The community — a major environmental influence

Abstract

A community is made up of people who have things in common. They share the same environment, have similar life patterns, a common identity, a pattern of social intercourse and are organised into a social and political unity. The individual is both a product of the community and its culture as well as the maker of his society and culture.¹ The individual assumes the social attitudes and values of the social group or community to which he belongs. These attitudes and values are brought to bear on the social and other problems which confront the community and which may arise during the execution of projects or joint community efforts. The individual and his family thus enter into a special set of social relations with all the other individuals in the community. These relationships are based on kinship and clan, social groupings, power sharing, religious and political affiliations and so on. The most powerful of these relationships is determined by the day-to-day participation and communicative interactions of individuals. Through this process of interaction the individual and the family organise the attitudes and values of others into group attitudes to which all subscribe. The group attitudes thus become a reflection of the general pattern of social behaviour of the group. Out of this pattern of behaviour arises the social order in the community and often its class structure.