A Study On The Psychological Structure And Dimensionality Of Community Attachment Of Urban Resident

The conception of “community ”was came up with for the first time by German sociologist Ferdinand Tunnies in his book of 《Community and Society》 which published in 1887.He indicated that the community is a social organization which has a close relationship human interestand composed by the people who share the same custom and value.With the deepening of the community research,the scholars of different countries and different schools hold different definitions on "community".Chinese scholars Zang Kenan defined "community" as “Communities are concentrated in certain geographical areas connected to each other,and mutual exchanges of people formed with common character of relatively independent regional social life”The rising of community research is an outcome of social reality that aims at solving the social problems.The social transformation and social problems caused by the two industrial revolutions in history promoted the study of community research in sociology.In 1930 s,the Chicago School of the United States pushed the community research to a climax.Since then,sociologists’ research on community attachment has formed three theories: The Community Lost,the Community Saved,and the Community Liberated.In 1980 s,the community research in China was truly started under the implementation of China’s reform and opening up in which the social and economic system was improved,leading to the transformation of social structure.In this process,"unit",as the original basic cell in society began to disintegrate and reconstruct and the social functions like protection,integration and regulation previously assumed by unit were gradually shifting to the grassroots society.Pushed by the government,a community construction movement that mainly focused on the community service and grassroots social management rose in China,attracted great attentions from both government and the academic circles.The research on community attachment can provide theoretical support for community governance and social construction.In this paper,after a review of the former research literature about the community attachment by the scholars in China,the author finds that the general level of research on community attachment is relative superficial,the research method is single and they lack of consensus on the basic issues related to community attachment.In view of the above-mentioned conditions,I consider that it is necessary to make a deep and exquisite research on community attachment by adopting a new research method.This study explores the psychological structure and dimensionality of community attachment of urban resident with qualitative method.7 urban residents participated this research though depth interview,researcher coded their interview data under the lead of grounded theory.Though the coding scheme,this study found the psychological structure and dimensionality of community attachment of urban resident.After the coding for data datum,this study finally formed the psychological structure and dimensionality of community attachment of urban resident:(1)Situation of move out,mainly reflected in the willingness to move out from the current community and the psychological feelings after moved out from the current community.(2)Good community atmosphere,mainly embodied in the resident want to build a good relationships with their neighbors,to help each other,to become solidarity and cooperation,to put community first.(3)The cognition for community,mainly refers in the understanding to the conception and view of community residents.(4)Attitude towards community affairs,mainly including disregard,indifferent,positive attention and want to make a contribution to the community.(5)The consciousness to regard community as a family,regarding the community as a haven and a big family,to regard themselves as the host of this place,and the maintenance for this big family.These dimensions can be the measurement index for the community attachment of urban resident.At the same time,this research found that community attachment could be influenced by many factors,for example,the length of residence,interpersonal support,community activity and so on.Moreover,this study shows that the community attachment of urban resident is low at present time.According the result of this research,the implication of community attachment is an intricate emotion of resident to their community which is built through thrie experience live in the community,this intricate emotion including: belonging to their own community in identity,acceptance to the community,building their own relation network in community,making practical action to express their acceptance to the community,and building the emotional attachment to their community.The characteristics of community attachment of urban resident are: diversity and complexity in content,different phases,culture-specific and stabilization.Comparing with the abroad community attachment,this research finds the ‘awareness of family’ is a local element of our national community attachment.It may be a new penetration for the next congeneric research.