Transforming Individual Civic Engagement into Community Collective Action: The Role of Bonding Social Capital

• In Event: 147 - Regular Session. Community

Abstract

Collective action is a process by which individuals linked by a common goal engage in cooperative activities in order to affect socio-political change. Collective action takes a variety of forms including protests, sit-ins, and marches, and can address a wide swath of social justice issues. However, research on the mechanisms by which collective action takes place is still developing. Utilizing a national sample of urban neighborhood residents within seven cities, this paper examines the role of neighborhood racial homogeneity as a potential moderator of the relationship between bonding social capital and collective action. Specifically, we utilized multilevel modeling (MLM) and included a neighborhood level indicator – neighborhood racial homogeneity – to understand the relationship between individual level bonding social capital and collective action. Overall, the results reveal a complex relationship between bonding social capital, and neighborhood homogeneity on the outcome variable of collective action. This paper reveals a positive relationship between bonding social capital and collective action (at Level-1), which was by neighborhood racial homogeneity (at Level-2) wherein more homogeneous neighborhoods enhanced the relationship between bonding social capital and collective action. Interestingly, this paper also demonstrated a non-hypothesized direct relationship between neighborhood homogeneity and collective action where residents in more heterogeneous neighborhoods perceived greater levels of collective action among their neighbors. As such, adopting varying strategies when engaging communities that differ with regard to racial heterogeneity may enhance collective action.

Authors

• Charles R. Collins, University of Washington-Bothell

• Zachary Neal, Michigan State University

• Jennifer Watling Neal, Michigan State University