Katelyn Zorek
Collective
Efficacy has a impact on Broken Windows
Albert Banduras concept of collective efficacy builds on
his concept of self-efficacy; both concepts derived from social cognitive
theory which focuses on the notion of human agency which is a person’s feeling
of having the capacity to influence their situation. Collective Efficacy
complements and builds on the concept of self-efficacy. People do not live is social isolation, and nor can they exercise
control over health determinants entirely on their own. Many challenges in life
center on shared problems that require people to work together and to speak
with a collective voice to improve their lives. The strength of families,
communities, organizations, social institutions, or nations lies partly in
people’s sense of collective efficacy that they can solve the problems they
face and improve their lives through unified effort. This goes off of
the broken windows theory because the broken windows theory explains that a
neighborhood is made up of a community that has deteriorated buildings and
graffiti due to the lack of upkeep. No one bothers to fix these windows because
it may seem as if it’s a huge project to get the community back to how it
should be and people get so immune to the “normal” ways of life. The idea of
collective efficacy has been applied to discussions of the health and
well-being of neighborhoods, especially focusing on violent crime levels.
Sampson and colleagues have investigated the relationship between collective
efficacy and health-related problems of communities and neighborhoods. Their
premise is that community contexts need to be treated as “important units of
analysis in their own right,” and that new theoretical frameworks and
measurement strategies are needed which do not analyze neighborhoods based
solely on individuals’ traits. He concluded that health risk factors such as violence, low birth
weight, or child maltreatment can be linked to environmental characteristics of
communities such as poverty, racial and ethnic segregation, family disruption,
residential instability and poor quality housing. When individual risk factors
are controlled, these relationships remain. Sampson presented two concepts:
informal social control (residents’ willingness to intervene when trouble
arises, especially on behalf of the community’s youth); and social cohesion and
trust (residents’ willingness to participate in collective action for the
common good). As with self-efficacy, collective efficacy doesn’t exist in
isolation, but is “embedded in structural contexts and a wider political
economy that stratifies place of residence by key social characteristics.” Of
several neighborhood level variables, collective efficacy was the strongest
predictor of low violent crime rates.
This video is a personal video a guy made about
his thoughts and own personal experiences with collective efficacy.
The second video is of Blindside
Nice blog. I like how you were able to really break down the concepts and make them straightforward to understand. I also liked the links you gave, as they gave both the personal insight in institutions with collective efficacy (as he was talking about education and the challenges that they face, especially how educators should have the ability to help the children, thus bettering the student and further on, society as a whole, and how they deal with issues in the schools) and the broken windows of communities (from Blindside, as seen basically throughout the entirety of the scene). You did a great job of making the argument and giving concrete examples and specific elements of data that support your argument, and the blog in general. However, I would have liked to have seen a more real-world example in broken windows, not just the glamorized version produced by Hollywood, although it does broken windows justice and shows what it is like. Also, I would have liked to have seen some of the studies that you mentioned about controlling for variables and how impactful collective efficacy is in regards to low violence rates. What did they control for? What did they not control for? That would have really hit your argument and points home. Other than that, this is a great post, very straightforward, and you really hit the nail on the head with the terms and how they tie together.
ReplyDeleteI like how you begin with the difference between collective efficacy and individual efficacy. It is actually pretty helpful to see both sides in order to see how they differ on a personal and community level. I like that you come back to talk about broken windows at the end because I was unsure if there was going to be enough information at the beginning to fully understand the concept. I also think that talking about the negative affects of the broken window effect helps for me to understand the consequences other than just the looks of the neighborhood and the potential for growth. It is truly detrimental to their health when their collective efficacy is gone. I like the use of the movie the blind side. I think that it is not realistic to think that you would have a personal experience with the broken window effect or not one that you would want to share. Sometimes it takes a well known example for people to really understand the effects a situation has when we are not directly submerged in it.
ReplyDeleteThis was a really good blog. I like how you compared collective efficacy with the broken windows theory. I like how you explained how the different health factors play into the environmental characteristics in the area. It is not a factor that people think about very much, but in my opinion they go hand in hand in trying to explain the characteristics of the neighborhood. You also made a good point when you talked about how people do not replace the broken windows or clean up the neighborhood because they have gotten so used to that way of life. While I think this may be true for some areas, others may just not have the time or money to clean up their entire neighborhood. In a whole you are right saying that by cleaning up the neighborhood it makes it a better place to live in more ways than one. I also really liked your example using the blind side movie!
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the thought that was put into this blog. Collective efficacy and self efficacy are two concepts that not just anyone can easily grasp. The way we view our communities and their "dis-functionality" is also quite unfortunate. If policy makers spent the same amount of time and money trying to fix these communities as they do discussing how far gone they are, we might actually see some positive change and an a trend in upward economic mobility.
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