THE ESTABLISHMENT AND ANALYSES OF THE SOCIAL NETWORK OF PARTICIPANTS IN CHILD-FRIENDLY COMMUNITY BUILDING — A CASE OF THE KIDS’ GARDENS IN YUCAI NO. 3 PRIMARY SCHOOL IN CHANGSHA, HUNAN PROVINCE

Abstract

Introducing the case of the Kids’ Gardens in Yucai No. 3 Primary School in Changsha City, Hunan Province, this study established sociograms upon the contact-frequency-based network with UCINET to systematically analyze the characteristics of different participants in the process of the childfriendly community building and the varying pattern of all social relations, aiming at addressing problems emerging in public participation and multi-stakeholder collaboration in Chinese mainland. It was found that by bonding stakeholders including citizens, the government and party organizations, universities, and public institutions and enterprises, this practice encouraged the school — as a community — to leverage its internal resources. The school finally overcame the organizational inertia and achieved independent operation and growth during the process of community building. The study also demonstrated that the social network of participants was developed and defined with both independent and dependent modes from an overall perspective, of which the former characterized for its dominant internal ties and a dense tree-like hierarchical management structure might be more efficient. From a participant perspective, the brokerage roles in key nodes were critical to the community building. Finally, spatial design strategies, including enhancing the spatial affordance to serve diverse activities, space zoning and allocation, offering “half-done” spaces, and phased development, were provided for similar community building practice.