Community : an introduction to a social system

This is a book about community life, designed primarily as a text book for undergraduate courses. It treats the generic characteristics found in all communities, whether large or small, industrial or rural, at home or abroad. At the same time, account is taken of the differ ences among communities due to size, type of occupation, and cul tural heritage. Since the book has been written for those with only an introductory background in sociology, the main stress is upon orientation and the general conceptual framework.

Although attention is given first to a series of social traits, the ulti mate objective is to tie these together so that the student can view the community as a social system made up of human relationships. Such relationships are seen as organized around important cluster ings or focuses which can be thought of as particular systems con veniently named local government, education, the family, religion, and the like. Not only can each such system be studied independ ently, but each can also be related to all other systems to show the part it plays in the total community.

Wide use is made of basic sociological concepts. These are intro duced not for their own sake but because they are needed in the dis cussion of community life. An effort has been made to place these throughout the book as they are required and in such a way as to permit the explanation of the more complex concepts in terms of simpler concepts which have been already introduced.

Each chapter contains at the end a list of references cited in the text. These publications are also suggested as outside reading. Arti cles mentioned have purposely been chosen from the standard so ciological journals which are apt to be found in most college and university libraries; articles in less-well-known periodicals and in foreign journals have thus been omitted, although some of the ideas from such sources occasionally have found their way into the textual material. Cases cited are chiefly from the United States, although an occasional reference to communities abroad is used to illustrate some important point.