A new paper by Peter Dirksmeier in the journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communications examines how social infrastructures and neighbourhood relations influence the sense of belonging in selected German communities.
The importance of social infrastructures for people’s sense of belonging is the subject of the study. Previous studies often emphasise factors such as length of residence, trust or community organisation for the sense of belonging, but neglect social infrastructures. Moreover, these analyses focus mainly on large metropolises and overlook smaller places. The new paper by Peter Dirksmeier uses current data collected by the Research Institute Social Cohesion (RISC) to analyse how the sense of local belonging and the local social infrastructure are related. The results show that the sense of belonging depends primarily on relationships with neighbours. Trust and conversations with neighbours are the most important factors. Although the social infrastructure plays a role in Germany, it is less decisive for the sense of belonging.
The article has been published open access and can be accessed here.
