Focusing on the mass shooting at Virginia Tech, this study uses surveys and focus groups conducted at three points in time to examine mechanisms by which community members restore a sense of normalcy, following a traumatic event. This study provides a unique opportunity because of the existence of baseline data from the victimized community gathered a year ago before the shootings occurred. The goals of our research are to advance and test theories of the interaction of weak and strong social network ties in response to catastrophic community events, and to improve our understanding of the impact of such events on various forms of community attachments.
This study uses a telephone survey, a web-based survey, and focus groups. The survey sample will include Virginia Tech (VT) students, faculty, staff, and residents of the Blacksburg community. The data to be collected include measures of the social relations individuals used to discuss and recover from the events of April 16. We will use these data to test our theory that interactions in the parochial social order are crucial for sustaining the cohesion a community needs to recover. These interactions, including the networks of local stores, schools, religious institutions, and clubs, amplify collective power. They will therefore be most important for sustaining community cohesion and promoting recovery.
The project's intellectual merits include testing propositions derived from an innovative, general theory of community response to disasters. Specifically, it will provide a better understanding of characteristics predictive of resiliency at both the individual and community levels over time, particularly in response to incidents of human violence. Disasters due to human violence may produce qualitatively different effects on individuals and community than do natural disasters. This research will allows us to investigate this possibility. In addition, the research is unique given the pre-disaster baseline data that are available. Thus, the project will have theoretical implications for disaster research as well as community development research. The research will have broader impacts including the greater understanding of the social mechanisms communities use to recover from disasters. In addition, our research will not be limited solely to the VT disaster. Instead, this research will address fundamental issues of community and community building because we are asking many questions frequently used to measure concepts such as social capital. Given the importance of community in several areas of life (including the control of crime, access to health care, economic prosperity, and general quality of life), this research will prove fruitful for community researchers and community development practitioners. Finally, the research project will provide opportunities for graduate education in the areas of criminology, community, and workplace crime and deviance.
