Community collective efficacy among Chinese urbanites: an exploratory study
Date
2016
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Collective efficacy has long been a focus for social scientists in Western societies. When applied to community studies, this concept is closely connected with the process of informal social control and social cohesion among community residents. Although the validity of collective efficacy theory has been supported by various studies conducted in different countries, it has rarely been applied to urban communities in non-Western societies like China. Using a large urban sample generated from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) 2012, this study examines the applicability of the collective efficacy measurement proposed by Sampson and colleagues to Chinese urban society. Results of binary logistic regression models suggest that this dominant measurement of collective efficacy that has been widely used in Western society has relatively weak predictive power among Chinese urbanites. Data analyses also show that although primary predictors of urbanites’ perceptions of collective efficacy vary across different community types, residents’ social ties is the most consistent of collective efficacy. The present study thus concludes that a new set of measuring tools that is more relevant to the Chinese context is needed. Future research on Chinese urban communities should pay more attention to the function of social capital in cultivating urban dwellers’ collective efficacy. ☐ Keywords: collective efficacy, urban community, China, influence factors, social ties