Rebuilding Communities in an Age of Individualism

Rebuilding Communities in an Age of Individualism
Author: Paul Hopper
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351906259

As modern societies become increasingly individualistic, this fascinating book examines how we can maintain and revive local communities and community life. It demonstrates how the major developments and processes of our time, notably globalization, post-industrialism and de-traditionalization, contribute to this individualism to the detriment of community life. The author examines how community is a necessary and important component of human life and discusses possible ways in which to arrest its decline. In this regard, strategies geared to fostering trust and social capital are outlined as the basis for reinvigorating community life. The volume provides a coherent and distinct analysis of community as well as offering concrete policy prescriptions to counter the excessive individualism of our times. In both the nature and scope of its analysis, it offers a unique contribution to an extremely important issue in the contemporary period, one that increasingly preoccupies politicians, academics and ordinary citizens.

Individualism in the United States

Individualism in the United States
Author: Stephanie M. Walls
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2015-02-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1623566711

"A comprehensive look at the foundations, and current state of individualism in the US, including an assessment of the implications for American democracy and citizenship"--

Pastoral Care in Worship

Pastoral Care in Worship
Author: Neil Pembroke
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2010-01-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 056733144X

Pastoral Care in Worship draws on Christian heritage and illuminating psychological research to deepen and enrich the pastoral dimension of Sunday worship.

Understanding Community

Understanding Community
Author: Peter Somerville
Publisher: Policy Press
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2011
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1847423922

Understanding community is a highly topical text offering a clear understanding of policy and theory in relation to community. By examining areas of government policy, such as economic development, education, health, housing, and community safety, this book explores the difficulties that communities face and discusses new concepts such as community cohesion, social capital and community capacity building. Somerville challenges our understanding of community, both social and conceptual, and assesses the strengths and limitations of this understanding. This book is essential for students studying social policy, social work and sociology, and an invaluable resource for policymakers in community development, urban regeneration and allied fields.

Social Care Practice in Rural Communities

Social Care Practice in Rural Communities
Author: Brian Cheers
Publisher: Federation Press
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2007
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 9781862876361

This book addresses the challenge of providing good social care to the more than 6 million people who live in rural Australia, some in very remote locations. It emphasises the importance of a developmental approach which stresses proper planning, evidence-based policy, and the influence which practitioners can have. The first part of the book explains the processes for developing, implementing, and evaluating policies and social plans, including achieving impact through networking, formal consultations, community development, and lobbying. Part two of the book looks at types of social care and the challenges each present. The types of social care include community-embedded; specialised; statutory; and visiting. The authors devote specific attention to Indigenous communities and, through case studies, provide examples of social care programs in action. The authors have more than 40 years combined experience in rural social work and community development.

Scenes and Communities in the City

Scenes and Communities in the City
Author: Marta Klekotko
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2023-12-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3031434641

​This open access book addresses the problem of creation and reproduction processes of contemporary urban communities, as well as cultural mechanisms and factors of these processes. Rejecting both the environmental determinism, and cultural reductionism of community studies, the book assumes that the postmodern city is a space of diverse urban communities that go far beyond the traditional concept of neighbourhood as well as personal and imagined communities, and thus proposes to comprehend urban community as social practice embedded in urban space. The book applies the Theory of Social Practice and the Theory of Scenes and develops the concept of socio-cultural opportunity structures in order to explain how cultural practices of individuals and symbolic dimensions of territory interact, leading to (re)production of various forms of urban community. It is assumed that culture in general and symbolic meanings of territory in particular, play a crucial role in the process of (re)production of urban communities, that this process takes place in collective cultural consciousness and is mediated by territorially embedded cultural practices of individuals. The book overcomes theoretical gaps in classical community studies and develops a new perspective on urban communal processes based on the analysis of social practices in urban cultural scenes.

Research On Community Construction In Rural China

Research On Community Construction In Rural China
Author: Jiquan Xiang
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 648
Release: 2020-09-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9811208786

Rural community construction is an important topic of study in China. This book examines the development of various construction models, the reasons behind their emergence, and provides analyses based on their characteristics, problems, and trends.It offers insights from a historical perspective, through the study of organizational bases, structural functions, behavioral patterns and their roles in national governance, as well as social systems of rural communities in different periods.This book is also integrated with comparative analyses on urban and rural communities, and comprises of examples from China and other countries, including United States, Japan, South Korea, and more.

A Plague on Both Their Houses

A Plague on Both Their Houses
Author: Christopher Craig Brittain
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2015-07-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567658473

Christopher Craig Brittain offers a wide-ranging examination of specific events within The Episcopal Church (TEC) by drawing upon an analysis of theological debates within the church, field interviews in church congregations, and sociological literature on church conflict. The discussion demonstrates that interpretations describing the situation in TEC as a culture war between liberals and conservatives are deeply flawed. Moreover, the book shows that the splits that are occurring within the national church are not so much schisms in the technical sociological sense, but are more accurately described as a familial divorce, with all the ongoing messy entwinement that this term evokes. The interpretation of the dispute offered by the book also counters prominent accounts offered by leaders within The Episcopal Church. The Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts-Schori, has portrayed some opponents of her theological positions and her approach to ethical issues as being 'fundamentalist', while other 'Progressives' liken their opponents to the Tea Party movement.

Governing Rural Development

Governing Rural Development
Author: Lynda Cheshire
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2016-04-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317125568

In recent decades, the responsibility for initiating regeneration programmes has been placed firmly in the hands of rural communities, with the rationale being that local people are best placed to know their own problems and, consequently, to develop their own solutions. Despite the popularity of this approach, the self-help approach has its own problems and can be seen as an attempt by governments to reduce public spending. This book provides a critical account of the discourses and practices of self-help in contemporary rural development policies of Australia and other western nations. Although it examines the problems of the self-help approach, it moves beyond a straightforward exposition of the impediments to self-help. Instead, taking a Foucauldian governmentality perspective, it puts forward a theoretical analysis of the self-help concept, assessing it as a means of governing rural development in an advanced liberal manner. It argues that self-help should not be regarded as either the empowerment or the abandonment of rural citizens by a shrinking state, but rather the application of new ways of thinking about and acting upon rural development.

The Role of the Arab-Islamic World in the Rise of the West

The Role of the Arab-Islamic World in the Rise of the West
Author: Nayef R.F. Al-Rodhan
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2012-08-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0230393217

This book takes a fascinating look at the role of the Arab-Islamic world in the rise of the West. It examines the cultural transmission of ideas and institutions in a number of key areas, including science, philosophy, humanism, law, finance, commerce, as well as the Arab-Islamic world's overall impact on the Reformation and the Renaissance.