understanding community

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

$GRASSROOTS:$

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  * 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^^

$Influence$ - refers to the ^^sense of having importance or of feeling valued^^
$Integration and fulfillment of needs$ - 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.
$Shared emotional connection$ - 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