This document discusses different definitions and traditions of understanding the concept of community. It provides several definitions of community from various sociological perspectives, including community as a social group that shares a common territory, interests, and sense of belonging. It also outlines four traditions for analyzing communities: 1) the complete community which views communities holistically, 2) the community of limited liability which focuses on neighborhoods and considers sentiments of local residents, 3) the community as a status group based on prestige rather than geography, and 4) personal communities based on shared interests rather than location.

1. COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
SOLIDARITY CITIZENSHIP LEADERSHIP

2. CHAPTER 1: THE CONCEPT OF
COMMUNITY

3. A. WHAT IS A COMMUNITY?

4. The community is one of the sociology's oldest and most
enduring objects of study and research. Emile Durkheim
(1858-1917) and Max Weber (1864-1920) defined and shaped
the concept of community from the scientific point of view.
For most of us, "community is synonymous with
belongingness, togetherness, camaraderie and similar state of
peaceful social relations. Community, from the sociological
standpoint, is a social group with a common territorial base.
Those who are in that group share interests and have a sense
of belonging to the group. I came from Candelaria, Quezon
and so I share the interests of those who came from that town
and I am proudly a Quezonian.

5. Pramila Aggarwal (2006) of George Brown College, Toronto,
Canada describes the community as a social organization that
is considered fundamental to society such as, village or
religious sect. They are often regarded as natural grouping
based on ties of shared blood, language, history, territory and
especially, culture.

6. AGGARWAL (2006) FURNISHES US
WITH SEVERAL DEFINITIONS OF
COMMUNITY:

7. » Clusters of individual lives make-up communities, societies,
and cultures. To understand some of the complexities,
complications, and confusions within the life of just one
member of a community are to gain insights into the
collective (Coles and Knowles, 2001);
» For Bill Lee (1992), community is simply a group of people
who have something in common;

8. » For the Greeks, it means "fellowship, that is, a group of
people who come together for mutual support and to fulfill
their basic needs.
» Boothroyd (1990) sees community as a human system of
more than two people in which the members interact
personally over time, in which behavior and activity are
guided by collectively-evolved norms or collective
decisions, and from which members may freely secede."

9. » It is a collection of people who have become aware of some
problem or some broad goal, who have gone through a
process of learning about themselves and their
environment, and have formulated a group objective"
(Roberts, 1979),

10. Sometimes, the word community is used to describe an
organization or institution, such as the workplace, a school or
college/university to imply a common spatial bond (Mapuan
Community, La Sallian Community, a community of
engineers/architects, a farming community). There are times
that we use the term community to talk about people who
have shared a common characteristic such as religion, caste, or
language (The Catholic Community, Jesus is Lord Community,
the Filipino-speaking community).

11. B. THE FOUR TRADITIONS

12. 1. In the first tradition, the complete community,
collectivities based in size from villages to metropolis- es are
analyzed holistically. We observe the functional relations
between the parts of the communi- ty and the community as
a whole. The theory that entities in nature cannot be broken
down into their parts and cannot be analyzed as mere sums of
the parts is called holism. This theory upholds that the entity
can be analyzed only as whole with its distinctive properties.

13. 2. The second tradition, the community of limited liability
focuses on neighborhoods and similar areas. of larger
communities; it considers the sentiments and motivations of
people living in the neighborhood. This tradition recognizes
the tendency for human beings to form communities within
communities.

14. 2. The second tradition, the community of limited liability focuses on
neighborhoods and similar areas. of larger communities; it considers
the sentiments and motivations of people living in the neighborhood.
This tradition recognizes the tendency for human beings to form
communities within communities. This tradition teaches that when
populations reach a certain size and density, human needs, such as
intimacy, familiarity and friendship go unfulfilled. The Filipino
community in Rome became so big that somehow affected the
intimacy of people coming from different parts of the Philippines The
natural action is to look for a priest who can speak their language,
invite people who came from the same province, and form their
community, though, they still consider themselves as members of the
Filipino community. Hence, there is a development of smaller
community groups within the larger unit.

15. 3. The third tradition of the community as society examines various
groups for whom prestige or moral worth or both are in some way
important. The prominence of the dimension of prestige has led some
social scientist to analyze these communities as status communities.
Status groups often provide the familiarity, intimacy, and friendships
found in communities of limited liability, but its uniqueness is being
independent of a geographic location, Membership is not limited by
those coming from the same region or province.

16. 4. If the attention is directed to communes. and to certain
organizations which have a sense of community, then its studies fall K
OF C under the personal community tradition. A geographic location
is more apparent in the personal community than in the community as
a society. The basis here is one of the shared personal interests in which
prestige or moral worth, if an issue at all, is of minor importance.
Examples are fraternal orders, amateur and hobbyist groups (Knights of
Columbus, Camera Club of the Philippines, Batangas Mountaineering
Society).

17. ACTIVITY #1
EXPLAIN THE QUOTATION BELOW AND
TELL WHAT IS THE CONNECTION OF IT
TO OUR LESSON IN KNOWING THE
COMMUNITY.

18. “IT IS AN ABSOLUTE HUMAN CERTAINTY
THAT NO ONE CAN KNOW HIS OWN BEAUTY
OR PERCEIVE A SENSE OF HIS OWN WORTH
UNTIL IT HAS BEEN REFLECTED BACK TO
HIM IN THE MIRROR OF ANOTHER LOVING,
CARING HUMAN BEING.”
JOHN JOSEPH POWELL, THE SECRET OF STAYING IN LOVE