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What is community cohesion?

Sustaining positive relationships and neighbourly interaction whilst tackling social exclusion, empowering of local people, and building feelings of trust, safety and belonging that can promote shared common values and norms of behaviour.

Below is a community cohesion framework which features different elements at multiple levels. This framework has been applied to the school setting in the North West Cohesion in Schools training package.

NWCiS framework.png

Adapted from Jackson Taft, L., Woods, K., & Ford, A. (2020). Educational psychology service contribution to community cohesion: an appreciative inquiry. Educational Psychology in Practice, 36(1), 1–16.

DEFINITIONS

  • Participation: The action of taking part in something

  • Belonging: The feeling of being accepted and approved by a group or society as a whole

  • Resilience: The process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences

  • Positive intergroup contact: Positive interaction among people form different social groups

  • Global conflict education: Educating about large-scale conflict which causes wide-ranging impact, e.g., war

  • Challenging prejudice: Challenging negative attitudes held towards another person or group that are formed in advance of any experience of that person or group

  • Healthy relationships: Relationships between people that have a positive impact on both parties

  • Restorative practice: Processes that aim to improve and repair relationships between people

  • Conflict resolution: Strategies to reduce discord/friction between individuals or groups

  • Mindfulness: intentionally and non-judgementally paying attention in a particular way in the present moment

  • Metacognitive: The awareness of one's own learning or thought processes

  • Critical/flexible thinking: Being open to thinking about things in a different way, whilst analysing and evaluating an issue/information to make a judgement

  • Cognitive: Relating to conscious intellectual activity, e.g., thinking, reasoning, remembering

  • Emotional regulation: The management of emotions

  • Affective: Related to emotions or feelings

  • Extremism: The holding of 'extreme' views

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