Beyond the Neighborhood: Defining Membership in Diverse Community Contexts

The purpose of this research is to form an overarching definition of community membership that encompasses all community contexts. Utilizing qualitative interviews with 102 members of five known community contexts (communities of action, circumstance, interest, place, and practice), the authors use cross-case analysis to explore common, transcendent themes of membership. Three takeaways emerge: first, that individuals identify with communities to address personal needs but come to see social benefits; second, that individuals join communities to deepen existing relationships, but develop new ones; and third, that through engagement, individuals strengthen a sense of self that is unique to community context. Through these takeaways, we define community as a reciprocal and emergent system of interactions through which individuals seek to address personal and shared physiological, social, and self-actualizing needs

Empowering Processes of a Countywide Arts Intervention for High School Youth

Arts interventions allow young people to address social problems and oppressive forces that impact their lives. Much research has explained the theory behind arts interventions; less has explored the organizational characteristics that may facilitate empowering processes for intervention consumers. The aim of this research is to contextualize dimensions of organizational empowerment in the context of a countywide arts intervention program. Retrospective, cross-sectional, in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 primary consumers of a countywide arts intervention for high school students. Directed content analysis of the interview data revealed ten emergent themes that transcended the data inductively. Findings support and extend our current understanding of organizational empowerment, as it relates to a countywide arts intervention program. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed

Solidarity and connection: manifestations of social capital among consumers of supportive housing

Supportive housing provides free/reduced-rent and regular access to helping professionals for consumers experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, homelessness. While extant research has explored aspects of consumer social networks, less research has explored consumer social networks derived through the actual housing experience. Through focus groups and in-depth interviews with 34 consumers of a robust housing program, this study attempted to answer the question, “What are the lived, relational experiences of supportive housing consumers, as derived through supportive housing itself?” Directed content analysis and three domains of social capital (bonding, linking, and bridging) helped identify seven emergent themes (idyllic communities, mutual support, communities of circumstance, generalized distrust, independence, empowerment, and volunteerism). Implications include the following: (1) the need for policymakers to invest more resources into homelessness prevention for populations like foster care alumni and adults with serious mental illness, (2) the need for practitioners to respect supportive housing spaces and the roles that consumers play for each other, and (3) the need for future research to explore the long-term tangible and intangible outcomes of supportive housing