Sense Of Community Engagement Research Articles

The Concept and Application of Social Capital in Health, Education and Employment: A Scoping Review

The term social capital has been conceptualized and applied in different fields with different controversial connotations and impacts. Due to the variation in the conceptualization and operationalization of the subject, understanding the application of social capital in education, health, and employment remains incomplete. Thus, the purpose of this study is to provide a thorough review of the concept and application of social capital in health, education, and employment using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) guidelines. Findings from the review reveal that the conceptualization of social capital is multidimensional in each context, with common underlining constructs such as social networks, connections, and a sense of community engagement in all three areas of health, education, and employment. Few reviews in the context of health and education extend social capital conceptualization to include trust, reciprocity, the interlinking of physical structure and social structure, and social cohesion. Furthermore, the conclusive consensus is that social capital leads to positive impacts on health outcomes, though negative outcomes may also be expected through behavioural contagion. The review found a bidirectional relationship between social capital and education. The findings for employment outcomes vary from country to country depending on the methodology used and the strength of social capital, with most studies finding a positive relationship with employment. Additionally, operationalizing social capital may benefit from both quantitative and qualitative methods, therefore, further studies using qualitative approaches to social capital may be especially helpful to understand what social capital means to people. It is also worth noting that the application of social capital is mainly within the context of developed countries; hence, further studies in the context of developing countries on the different types and impacts of social capital are recommended.

Consumer Engagement in Online Brand Communities: Community Values, Brand Symbolism and Social Strategies

Aim/Purpose: This study examines the kind of community value companies should provide when strengthening the relationship between customers and brands through the establishment of an online brand community, and how this kind of community value promotes customers’ sense of community engagement and willingness to spread brand reputation. The paper also discusses how an enterprise’s brand symbolism affects the relationship between community value and customers’ engagement in online brand community. This study explored the important role of brand symbolism in the establishment of an online brand community. Background: Many companies want to create online brand communities to strengthen their relationships with consumers as well as to provide better service and value to consumers, for example, Huawei’s Huafen community (club.huawei.com), Apple’s support community (support.apple.com/zh-cn), and Samsung’s Galaxy community (samsungmembers.cn). However, these brand communities may have different interests and consumer engagement about the kind of community value to offer to their customers. Methodology: This study uses data collection from questionnaire surveys to design a quantitative research method. An online questionnaire survey of mobile phone users in China was conducted to collect data on social value, cognitive value, brand symbolism, customer community engagement, and brand recommendation. The brands of mobile phone include Apple, Huawei, Samsung, OPPO, VIVO, MI, and Meizu. The researcher purchased a sample service of WJX, an online survey company (www.wjx.cn), and WJX company distributed the questionnaire to research participants. The WJX company randomly selected 240 subjects from their sample database and then sent the questionnaire link to research participants’ mobile phones. Among the 240 research participants, the researcher excluded participants who lacked online brand community experience or had invalid data to qualify for data collection. After the researcher excluded participants who did not qualify for data collection, only 203 qualified questionnaire surveys advanced to the data collection and analysis phase, which was the questionnaire recovery rate of 84.58%. For the model analysis and hypotheses testing, the researcher used statistical software IBM SPSS Statistics and AMOS 21 and Smartpls3. Contribution: This study deepens the body of literature knowledge by combining online brand community value and brand symbolic value to explore issues that companies should consider when establishing an online brand community for their products and services. This study confirms that brands with high symbolic value establish communities and strengthen social values in the online brand community rather than reducing brand symbolism. Online brand community involves a horizontal interaction (peer interaction) among peers, which can have an effect on the symbolic value of brand (social distance). Findings: First, online brand community value (both cognitive and social value) has a positive impact on customer community engagement. Second, customer community engagement has a positive impact on customers’ brand recommend intention. Third, the customer community engagement is a mediator between the online brand community value and the customer brand recommend intention. Most importantly, fourth, the symbolic value of the brand controls the relationship between community value and customer community engagement. For brands with high symbolic value, the community value should emphasize cognitive value rather than social value. For brands with a low symbolic value, the community provides cognitive or social value, which is not affected by the symbolism of the brand. Recommendations for Practitioners: Practitioners can share best practices with the corporate sectors. Brand owners can work with researchers to explore the characteristics of their online brand communities. On this basis, brand owners and researchers can jointly build and manage online brand communities. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers can explore different perspectives and factors of brand symbolism that involve brand owners when establishing an online brand community to advance consumer engagement, community value, and brand symbolism. Impact on Society: Online brand community is relevant for brand owners to establish brand symbolism, community value, and customer engagement. Readers of this paper can gain an understanding that cognitive and social values are two important drivers of individual participation in online brand communities. The discussion of these two factors can give readers and brand owners the perception to gain more understanding on social and behavior activities in online brand communities. Future Research: Practitioners and researchers could follow-up in the future with a study to provide more understanding and updated research information from different perspectives of research samples and hypotheses on online brand community.

A story to tell… How to integrate the three Modes of Communication through a story time program in French

Bilingual story time programs found in local community libraries not only benefit children, they can also serve a need for L2 college students: the development of their communicative skills in an authentic environment. In addition to linguistic benefits, experiential learning has proven to prepare students for real-world skills, such as networking, mock professional experience and a sense of community engagement. This paper recounts how a world language story time program supports L2 learners’ three modes of communication, as articulated by ACTFL, and necessary for language development. Based on students’ perceptions, this study highlights their increase in motivation and confidence in L2 usage, and lays out the organization of such a program.

Making Connections: Service-Learning in Introductory Cell and Molecular Biology

This report describes service-learning in a first-year majors biology course in which students serve throughout the semester with community partners for an average of 25 hours/student. All of the partnerships are based on providing engaging hands-on biology activities for youth in underserved urban areas surrounding the campus. Students in the course have designed new lessons and activities, supported biology labs, mentored younger students, and facilitated afterschool science clubs. Throughout the course, integration between the students’ service experience in the community and their learning in the course is emphasized. This is accomplished in multiple ways including class discussion, group activities, feedback from the instructor and teaching assistant, and weekly blogs. A three-year average of anonymous university-wide course evaluations suggested that students in this service-learning course considered their biology course to be highly rigorous. In both blogs and anonymous surveys students reported that their service and its integration with the course not only advanced their professional skills and sense of community engagement, but also enhanced their learning in biology.