• Communities - could either be referred to as a territorial, a network of interrelationships within a common interest, or as a shared spiritual/emotional connectedness.

• Communities - are social constructs

1. Community as a shared political territory and heritage - a traditional understanding of community refers to a group of people living in the same geographical area

• INSTITUTIONS:

  • Educational

  • Military

  • Government

  • Health Care

GRASSROOTS:

• • Enclaves (sitio)

  • Villages

  • Barangays

    2. Community as a network of interpersonal ties based on a common interest - these ties, as it turns, provide mutual support, a sense of identity, and a sense of belongingness for the members

       3. Community as a profound sharing of spiritual and/ or emotional connection - This understanding of community pertains to a sense of spiritual and/or emotional connection to others, or communication with others on the basis of an experience of a common problem (e. g., being afflicted with cancer or any form of terminal illness), bond (e.g., experiencing life after death), or a situated cognition (e.g., having realizations that individual actions are inevitably linked to others, which evoke meaningful attachments) (Wilmott 1989, Sunduram et al. 2012).

Sense of Community - “a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together.”

4 Elements of the Sense of Community

1. Membership - refers to the feeling of belonging or sharing a sense of personal relatedness.

• Boundaries - allowing others to belong and keeping others out

• Emotional safety - feelings of security and trust in revealing how one really feels

• Sense of belonging and identification - members’ feeling that they belong, fit in, and are accepted by the community

• Personal Investment - sacrifices made to maintain membership

• Common symbol system - things used to represent the community

2. Influence - refers to the sense of having importance or of feeling valued

3. Integration and fulfillment of needs - refers to the feeling of fulfillment, which stems from the personal investments that members make in maintaining community membership or in participating in community activities and affairs.

4. Shared emotional connection - refers to a sense of shared cultural and historical heritage and the feeling that common experiences will continue to be shared

   • Contact hypothesis - members of the community become close when there are lots of opportunities for interaction

   • Quality of interaction - when interaction brings about positive experiences and good relationships, it would then fosters a great bond

   • Closure to events - when iterations are ambiguous and community tasks are unresolved, then community cohesion will be inhibited

   • Shared event hypothesis - increased importance of shared event results into greater community bond

   • Investment - the community becomes important to someone who has given time, energy, money, effort, and emotional openness to other members of the community

   • Effect of honor and humiliation to community members - members who have been publicly rewarded or recognized by the community will be more attracted to that community, similarly, members who have been publicly humiliated

   • Spiritual bond - the spark of friendship where members are able to be with other members in the community in order to have a setting and audience to express unique aspects of one’s personality and see oneself mirrored in the eyes and responses of others