Power As a Resident Scale (English Version), Activism, and Informal Social Control: Examining a Japanese Measure of Empowerment in the United States

Background: Community empowerment is the foundation of current social protest movement for racial, social and political justice. The present study examines the power as a resident scale – English version (PARSE). The power as a resident scale was originally developed in Japan to assess the capacity of the residents to address issues facing the elderly. The co-authors of the current study collaborated to translate the scale into English between 2019 and 2020.

This study will contribute to the literature by using primary data set that was created for developing the PARSE. The study will explore the factor structure of the PARSE as well and test PARSE as predictors of two types of collective actions: informal social control and neighborhood activism.

Method: Data for this study were collected from Prolific.co, an online survey platform. A sample of 750 individuals was recruited using Prolific.co was recruited.

The majority of respondents were white (n = 574, 76.1%), female (n = 374, 49.1%) and the average age of respondents was 45.7 years old (s.d. = 16.1). Most respondents were married/cohabiting (n = 373, 49.5%), employed (n = 348, 46.2%), and held a Bachelor’s degree (n = 275, 36.5%) at the time of survey completion.

The PARSE consists of eleven items including: you are able to help create a better neighborhood, you know people you can call on to help with activities that support the neighborhood, and if your neighbors are having problems in the neighborhood, they are your problems too.

We first ran four exploratory factor analyses (EFA) on the PARSE items; testing one through four factor solutions. We then conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to confirm results from the EFA. PARSE items were then tested as predictors of informal social control and neighborhood activism using multiple regression.

Results:

Findings from the EFA (CFI = 0.978, TLI = 0.961, SRMR = 0.038) and CFA (CFI = 0.934, TLI = 0.909, SRMR = 0.042) both suggest that the PARSE items fit the data as two distinct factors.

Factor 1 is called Neighborhood-Generativity because it focuses on support-behaviors (e.g. “You know people you can call on to help with activities that support your neighborhood) and the positive aspects of the neighborhood (e.g. “You want to tell people about the positive aspects of your neighborhood”). Factor 2 is labeled Neighborhood-Communication because it focuses on the ability of community members to share opinions about the community (e.g. “You can give your opinion about a problem related to your neighborhood”).

Both neighborhood-communication and neighborhood-generativity were significant predictors of neighborhood activism. However, neighborhood-communication was a significant predictor of informal social control whereas neighborhood-generativity was not.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that the PARSE scale measures two constructs. Neighborhood-generativity and neighborhood-communication are associated with neighborhood activism. However, our results show that communicating neighborhood problems may promote collective actions aimed at problem behaviors like crime. The findings highlight the importance of both asset-based development, and community voice in both promoting positive outcomes, and addressing community issues.