Abstract: The concept of social organization provides an important framework for understanding families in the
context of communities and focuses our attention on norms, networks, and associated processes that typify community life. We discuss the significance of community for understanding family outcomes, discuss challenges in defining community context, define social organization and feature several of its associated components and their
linkages, and assess research designs that inform the study of social organization. We conclude by suggesting implications for theory (elaborating social organization community processes), research (incorporating designs and measures that reflect collective processes), and practice (maximizing effects generated by informal and resmi networks
in communities).
Community context factors, including transactions
with other families and institutions, are significant
elements in understanding and strengthening families. The work of family science scholars increasingly
recognizes that families are surrounded by community forces that influence both their everyday life
experiences and their individual and collective life trajectories. Teachman and Crowder (2002) evidence
a central aim of exploiting rather than simply trying
to control contextual noise in family functioning
models. Sprey (2000) notes that layered approaches
to human sociability provide a level of understanding
otherwise unattained, and Scanzoni (2001) calls
for a ‘‘reconnection’’—linking households and communities via small household social support networks
at the neighborhood level.
Family life practitioners are finding increasing
leverage in strengthening families through communitycentered interventions. These interventions range
from the community-building efforts of Family
Service America to strengthen families (Sviridoff &
Ryan, 1997) to the promotion of community capacity
in the U.S. Air Force as a strategy for preventing
family violence (Bowen, Martin, & Nelson, 2002).
Family program professionals increasingly are working with community members as allies in support
of families and are mobilizing families to exert
greater control over their own lives (Chaskin, Brown,
Venkatesh, & Vidal, 2001; Doherty & Carroll,
2002). Turner (1998) contends that practitioners are
rediscovering the ‘‘Holy Grail’’ of community,
and Sampson (2002) uses the term elixir when describing the promise some see in community-oriented
interventions.
Community context should have a more prominent place in thinking about families. However,
greater elaboration is needed in the conceptualization and measurement of community-level processes
as independent variables in family research.