The Camphill Movement is one of the largest independent providers of social care for people with a learning disability: there are 119 communities located throughout the world. From the start, the principal aim of the Movement--co-founded by Dr. Karl König and his wife Tilla (née Maasberg) in Aberdeen--was to build communities in which children and…

This article explores learning processes that underpin ecovillages as place based 'sustainability initiatives'. Through the theoretical lens of place- based transformative learning (PBTL), developed in earlier work (Pisters et al., 2019, 2020), empirical data from life-story interviews and photovoice sessions from three ecovillages is analysed and…

The kibbutz showed more social interest and higher esteem, and, among the boys, less inclusiveness. High identification with parents in the kibbutz was positively associated with age and appeared related to the European background of parents. (Authors)

A study of lapsed and successful relationships is reported. Confirmed that friends who had chosen, after acquaintance in communal quarters, to live with one another in more personal accommodation were more similar in personal constructs. (Author)

Studied 32 secular urban communal households to discover conditions of their relative success. Success was measured by duration of commune and satisfaction of members. Elements of conventionality (economic prudence, voluntary time limitation, regular housework, perception of sufficient private time) enhanced satisfaction. (Author/RC)

This study explored some of the impacts of the presence of others on the most intimate human relationships: those of couples and parents and children in communal households. The shift from essentially dyadic to larger group relations in the home adds a number of complex phenomena: audiences, alternative resources, coalition partners,…

This paper considers the nature of couple and parent-child relationships when family space is public rather than private, and others are present as audiences, claimants on the intimate territory, and sources of alternative ties. Research on 35 urban communal households found an initial shift in the locus of social control. (Author)

The contemporary development of communes and intentional communities is described and accounted for as an institutionalizing response to the development of an alternate culture. Various themes of communal life are discussed and the implications of these themes for sexual and genderal relations is considered. (Author)

Meaning matters in the way people form social ties. Adopting an unconventional analytic technique--the Galois lattice analysis--I show how network researchers can uncover relational meanings using conventional research techniques (i.e., closed-ended network surveys). Galois lattice analysis also inspires new ways of conceptualizing relational…

Research supported in part by Office of Economic Opportunity contract No. IED 1-66-12.

A diverse group of people, many from intentional communities, discuss what community means, physically, materially, and spiritually; what sustains communities; how they deal with conflict and change; the rewards of living in community; and how children are raised, educated, and supported by communities. (TD)

An interview with a mother and daughter living in an intentional community in New Hampshire explores how their choices about lifestyle have shaped them, how homeschooling worked for them, the role of other community adults in raising children, why the daughter left and later returned, and how community is more than proximity to other people. (TD)

Characteristics of successful living arrangements in intentional communities are presented by examining kibbutz life. The first section discusses four bases for establishing and maintaining an intentional community: interest, justice, cultural flowering, and love (deep interpersonal and intergroup relationships and religious values). The second…