SEGREGATED WORLDVIEWS:



SEGREGATED WORLDVIEWS:

How Segregated Neighborhoods Could Sabotage the Valley’s Ability to Solve Pressing Regional Problems

Neighborhood organizers seek to unite broad coalitions to address pressing social problems, but they must overcome the barrier of neighborhood segregation. The neighborhood in which community leaders reside shapes their worldviews. These segregated worldviews can sabotage community organizers’ efforts to build broad-based community-wide coalitions.

In an effort to discern major actionable issues that would be supported by a broad base of community leaders and constituents, the Relational Culture Institute (RCI)—a nonprofit organization working with faith-based and other community organizations in the South San Joaquin Valley to improve the quality of life for the region—with funding support from the James Irvine Foundation, carried out interview research with community leaders in Visalia (n=74) and Bakersfield (n=89) from August to November 2006.

The interview instrument and protocol were prepared and piloted by David Lighthall, Ph.D., and Yolanda Barba with input from Keith Bergthold and others. Nine interviewers received training and compensation for interviews completed. Interviewees’ responses were noted in a spreadsheet document and accessed for data analysis using SPSS and N-Vivo. RCI contracted with the Social Science Research Lab at California State University, Fresno to perform qualitative and quantitative data analysis and produce written reports summarizing the findings. Matthew Jendian, Ph.D., and Timothy Kubal, Ph.D., Research Associates with the Social Science Research Lab performed the analyses under the supervision of lab director Edward Nelson, Ph.D.

Using qualitative and quantitative data analysis on the data collected, researchers sought to explain the variation in respondent’s views about the problems and solutions for issues facing their community. Several variables, predicted to have some influence, did not reveal statistically significant associations with respondents’ views: respondent’s gender, their length of residence in the valley, their length of job tenure, and their organization type. When accounting for variation in respondent’s views, the only statistically significant variable was the income type of the neighborhood in which the respondent resided. This led to the central finding of segregated worldviews among community leaders in Visalia and Bakersfield based on the respondent’s neighborhood income type—mixed, low, middle, or upper. Four segregated worldviews are prevalent: quality of life, problems, solutions, and rationales.

Quality of Life

Quality of life is one of the most important segregated worldviews.

In Visalia, a near majority of respondents (49%) viewed the City of Visalia’s quality of life as improving.  While only 2% responded that the quality of life was declining, 33% responded that there were “serious problems, but they were being addressed.” Visalia respondents living in the upper income neighborhoods were more critical of the community’s quality of life. Positive statements that Visalia was “A city with a high quality of life that is on the upswing” were highest among respondents from low-income neighborhoods (75% agreed) and lowest among respondents from upper income neighborhoods (only 18% agreed). Conversely, negative statements that Visalia was “A city facing serious problems that are starting to be addressed” were most likely expressed by community leaders from upper income neighborhoods (45% agreed), and least likely among those from mixed income (25%) and low income (18%) neighborhoods.

In Bakersfield, the majority of respondents (46%) viewed the City of Bakersfield’s quality of life as improving.  Only 3% of all respondents believed the quality of life in their community was declining. However, this was also a segregated worldview, with 100% of respondents expressing this view coming from the middle and upper income neighborhoods. Twenty-three percent of all respondents said there were “serious problems, but they were being addressed.” This view, too, was segregated; 86% of respondents from low-income neighborhoods agreed, while only 21% from upper income neighborhoods agreed. The most optimistic assessment of the community’s quality of life—“that the city was on an upswing”—was also segregated. Fifteen percent from the middle income, 11% from upper income, and 0% from the low-income neighborhoods agreed.

Problems

Another important segregated worldview involves different assumptions about the most important community problem.

In Visalia, respondents living in lower-income neighborhoods predominantly identified the environment (40%) as the most important problem facing the city.  Respondents living in mixed-income neighborhoods identified jobs and economic development (24%) as the most important problem.  Respondents living in middle- and upper-income neighborhoods most frequently identified jobs and economic development (19%) as the most important problem. 

In Bakersfield, 43% of respondents living in lower income neighborhoods identified the environment as the most pressing problem, while the environment was the most important problem to only 21% of respondents from upper income neighborhoods and 10% of respondents from middle-income neighborhoods. Eleven percent of respondents from upper income groups identified health as the number one problem, but 0% from mixed and low-income groups identified health as the most pressing problem. Twenty-one percent of respondents from upper income neighborhoods identified education as the most pressing problem, while 12% from middle income, 13% from mixed income, and 0% from low income chose education as the most pressing problem.

Solutions

In Visalia, the overwhelming majority (62.4%) of respondents felt that the problem was being addressed “somewhat, but insufficiently.”  Nearly 18% of respondents felt the problem was being addressed “effectively, but there is a way to go.” This was the most optimistic response choice, and it unveiled segregated worldviews; 50% of those from poor neighborhoods agreed, while all other neighborhood groups had no more than 28% agreeing with the optimistic assessment of solutions. Conversely, 15.3% of all respondents felt the problem was “not being addressed at all or very poorly.” This was the most pessimistic response choice and it unveiled segregated worldviews. From upper income neighborhoods, only 8% agreed with the pessimistic response, while 18% from mixed income neighborhoods and 16% from middle-income neighborhoods agreed with the pessimistic statement about solutions.

In Bakersfield, the majority (52.8%) of respondents felt that the major problem was being addressed “somewhat, but insufficiently.” Eighty-eight percent of respondents from upper income neighborhoods agreed with this statement, as did 65% from mixed income neighborhoods.  Nearly 13% of all respondents felt the problem was “not being addressed at all or very poorly.” This pessimistic response was most likely among respondents from mixed income neighborhoods (22% agreed) and least likely among respondents from upper income neighborhoods (12% agreed). Conversely, 23.6% of all respondents agreed with the optimistic view that problems were being addressed “effectively, but there is a way to go.” These optimistic views were most likely among respondents from middle-income neighborhoods (32% agreed) and least likely among those from low-income neighborhoods (0% agreed).

Rationales

Why do community leaders take action and devote their lives to their cause; why is their work important, and which problems are core issues that shape all others? Understanding rationales can help answer these types of foundational questions. Rationales provide the explanation for behavior, so that rationales that are widely shared provide an opportunity to unite people, while segregated, divisive rationales will likely be less successful at uniting disparate populations.

In Visalia, of the ten main rationales, none appeared in only one neighborhood type. It was common for rationales to be shared, but it was uncommon for them to be widely shared. In Visalia, only four rationales were mentioned by people in all four neighborhood groups: education, environment, public safety, and political power. These represent the least divisive rationales. The remaining top six rationales were shared among fewer than four neighborhood groups, making them relatively more divisive rationales: housing, jobs, private or personal problems, sprawl, urban transportation, and youth.

In Bakersfield, of the ten main rationales, none appeared in only one neighborhood type. It was common for rationales to be shared, but it was uncommon for them to be widely shared. Only four rationales were mentioned by people in all four neighborhood groups: education, poverty, housing, and public safety. These represent the least divisive rationales. The remaining top six rationales were shared among fewer than four neighborhood groups, making them relatively more divisive rationales: jobs, private or personal problem, sprawl, youth, environment, and health.

Conclusion

Our quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data collected from 163 interviews with community leaders in Visalia and Bakersfield suggests that segregated neighborhoods provide an important and often-unacknowledged impediment to coalition building. Community organizers seek to build coalitions across boundaries of difference, but the analysis presented here suggests that a major barrier to coalition building is not the obvious differences of gender or organization, but rather the major barriers are rooted in differences created by residential segregation. While differences can be an important strength for social groups, unacknowledged differences such as segregated worldviews present a potent threat that could sabotage the South San Joaquin Valley’s community organizers in their attempts to build coalitions that solve pressing social problems.

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