Young People’s Development of the Community-Minded Self

Abstract

This chapter considers a young person's perceptions of and experiences in the residential community and how these might contribute to the maturation of a community-minded self. The discussion is guided by an integration of perspectives from social, environmental, developmental and community psychology. The discussion of social identity and self-categorization theories suggests how place identity, an environmental psychology concept, becomes a contextual aspect of self-identity development. Sense of community and community attachment are described as concepts that capture the community experiences and relationships that foster community identity as an aspect of self-identity through processes of social cohesion and social identity. In addition to proposing theoretical links between these concepts, supportive findings from community studies with adolescents are reviewed, along with the challenges and possibilities of creating a lifespan perspective of how people come to identify with community. The overall aims of the chapter are to make the case that adolescents should not be omitted from our research on residential community phenomena, and to encourage future investigations by reviewing relevant theoretical and empirical literature and describing challenges and possibilities for the field.