edit]

[edit]

Translations[edit]

References[edit]

• community at OneLook Dictionary Search
• community in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• «community» in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 75.
• “community”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Further reading[edit]

Last Updated:
9 Apr 2023
— Updated example sentences

The word community conveys a sense of togetherness, strength, and positivity, but what exactly does it mean?

In this article, we’re exploring the word community to uncover its definition, origin, synonyms, and more. So if you’ve ever been curious about the term community — keep reading. Here’s our complete guide on community. 

What Is the Definition of Community?

( kəˈmjuːnɪti )

Community can be a tricky word to define. The term itself connects us to one another, and it’s also added to the names of social innovations as a symbol of positivity and good intentions (think: community mental health, community economic development, community women’s wellness). 

With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few dictionary definitions: 

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a community refers to the people living in one particular area. 

The National Library of Medicine says the word community can be defined as a group of individuals with diverse characteristics who are connected by social ties, common perspectives, and/or nationality. 

In biology, community — AKA biological community — is an interacting group of various species in a common location. 

So, what does community mean, you ask?

Simply put, a community is a group of like-minded individuals who share an identity-forming narrative. In other words, it’s a friendship between different people — or a social unit — with a commonality such as norms, place, religion, values, customs, or identity. 

What Are the Different Types of Communities?

The three main types of communities include:

• Rural communities are often thought of as farmland, characterized by low population density with scanty homes located not too close to one another.  

• Urban communities are located in cities or towns. Usually characterized by a large population with modern infrastructures. 

• Suburban communities are a mix between rural and urban. Commonly found in an area that exists on the outskirts of an urban community. 

Although these are the three main types of communities, this way of grouping is often thought of as being too condensed. With this in mind, the type of community can also be classified by the purpose that brings the group together. 

• Interest — people who share the same interest or passion
• Action — those who try to bring about change
• Place — folks brought together by geographic boundaries
• Practice — people in the same profession or undertake the same activities
• Circumstance — groups brought together by external situations or events

What Is the Origin of Community?

Our word of the day derives from Latin communitas (meaning “the same”), which comes from communis (meaning “public, common, shared by all or many”). 

Communis derives from a mic of the Latin prefix con- (meaning “together”) and the term munis (which has to do with performing services).

What Are the Synonyms and Antonyms Community?

Now that you understand what a community is, let’s take a look at a few synonyms and antonyms. 

A synonym is a word that means exactly or nearly the same as another word. Synonyms of community include:

• Group
• Section
• Body
• Company
• Set
• Circle
• Coterie
• Ring
• Clique
• Faction
• Gang
• Bunch
• Band
• Association
• Neighborhood
• Society
• Clans
• Colonies

An antonym is a word that has a meaning opposite to that of another word. Antonyms of community include:

• Incompatibility
• Loner
• Incongruity
• Mortal
• Solo
• Incongruence
• One
• Single entity
• Individual
• Nonconformity
• Incongruousness
• Disagreement
• Difference
• Dissimilarity

How Can You Use Community in a Sentence?

There are lots of ways you can use the word community in a sentence. Here are a few example sentences:

“Sarah lives in a really close-knit community.”

“I love the group of people that live here — there’s a real sense of community.”

“John mentioned the business community is showing interest in the project.”

“There’s a real community of interests here, but both sides seem to be blind to it.’

“If your common interests align with our group goals, then you should stop by the local community clubhouse to discuss joining!”

“With around 80,000 residents that love where they live, it’s easy to see how the town has major community spirit.”

“Did you know that you have a community of bacteria that live in your digestive system, collectively known as your microbiome?”

“The scientific community is releasing an update on their discovery tomorrow night.”

“I was hoping to join a community for women’s rights — do you know where I might be able to find one?”

“If you ask me, the gay community is the most colorful of them all!”

“Due to your horrendous behavior, the members of the community decided to revoke your membership.”

“Do you know the meaning of community?”

“Despite being a pretty small group, my community has a big heart.”

What Are Translations of Community?

Wondering how to say our word of the day in a different language? We have you covered! Here are some of the most popular translations of community:

• American English: community /kəmyˈunɪti/
• Arabic: مُجْتَمَع 
• Brazilian Portuguese: comunidade 
• Chinese: 社区 
• Croatian: zajednica 
• Czech: komunita 
• Danish: lokalsamfund 
• Dutch: gemeenschap 
• European Spanish: comunidad 
• Finnish: yhteisö 
• French: communauté 
• German: Gemeinschaft 
• Greek: κοινότητα 
• Italian: comunità 
• Japanese: 地域社会 
• Korean: 공동체 
• Norwegian: samfunn 
• Polish: społeczność 
• European Portuguese: comunidade 
• Romanian: comunitate
• Russian: общество 
• Spanish: comunidad 
• Swedish: samhälle 
• Thai: ชุมชน 
• Turkish: topluluk 
• Ukrainian: громада
• Vietnamese: cộng đồng 

Conclusion

To be clear, community is not a place, building, or organization — it’s both a feeling and a set of relationships among people. Members of a community often have a sense of trust, safety, belonging, and caring for each other.

What to learn the meaning of more words? Check out our blog!

Sources:

1. Community definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
2. COMMUNITY : definition | Cambridge English Dictionary
3. What Is Community? An Evidence-Based Definition for Participatory Public Health|  PMC
4. community | Definition & Examples | Britannica
5. Community | New World Encyclopedia

What do we mean by community?

A group of people living in the same locality and under the same government. noun

The district or locality in which such a group lives. noun

A group of people having common interests. noun

A group viewed as forming a distinct segment of society. noun

Similarity or identity. noun

Sharing, participation, and fellowship. noun

Society as a whole; the public. noun

A group of organisms interacting with one another and with the environment in a specific region. noun

The region occupied by a group of interacting organisms. noun

Common possession or enjoyment; the holding or sharing of interests, possessions, or privileges in common by two or more individuals: as, a community of goods; community of interests between husband and wife. noun

Life in association with others; the social state. noun

A number of people associated together by the fact of residence in the same locality, or of subjection to the same local laws and regulations; a village, township, or municipality. noun

A society or association of persons having common interests or privileges, commercial, social, political, or ecclesiastical, and subject to the same regulations; now, especially, a society of this nature in which the members reside together or in the same locality: as, the Oneida Community (see below). noun

The body of people in a state or commonwealth; the public, or people in general: used in this sense always with the definite article. noun

Commonness; frequency. noun

In logic, the being possessed in common by several subjects. noun

A group sharing a common understanding, and often the same language, law, manners, and/or tradition.

A residential or religious collective; a commune.

A group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other.

A group of people interacting by electronic means for educational, professional, social, or other purposes; a virtual community.

The condition of having certain attitudes and interests in common.

Common enjoyment or possession; participation.

Common character; likeness.

Commonness; frequency.

A group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. Urban Dictionary

Something that is to be shared among friends, usually food or drink, and always from the same container. Urban Dictionary

Everyone suddenly wants it when you bring a pack of bubblegum to school Urban Dictionary

A comedy TV series created by Dan Harmon in 2009. It focuses on the lives of a ragtag study group at a mediocre community college. Comedians Joel McHale and Chevy Chase star in the series.
Overall, a hilarious comedy. Urban Dictionary

Communism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Urban Dictionary

Something upper management preaches about but refuses to use. Urban Dictionary

Satanism. Urban Dictionary

Communicate V (EXACHANGE INFORMATION)
1.~(with sb)to exchange information, news, ideas, etc. with sb
Communicate VN(SHARE IDEAS/FEELINGS)
2.to make your ideas, feelings, thoughts, etc. known to other people so that they understand them Urban Dictionary

Communications is a jock major, which is to say that it is a very easy major for college students who want to drink and party and sleep around more than they want to learn and better themselves. Communications majors typically end up doing generic office jobs at best. Urban Dictionary

To communicate is to express oneself to another, so that the recipient agrees, ACTS on the agreement and improves the universe. It doesn’t mean to talk, or to say something and the hearer says yes or no. She/He/It must respond positively and do something to get us out of the cancerous cycle we are in. It is interesting to note that this is the first entry in the Urban Dictionary for this word. If there were any communication, the world would not be as it is. Anyone who has anything to communicate is executed, imprisoned, institutionalized, or marginalized. This is the system that keeps those in power to stay in power. If you feel you have something to communicate please add to the definition; maybe we can escape the cave of plato, and the world can change. Urban Dictionary

Dictionary.university is a dictionary written by people like you and me.
Please help and add a word. All sort of words are welcome!

Add meaning

A community is a social group sharing an environment, normally with shared interests. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.

Human beings, like many other species, are essentially social beings, and naturally form communities which often develop into more structured societies. Human beings have the desire and need to be in close contact with others. Beginning with the family, human life is one of interdependence and sharing of physical, mental, and spiritual elements. Community can take many forms, from the intimacy of the family in the home, to the wide-ranging international community of multinational corporations, and to the virtual world of the internet. Each satisfies the need to interact with others in different ways, providing support to each individual in achieving their goals, and satisfying their desire to share with others. As people develop wider communities, with increasing diversity, throughout the world, a global community of peace and prosperity for all progresses closer to reality.

Terminology

The word community is derived from the Latin communitas (meaning the same), which is in turn derived from communis, which means «common, public, shared by all or many.»^[1] Communis comes from a combination of the Latin prefix con- (which means «together») and the word munis (which has to do with performing services).

A number of ways to categorize types of community have been proposed; one such breakdown is:

• Geographic communities: Range from the local neighborhood, suburb, village, town or city, region, nation, or even the planet as a whole. These refer to communities of location.
• Communities of culture: Range from the local clique, sub-culture, ethnic group, religious, multicultural, or pluralistic civilization, or the global community cultures of today. They may be included as communities of need or identity, such as disabled persons or elderly people.
• Community organizations: Range from informal family or kinship networks, to more formal incorporated associations, political decision making structures, economic enterprises, or professional associations at a small, national, or international scale.

Communities are nested; one community can contain another—for example a geographic community may contain a number of ethnic communities.^[2]

Location

Possibly the most common usage of the word «community» indicates a large group living in close proximity. Examples of local community include:

• A municipality is an administrative local area generally composed of a clearly defined territory and commonly referring to a town or village. Although large cities are also municipalities, they are often thought of as a collection of communities, due to their diversity.
• A neighborhood is a geographically localized community, often within a larger city or suburb.
• A planned community is one that was designed from scratch and grew up more or less following the plan. Several of the world’s capital cities are planned cities, notably Washington, D.C., in the United States, Canberra in Australia, and Brasília in Brazil. It was also common during the European colonization of the Americas to build according to a plan either on fresh ground or on the ruins of earlier Amerindian cities.

Identity

In some contexts, «community» indicates a group of people with a common identity other than location. Members often interact regularly. A common example is a «professional community» is a group of people with the same or related occupations. Some of those members may join a professional society, making a more defined and formalized group. These are also sometimes known as communities of practice.

Overlaps

Some communities share both location and other attributes. Members choose to live near each other because of one or more common interests.

• A retirement community is designated and at least usually designed for retirees and seniors—often restricted to those over a certain age, such as 55. It differs from a retirement home, which is a single building or small complex, by having a number of autonomous households.

• An intentional community is a deliberate residential community with a much higher degree of social interaction than other communities. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political or spiritual vision and share responsibilities and resources. Intentional communities include Amish villages, ashrams, cohousing, communes, ecovillages, housing cooperatives, kibbutzim, and land trusts.

Virtual

A virtual community is a group of people primarily or initially communicating or interacting with each other by means of information technologies, typically over the Internet, rather than in person. These may be either communities of interest, practice, or communion.

Two traits are particular to virtual communities: Deception and anonymity. Because users rarely meet face to face, people are free to adopt personas online that do not accurately represent their real life (for instance, someone may claim to be a millionaire while they actually live in squalor). Along the same lines, anonymity gives users license to express themselves differently than they would in real life. Members of virtual communities often release their inhibitions and post harsh comments, overtly sexual material, or other such things out of line with their «real life» personality.

Virtual communities are often criticized as being anti-social and a negative stereotype has developed of those perceived the spend too much time online. Despite this common perception, the internet can in fact have positive effects on one’s social capital. The internet makes it possible to develop communities among those with parochial or obscure interests, where this would be impossible before due to the distance between participants. These may not be physical communities, but members of virtual communities certainly feel the same range of emotions for their fellow community members as do members of physically proximate communities.

Non-human communities

Many non-human species live in communities as well. These range from insects up through large mammals, such as whales. The structure of these communities varies, as does the level of cohesion. Some examples of non-human communities include ant colonies, beehives, wolf packs, schools of fish, and pods of dolphins.

Bees and ants, for example, have strictly regimented roles within their societies. Wolves, too, function as social predators and hunt in packs organized according to strict, rank-oriented social hierarchies.^[3] It was originally believed that this comparatively high level of social organization was related to hunting success, and while this may be true to a certain extent, emerging theories suggest that the pack has less to do with hunting and more to do with reproductive success.

Some big cats, such as tigers and leopards, tend to be solitary animals, eschewing community for solitary hunting. Others, such as lions, travel in packs with a clear leadership hierarchy.

Perspectives from various disciplines

The process of learning to adopt the behavior patterns of the community is called socialization. The most fertile time of socialization is usually the early stages of life, during which individuals develop the skills and knowledge and learn the roles necessary to function within their culture and social environment. For some psychologists, especially those in the psychodynamic tradition, the most important period of socialization is between the ages of one and ten years of age. But socialization also includes adults moving into a significantly different environment, where they must learn a new set of behaviors.

Psychology

Psychology, as the scientific study of mental processes and behavior, is concerned about the interaction between individuals within communities. Those factors that motivate individuals into forming community, what incentives they have as members of a community, how it affects their identity and sense of self, are all important subjects touched upon by psychologists. Psychologists also study why community is necessary to people. Human beings are social animals, and while study of the resulting society may also be of interest to other social scientists such as sociologists and economists, the initial need to socialize with other humans is a psychological one.

Sociology

German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies presented a concise differentiation between the terms «community» (Gemeinschaft) and «society» (Gesellschaft). In his 1887 work, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, Tönnies argued that «community» is perceived to be a tighter and more cohesive social entity within the context of the larger society, due to the presence of a «unity of will.»^[4] He added that family and kinship were the perfect expressions of community, but that other shared characteristics, such as place or belief, could also result in gemeinschaft.

Individual and community

During human growth and maturation, people encounter sets of other individuals and experiences. Infants encounter first their immediate family, then extended family, and then local community (such as school and work). They thus develop individual and group identity through associations that connect them to life-long community experiences.^[5]

As people grow, they learn about and form perceptions of social structures. During this progression, they form personal and cultural values, a world view and attitudes toward the larger society. Gaining an understanding of group dynamics and how to «fit in» is part of socialization. Individuals develop interpersonal relationships and begin to make choices about whom to associate with and under what circumstances.

During adolescence and adulthood, the individual tends to develop a more sophisticated identity, often taking on a role as a leader or follower in groups. If an individual develops the feeling that they belong to a group, and they must help the group they are part of, then they develop a sense of community.

If community exists, both freedom and security exist as well. The community then takes on a life of its own, as people become free enough to share and secure enough to get along. The sense of connectedness and formation of social networks comprise what has become known as social capital.^[6]

Social capital is defined by Robert D. Putnam as «the collective value of all social networks (who people know) and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other (norms of reciprocity).» Social capital in action can be seen in groups of varying formality, including neighbors keeping an eye on each others’ homes. However, as Putnam notes in Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000), social capital has been falling in the United States. Putnam found that over the past 25 years, attendance at club meetings has fallen 58 percent, family dinners are down 33 percent, and having friends visit has fallen 45 percent.^[6]

Western cultures are thus said to be losing the spirit of community that once were found in institutions including churches and community centers. Sociologist Ray Oldenburg states in The Great Good Place that people need three places: 1) The home, 2) the office, and, 3) the community hangout or gathering place.^[7]

With this philosophy in mind, many grassroots efforts such as The Project for Public Spaces are being started to create this «Third Place» in communities. They are taking form in independent bookstores, coffeehouses, local pubs and through many innovative means to create the social capital needed to foster the sense and spirit of community.^[8]

Anthropology

Community and its features are central to anthropological research. Cultural anthropology is the study of communal cultures. Following from this field is cross-cultural studies, which look at the differences in culture or community structure across different communities. Archaeology studies historical communities no longer in existence. Within these fields are more specific subfields over which there exists a fair amount of overlap. Some of these subsets include anthropology of religion, urban anthropology, ethnic and racial studies, the study of virtual communities, ecological anthropology, and psychological anthropology.

Much of philosophy has been focused on how people interact with one another. Some philosophers, such as Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau, believed people live under social contracts with one another in order to prevent them from committing harm to each other. Karl Marx and conflict theorists believed there to be a perpetual struggle among groups within a community.

Another strain of social philosophy is Communitarianism. Communitarianism as a group of related but distinct philosophies (or ideologies) began in the late twentieth century, opposing classical liberalism and capitalism while advocating phenomena such as civil society. Not necessarily hostile to social liberalism, communitarianism rather has a different emphasis, shifting the focus of interest toward communities and societies and away from the individual. The question of priority, whether for the individual or community, must be determined in dealing with pressing ethical questions about a variety of social issues, such as health care, abortion, multiculturalism, and hate speech.

Business and communications

Analyzing communities within businesses often deals with the study of bureaucracy, especially as multinational corporations play a larger role in global affairs. These businesses can have very distinct cultures across their global operations or even within one country’s offices. Certain offices may have a more casual approach to business whereas others expect grinding hours and formality from their employees. Maintaining a consistent community feel across offices is a challenge to many of these global businesses, which many attempt to solve through global connectivity events and the dissemination of strict memoranda on company values.

Effective communication practices in group and organizational settings are important to the formation and maintenance of communities. How ideas and values are communicated within communities are important to the induction of new members, the formulation of agendas, the selection of leaders and many other aspects. Organizational communication is the study of how people communicate within an organizational context and the influences and interactions within organizational structures. Group members depend on the flow of communication to establish their own identity within these structures and learn to function in the group setting. Although organizational communication, as a field of study, is usually geared toward companies and business groups, these may also be seen as communities. The principles of organizational communication can also be applied to other types of communities.

Community development, often linked with Community Work or Community Planning, is often formally conducted by non-government organizations (NGOs), universities or government agencies to improve the social well-being of local, regional and, sometimes, national communities. Less formal efforts, called community building or community organizing, seek to empower individuals and groups of people by providing them with the skills they need to effect change in their own communities.^[9] These skills often assist in building political power through the formation of large social groups working for a common agenda. Community development practitioners must understand both how to work with individuals and how to affect communities’ positions within the context of larger social institutions.

Community building and organizing

Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck is of the view that the almost accidental sense of community which exists at times of crisis, for example in New York City after the September 11, 2001 attacks, can be consciously built. Peck believes that the process of «conscious community building» is a process of building a shared story, and consensual decision making, built upon respect for all individuals and inclusivity of difference. He is of the belief that this process goes through four stages:

1. Pseudo-community: Where participants are «nice with each other,» playing-safe, and presenting what they feel is the most favorable sides of their personalities.
2. Chaos: When people move beyond the inauthenticity of pseudo-community and feel safe enough to present their «shadow» selves. This stage places great demands upon the facilitator for greater leadership and organization, but Peck believes that «organizations are not communities,» and this pressure should be resisted.
3. Emptiness: This stage moves beyond the attempts to fix, heal and convert of the chaos stage, when all people become capable of acknowledging their own woundedness and brokenness, common to us all as human beings. Out of this emptiness comes
4. True community: The process of deep respect and true listening for the needs of the other people in this community. This stage Peck believes can only be described as «glory» and reflects a deep yearning in every human soul for compassionate understanding from one’s fellows.

Community building can use a wide variety of practices, ranging from simple events such as potlucks and small book clubs to larger–scale efforts such as mass festivals and construction projects that involve local participants rather than outside contractors.

Community service is usually performed in connection with a nonprofit organization, but it may also be undertaken under the auspices of government, one or more businesses, or by individuals. It is typically unpaid and voluntary. However, it can be part of alternative sentencing approaches in a justice system and it can be required by educational institutions.

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Barzilai, G. Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0472030798
• Beck, Ulrich. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage, 1992. ISBN 978-0803983465
• Beck, Ulrich. What is Globalization Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0745621265
• Chavis, D.M., J.H. Hogge, D.W. McMillan, and A. Wandersman. Sense of community through Brunswick’s lens: A first look. Journal of Community Psychology 14(1) (1986): 24-40.
• Chipuer, H. M., and G.M.H. Pretty A review of the Sense of Community Index: Current uses, factor structure, reliability, and further development. Journal of Community Psychology 27(6) (1999): 643-658.
• Christensen, K., et al. Encyclopedia of Community. 4 volumes. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003.
• Cohen, A.P. The Symbolic Construction of Community. New York: Routledge, 1985. ISBN 978-0415046169
• Durkheim, Emile. The Rules of Sociological Method. New York: The Free Press, 1982. ISBN 978-0029079409
• Cox, F., J. Erlich, J. Rothman, and J. Tropman. Strategies of Community Organization: A Book of Readings. Itasca, IL: F. E. Peacock Publishers, 1970.
• Giddens, A. “Risk and Responsibility.” Modern Law Review 62(1) (1999): 1-10.
• Kelly, Anthony. With Head, Heart and Hand: Dimensions of Community Building. Boolarong Press, 1988. ISBN 978-0864390769
• Lenski, Gerhard. Human Societies — A New Introduction to Sociology. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 1970. ISBN 978-0070371668
• Long, D.A., and D.D. Perkins. Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Sense of Community Index and Development of a Brief SCI. Journal of Community Psychology 31 2003) :279-296.
• McMillan, D.W., and D.M. Chavis.. «Sense of community: A definition and theory.» American Journal of Community Psychology 14(1) (1986): 6-23.
• Nancy, Jean-Luc. La Communauté désœuvrée.
• Newman, David M. Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life. Sage Publications, 2004. ISBN 978-0761988267
• Peck, M. Scott. The Different Drum: Community-Making and Peace. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987. ISBN 0684848589
• Perkins, D.D., P. Florin, R.C. Rich, A. Wandersman, and D. M. Chavis. Participation and the social and physical environment of residential blocks: Crime and community context. American Journal of Community Psychology 18 (1990):83-115.
• Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Touchstone Books by Simon & Schuster, 2001. ISBN 978-0743203043
• Sarason, S.B. The Psychological Sense of Community: Prospects for a Community Psychology. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1974. ISBN 978-0875892160
• Sarason, S.B. «Commentary: The emergence of a conceptual center.» Journal of Community Psychology 14 (1986):405-407.
• Smith, M.K. Community. Encyclopedia of informal education. Last updated: January 28, 2005. Retrieved April 11, 2020.
• Tönnies, Ferdinand. Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Leipzig: Fues’s Verlag, 1912. ISBN 0887387500
• Tropman, John E., John L. Erlich, and Jack Rothman. Tactics and Techniques of Community Intervention. Wadsworth Publishing, 2000. ISBN 978-0875814353

External links

All links retrieved April 11, 2020.

• What is community? Encyclopedia of Informal Education.
• Subdivided A documentary film about community featuring Robert Putnam.