COMMUNITYpoor (Sklar 1998). Hull House Maps and Papers,
published in 1895, provides a remarkably detailed
description of the lives and living conditions with-
in Chicago’s ethnic neighborhoods based on the
field research of university students and full-time
residents of Hull House. In fact, the beginnings of
Chicago School sociology were clearly rooted in
the methods if not the concerns of Hull House
social reformers, despite the fact that as women
they were excluded from holding academic ap-
pointments until the creation of the Chicago School
of Civics and Philanthropy in 1907 (Muncy 1991).
In later years, small towns and neighborhoods
within larger towns became a common unit of
analysis as community studies conducted by the
federal Children’s Bureau tried to assess the inci-
dence and causes of infant mortality. The first of
these studies, conducted in Johnstown, Pennsylva-
nia in 1913, was the earliest scientific study of the
incidence of infant mortality by social class, educa-
tion, occupation, and specific living conditions
conducted in the United States (Duke 1915). Re-
form-driven community studies since then have
addressed such social issues as child labor, juvenile
delinquency, education, industrial working condi-
tions, and adequate housing. Although single com-
munities are still used by social reformers as a basis
for broad generalization, such studies are enor-
mously expensive to conduct, often of limited use
for generalization, and altogether less frequent
with the availability of national survey data.
Despite the conceptual ambiguities involved,
the geographically-bounded community (e.g., cen-
sus tract, city ward, resident defined neighbor-
hood) is generally viewed by liberal and conserva-
tive social reformers alike as the critical mediating
social context between the well-being of individu-
als, the effective functioning and stability of fami-
lies, and society at large. Robert Hauser and his
associates identify such factors as the physical
infrastructure, the quality and quantity of neigh-
borhood institutions, the demographic composi-
tion, and the degree of ‘‘social capital’’ present as
measurable aspects of neighborhoods that are
critical to the well-being of children and families
(Hauser, Brown, and Prosser 1997). The concept
of social capital, introduced by James Coleman,
refers to the beneficial normative context that
arises in some neighborhoods based on the social
ties among neighboring households and local in-
stitutions (Coleman 1988). In this vein, Robert
Sampson demonstrates that neighborhoods with
evidence of more social capital are more effective
in inhibiting adolescent delinquency (Sampson,
1997b). Speaking from the opposite perspective of
social disorganization, William Julius Wilson (1987,
1996), and Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton
(1993) emphasize the deleterious effects on the
normative context within communities created by
such macrolevel exogenous factors as economic
restructuring, concentrated poverty, and racial
segregation. A related concern is the extent to
which increased spatial stratification by social class
may be promoting neighborhoods and larger com-
munities, which function as distinct social worlds
with ever more divergent values and opportunity
structures (Massey 1996).Efforts to effect social reform at the communi-
ty level have a long tradition of sentiment, failure,
and mixed success. There are a variety of reasons
for failure, not the least of which is that communi-
ties, like individuals, both mirror and are shaped
by complex exogenous social processes. Contem-
porary issues include conceptual differences in the
measures used for community, the fact that com-
munity effects on individual outcomes are difficult
to isolate and often weaker than popular theory
would suggest (Plotnick and Hoffman 1999; Brooks-
Gunn, Duncan, and Aber 1997), and the limiting
effect of macrolevel processes on community-level
reform efforts (Wallace and Wallace 1990; Halpern
1991). Recent efforts at community-level social
reform have placed more emphasis on under-
standing the unique social context within a target
community before applying social prescriptions
that appear logically appealing or may have worked
elsewhere. For example, David Hawkins and Rich-
ard Catalano, in their work on juvenile drug and
alcohol abuse, focus on a community assessment
process that considers the risk and protective fac-
tors that are unique to each community before
deciding upon specific community-level interven-
tions (Hawkins and Catalano 1992).SOCIAL THEORY AND THE
TRANSFORMATION OF COMMUNITYEvery generation of sociologists since the time of
Durkheim have concerned themselves with the
social transformation and meaning of community
in the face of industrial change and urbanization.