Community: Sociological Concepts: Introduction and Characteristics of Community

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Introduction

  • Bogardus said “Community is a social group with some degree of we- feeling and living in a given area.”
  • In a wide sense, community means association or group and it refers to the entire humanity
  • It is a naturally created organization
  • The objectives are common but not specific
  • Man is born in community
  • Community is integral
Illustration: Introduction
  • It can have within its boundary various associations.
  • Community is concrete.
  • The two main basis of community are locality and community sentiment.
  • It includes social relationships and it also includes various associations and institutions.

Characteristics of Community

Territorial Group

  • It always occupies some fixed geographical area.
  • The physical basis of community is locality and it is the basic factor of community life.

Community Sentiment

  • There should be we-feeling and awareness of sharing of way of life.
  • The feeling of belonging together should be there .
  • The members of the community should be aware that they are staying together and sharing common interest.
  • They have a common sense of identification awareness sense of living and sharing, common culture, history or background.

Size of the Community

it can be big or small the term community is used in a ‘relative’ sense.

Development of Relations

  • every community develops a system of traditions, customs, rules and regulations to regulate the relationship among the members in the community.
  • Cooperation
  • Community is smaller than society: agreement is more important than difference.
  • Common interests and objectives are there.
  • Individuals become members of the community by birth therefore membership is kind of compulsory.
  • Community as general interest is marked by geographical area.
  • It is relatively stable and permanent.
  • It has no legal status.
  • It helps in regulating the behaviours of the members by customs traditions.
  • It has no written rules or law.

MCQs

1. A ________ is a collection of individuals two or more, interacting with each other, who have some common objects of attention and participate in similar activities.

  1. community
  2. social group
  3. organization
  4. Aggregate

Ans. B. Social Group

2. Which of the following is not a feature of community?

  1. Specific locality
  2. Historical heritage
  3. A social, religious, occupational or other groups sharing common characteristics
  4. Small patches of localities spread over many areas

Ans. D. Small patches of localities spread over many areas

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Manishika