Modelling and Measuring Local Community Engagement (LCE)

Social engagement is changing considerably in its forms and objectives, and it is not always easy to understand this change. Engagement in the local community can be the link between social participation and personal commitment. The purpose of this research was to define and validate the local community engagement (LCE) construct that is the degree of involvement and participation in the local community. The LCE model has eight dimensions: local volunteering, participation in traditions, participation in sports events, local political participation, local activism, protest/NIMBY, community care, and informative participation. The sample comprised 530 individuals residing in a variety of towns/cities of different sizes in Italy. Confirmatory factor analyses and reliability and validity analyses confirmed the proposed model. Further analysis showed a strong relationship between LCE and place identity, sense of community, entitativity and political control.