LESSON 1: Introduction to Community Engagement, Solidarity and

Citizenship and Concepts and Perspectives of Community

I. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Understand the definitions of community, community engagement, solidarity and citizenship

• Integrate the lessons learned from previous specialized and applied subjects with the concepts
of CESC
• Compare and contrast the definitions of a community using various perspectives (social
sciences, institutionalism, civil society, and organic/grassroots/local level);
• Recognize essential characteristics of communities in terms of elements and structures;
• Develop /affirm a sense of shared identity and willingness to contribute to the attainment of the
common good;
• Recognize diversities in communities; and
• Analyze the functions of communities in terms of structures and typologies.

II. DISCUSSION

DEFINITION OF TERMS

COMMUNITY – generally defined by their common cultural heritage, language, beliefs, and shared
interest among people.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT – refers to the process of working collaboratively with and through groups
of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interest, or similar situations to address issues
affecting the wellbeing of those people concerned.

SOLIDARITY – refers to the climate of a community where people observe unity among members based
on their common responsibilities, objectives and goals as a group.

CITIZENSHIP – refers to the rights of a person acquired by being affiliated or connected to a particular
community. He or she is entitled to practice common responsibilities, decisions, and actions being
recognized as a part or member of a certain community.

CONCEPTS AND PERSPECTIVES OF COMMUNITY

Community – derived from the Latin word “communitas”. (“Communitas” – fellowship “Communis” –
common; “Com” – with; “munire” – to strengthen)
• An informally organized social entity, characterized by a sense of identity.
• A group of people living in the same defined area, sharing common basic values, organization
and interest.
• It is a group of people whose connection and relations are formed by their shared histories,
experiences, geographies, and identities. Members of the community are brought together by
commonly held interests, aspirations, perspectives and values.

Three Notions of Community:

1. Community as shared political and territory and heritage
a. A tradition understanding of community refers to a group of people living in the same
geographical area where interpersonal ties are locally bounded and are based on a
shared government and a common cultural and historical heritage. Since the
community is viewed as something that is situated within local boundaries, this notion of
community is applied to the institutional and grassroots perspective.
b. Example: Education, military, government, healthcare
2. Community as a network of interpersonal ties based on common interest.
a. Another notion of community refers to a network of interpersonal ties that are based
around a common interest. These ties, in return, provide mutual support, a sense of
identity, and a sense of belongingness for the members.
b. Example: Sporting community, LGBT community, virtual community/netizens
3. Community as profound sharing of spiritual and/or emotional connection
 a. Community also pertains to a sense of spiritual and/or emotional connection to others,
or communion with others on the basis of an experience of a common problem, bond,
or a situated cognition.
b. Example: Disaster survivors, People living with HIV, Christian Community

Sense of Community
Term by McMilliam and Chavis (1986), the term means “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’
need will be met through their commitment to be together. Further developments lead to the Four
Elements of Sense of Community:
1. Membership – refers to the feeling of belonging or of sharing a sense of personal relatedness. It
consists of five attributes:
a. Boundaries – allowing others to belong and keep others out.
b. Emotional safety – feeling of security and trust.
c. Sense of belonging and identification – members’ feeling that they belong, fit in, and
are accepted by the community.
d. Personal investment – sacrifices made to maintain membership in the community.
e. Common symbol system – represent the community such as emblems, ritual, rites of
passage, dress codes, etc.
2. Influence – refers to the sense of having importance or of feeling valued, wherein there is
balance between members feeling that they have a say in the community and a community
being a body that also has the power to make its members conform.
3. Integration and fulfilment of needs – refers to the feeling of fulfilment, which stems for persona
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 heritage and the
feeling that common experiences will continue to be shared in the future.

Community Structures and their Elements

1. Social Structures (refer to your previous lesson on UCSP & DISS) – refers to the rules and
expectations that people develop in the community over time to help regulate and manage
their interaction from one another.
a. Social Institutions – are established patterns of belief and behavior that are centered on
addressing basic social needs of people in the community.
i. Example: family, religion, economy, government, education, healthcare
b. Social groups – consist of two or more people in the community who regularly interact
with one another and consider themselves a distinct social unit.
i. Example: Primary groups (family, peers) & Secondary groups (clubs, gangs,
political parties); in-groups and out-groups.
c. Status – refers to the position or rank of the person holds, in relation to other members of
the community.
i. Example: Ascribed Status and Achieved Status
d. Role – refers to the obligations or behaviors expected from an individual on the basis of
one’s status in life.
2. Cultural Structures (refer to your previous lesson on UCSP) – refers to the institutionalized
patterns of ways of life that are shared, learned, developed, and accepted by the people in
the community.
a. Symbols and language – symbols are the shared words, gestures, objects, or signals
which people in a community use to convey and develop recognizable meanings.
Language is a symbolic system that allows people to develop complex, thoughts and
records and explain ideas either through written oral or nonverbal communication.
b. Norms - are socially accepted behavior.
c. Values and belief – values define the ideal principle of what is good, just and desirable.
Belief refer to the shared ideas of what is collectively true by people in a community.
d. Rituals – refers to the sacred or secular procedures and ceremonies that people in the
community regularly perform.
3. Political Structure – refers to the people’s established ways of allocating power and making
decisions in running and managing community affairs.
a. Leadership Structure – refer to the composition of recognized leaders in the community
and the workflow of their authority.
 b. Political Organization- pertains either to political parties or political groups in the
community who are engaged in political activities.
4. Economic Structure – pertains to various organized ways and means through which people in
the community produce goods and services, allocate limited resources, and generate wealth
on order to satisfy their needs and wants.
a. Capital Asset – refers to a property that is owned and has an economic value, which is
expected to generate interest and profit for a long period of time. There are 5 types of
assets:
i. Human capital – pertains to the labor force in the community and their
background in terms of health, education, skills and capacity to work.
ii. Social capital – refers to the collective value of social networks and connections
(patronage, neighborhoods, kinships) and inclinations that arise in order to
provide mutual support
iii. Natural capital – refers to land and water resources (forest, wildlife, kamote).
iv. Physical capital – refers to man-made infrastructure and technology (road,
transportation, energy).
v. Financial capital – refers to the savings, credit and debt, remittances, pensions,
and salary and wages.
b. Vulnerability context – pertains to the insecurity in the well-being of individuals and
households in the society.
c. Business climate – refers to the attitudes, laws, and policies of the government and
economic institutions toward businesses, enterprises and commercial activities.
d. Trade – pertains to the enterprise and business activities involving the sale and purchase
of goods and services.

Theoretical Perspectives in Community Engagement

1. Structural-Functionalism – Emile Durkheim
• According to Structural-Functionalism, communities are analogous to living organisms (for
example, a human being). Each part of the human body is linked to all other parts. Individual
organs combine to create something that is "greater than the sum total of their individual
parts".
• In social terms, "organs" equate to social institutions (patterns of shared, stable, behaviour) and
the focus of analysis is upon the relationship between various institutions in society. Society is a
system of interconnected parts that work together in harmony to maintain a state of balance
and social equilibrium for the whole.
• According to Durkheim, community should be analyzed and described in terms of functions.
Society is a system of interrelated parts where no one part can function without the other.
These parts make up the whole of society. If one part changes, it has an impact on society as
a whole.
• Functionalists use the terms functional and dysfunctional to describe the effects of social
elements on society to a community. Elements of society are functional if they contribute to
social stability and dysfunctional if they disrupt social stability. Some aspects of society can be
both functional and dysfunctional.

Structural-Functionalism Community Typologies (Ferdinand Tonnies & Emile Durkheim)

a. Gemeinschaft is a community of individuals with close personal and family ties.
• Natural will – where members relate to one another as total personality.
• Durkheim designate this as mechanical solidarity. It is a form of social cohesion that
arises when people in a society maintain similar values and beliefs and engage in
similar types of work. Mechanical solidarity most commonly occurs in traditional, simple
societies such as those in which everyone herds cattle or farms. Amish society
exemplifies mechanical solidarity.
• Rural Communities – are territorial enclaves or villages where there is a small, low-density
and homogenous population. The economic system is based on agriculture.
b. Gesselschaft is characterized by impersonal, secondary, contractual, and rationalize
relationship.
• Rational Will – characterized by forethought and deliberation.
• Durkheim designate this as organic solidarity. It is a form of social cohesion that arises
when the people in a society are interdependent, but hold to varying values and
beliefs and engage in varying types of work. Organic solidarity most commonly occurs
 in industrialized, complex societies such those in large American cities like New York in
the 2000s.
• Urban Communities – are cities or big towns where there is a large, high dense, and
heterogeneous population. The economic system is industrial and/or administrative in
nature.

Scope of Structures of Communities

1. Local Community – example: village, barangay, town, city, municipality, province, region
2. Global Community – characterized the interconnectivity of people or countries all over the
world.

2. Institutionalism
Social Institution - a group of people assigned to perform a definite task and function in a social
system.
• Institutions are social structures that have attained a high degree of resilience. They are
composed of cultural-cognitive, normative, and regulative elements that together with
associated activities and resources, provide stability and meaning to social life.
• Institutions increase the predictability of the decision-making situation by setting rules that
govern the players, allowable actions and strategies, authorized results and linkages among
decisions (Heywood, 2000).

Two Types of Institutions

Institutions consist of formal rules and informal constrains. Definition of their distinction as follows:
Formal Institutions Informal Institutions
Formal institutions are openly codified, in the Informal institutions are socially shared rules,
sense that they are established and usually unwritten, that are created,
communicated through channels that are widely communicated, and enforced outside of
accepted as official. This refers to those officially officially sanctioned channels’. Informal
established often by the government. They’re institutions are equally known but not laid down
legally introduced and enforced by the state. in writing and they tend to be more persistent
than formal rules.
Formal institutions are those officially established Informal institutions are not officially established,
in one way or another, often by governments. but practices commonly accepted throughout
society.
Laws, Constitutions, Government Beliefs, Norms, Values

3. Civil Society Perspective

Civil Society- conventionally refers to the political community of organized group operating within
the authoritative parameters of the state. It is an aggregate of active groups and associations such
as business, interest groups and clubs. It has been referred to as the third sector distinctive from the
state (government) and the market (businesses).
Kinds of Civil Society Organizations
1. Non-Government Organizations – the Philippine National Economic Development Authority
(NEDA) describes NGOs as private, non-profit, volunteer organizations that are committed to
the task of what is broadly termed development.
2. People’s Organizations – POs are independent, autonomous entities, officially registered and
acknowledged as organizations according to rules and standards set by the state. Significant
features of POs is that it claims to represent impoverished, vulnerable, and marginalized
communities.
3. Social Movements – is a form of collective behavior which springs largely from the attitudes
and aspirations of its participants. Social Movements confront with specific power structures
and pursuit socioeconomic and political change.

3. Organic Perspective
- It refers to local or grassroots groups within a particular locale that are driven and organized
because of community issues and concerns. They are referred to as “grassroots” because of their
local and capacity-building characteristics. It is generally conceptualized as the formation of
neighborhood organizations, rural or urban, convened to pursue local development goals or address
particular issues.

III. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

YouTube Video: What does Community Mean to you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv7T23P9oS8
YouTube Video: What is Community?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BDd4GpkGj0

IV. REFERENCE

Abenir, M. (2017) Community Engagement, Solidarity, and Citizenship. Makati City: Diwa Learning
System Inc.

Taguibao, J. (2017) Community Engagement, Solidarity, and Citizenship. Quezon City: Vibal Group
Inc.

Delos Santos, D. (2017) Community Engagement, Solidarity, and Citizenship. Quezon City: Rex Printing
Company, Inc.

M1 TASK #1

Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwo5rjiIEsQ and watch the documentary by Paul

Roy titled The Slum, Episode 1: Deliverance. Focus on the following details that you may see,
hear, and learn from the said documentary film (30 points):
1. The dominant kind of human association that slum communities in the Philippines
have.
2. Ten essential characteristics of slum communities in the Philippines.
3. Community sectors found in slum communities in the Philippines and the role they
perform in the lives of people.
4. Reason (s) why slum communities exist and the solution (s) to this problem.

M1 TASK #2: (WRITTEN WORK 1 – 20 points)

How can you contribute to your community/barangay in each of the following sectors/concepts
below AT PRESENT and IN THE FUTURE? Make your answers sufficient but brief. Follow the format given.
(20 points)

MY CONTRIBUTIONS
Sense of Social Cultural Political Economic
Community Structure Structure Structure Structure

AT PRESENT

Sense of Social Cultural Political Economic

Community Structure Structure Structure Structure

IN THE FUTURE
(in 10 years)