Collective Efficacy—Chicago Neighborhood Study
Sampson‚ Raudenbush & Earls‚ 1997
Social Control
1. If a group of neighborhood children were skipping school and hanging out on a street corner‚ how likely is it that your neighbors would do something about it?
2. If some children were spray-painting graffiti on a local building‚ how likely is it that your neighbors would do something about it?
3. If there was a fight in front of your house and someone was being beaten or threatened‚ how likely is it that your neighbors would break it up?
4. If a child was showing disrespect to an adult‚ how likely is it that people in your neighborhood would scold that child?
5. Suppose that because of budget cuts the fire station closest to your home was going to be closed down by the city. How likely is it that neighborhood residents would organize to try to do something to keep the fire station open?
Social Cohesion
6. People around here are willing to help their neighbors.
7. This is a close-knit neighborhood.
8. People in this neighborhood can be trusted.
9. People in this neighborhood generally don’t get along with each other.
10. People in this neighborhood do not share the same values
- informal socialcontrol
- social cohesion
This instrument can be found on pages 324-325 of Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes‚ Behaviors‚ and Influences Among Youths: A Compendium of Assessment Tools‚ available online at: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/YV_Compendium.pdf
Point values are assigned as follows:
Social Control
Very likely = 5
Likely = 4
Neither likely nor unlikely = 3
Unlikely = 2
Very unlikely = 1
Social Cohesion
Strongly agree = 5
Agree = 4
Neither agree = 3
Disagree = 2
Strongly disagree = 1
Items 9 and 10 are reverse coded. Point values for all responses are summed. Intended range is 10-50‚ with higher scores indicating higher levels of perceived collective efficacy in a neighborhood.
Sampson RJ‚ Raudenbush SW‚ Earls F. Neighborhoods and violent crime: a multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science 1997;277:918-924.