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Pathways to immigrant civic engagement: the storytelling network and church participation

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Pathways to immigrant civic engagement: the storytelling network and church participation

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Content PATHWAYS TO IMMIGRANT CIVIC ENGAGEMENT: THE STORYTELLING NETWORK AND CHURCH PARTICIPATION by Minhee Son A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (COMMUNICATION) December 2015 Copyright 2015 Minhee Son ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to individuals who have been an inseparable part of my journey in the doctoral program. First and foremost, I thank my family in Korea for their unfaltering support, patience, and love. Dad, for being the lead cheerleader and a solid rock in my life. Thank you for believing in me. Mom, for sharing your positive and cheerful energy, especially during the last month of dissertation writing. Thank you for your selfless love and care. And, last but not least, my brother for his sense of humor and little surprises that put a smile on my face. This was a journey for you all as much as it was for me—having to endure my long absence, celebrating the little accomplishments along the way, and treading steadily during tough times. Truly, I have been blessed with the gift of family and love each of you most dearly. This dissertation and my completion of the doctoral program could not have been possible without the astute guidance and rigorous training I received from my advisor Dr. Sandra Ball-Rokeach. A role model, charismatic leader, and remarkable scholar, not only did she help me grow as a scholar but instilled in me the virtues of persistence and humility that I will carry on in my life. Thank you for everything. I am also extremely grateful to the two other dissertation committee members. Dr. G. Thomas Goodnight, who has seen me since my undergraduate years at USC, thank you for the engaging conversations in your office and for planting in me the seeds of intellectual curiosity. Dr. Ann Crigler, thank you for your guidance as I navigated the political science literature and for gracefully building a bridge between political science and communication. iii I am lucky to have been a part of the Annenberg School, and want to express gratitude to the many individuals who have created an environment that is supportive and nurturing for its doctoral students—Larry Gross, Imre Meszaros, Peter Monge, Sarah Banet-Weiser, and Christine Lloreda. In particular, Anne Marie Campian, I cannot say how many times I stepped into your office and felt “everything is going to be okay.” Thank you for your infinite patience and for most efficiently helping along each step of the way. A big part of my graduate school experience included The Metamorphosis Project, which I am extremely proud to be a part of. A special thank you to Evelyn Moreno for your companionship during the endless hours in the office. And our wonderful work study student, Stella Chung, for your tireless work on data entry—I could not have done this without you. To all Metas, new and classic, I have learnt so much from each and every one of you and I’m blessed with such a wonderful group of colleagues and friends. I am fortunate to have crossed paths with many other scholars and professionals that have influenced me in one way or another, and reminded me that my work was interesting and important to others as well. Thank you Dr. Sang Gil Lee for turning me to the topic of migrants during my early graduate school years at Yonsei University. Dr. Richard Flory and Brie Loskota at the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture; Joy Kim at the USC Korean Heritage Library; Hyepin Im at the Korean Churches for Community Development; and Do Kim at the K. W. Lee Center for Leadership; and Dr. Rebecca Y . Kim and Dr. Sharon Kim—thank you for sharing with me your insights and valuable on-the-ground knowledge on the topic of Korean immigrants and civic iv engagement. Also, many thanks to the participants of the USC KSI Graduate Student Symposium, and the NCA Doctoral Honors Seminar for constructive feedback on my work. A special thank you to Dr. Jordan Soliz for your warm encouragement and words of wisdom. As an international student, the reason I grew to love Los Angeles and felt a sense of “home” away from home was the long lasting friendships—my college friends (Trojan Hall buddies—you know who you are), Saturday Tennis Group, Woori Group, and, of course, the genuine friendships I formed at Annenberg, many of whom are also international students/migrants themselves. Thank you all for the emotional support, good conversations over food and coffee, but most importantly, for reminding me there is life outside of the office and my laptop screen and that “I am enough.” Thank you Ms. Kay Chun for providing a safe haven for me in LA. You have been such a loving neighbor and friend. The survey administration component of this research could not have been carried out with success without the generous assistance of Pastor Kim. Your willingness to step in, troubleshoot, and suggest solutions was remarkable. Thank you. Last but not least, I would like to end by expressing my sincere gratitude to the church staff for their assistance, and to each and every one of the Korean immigrants who participated in the research study. This dissertation research was carried out with funds from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, The Metamorphosis Project, and the USC Korean Studies Institute (Academy of Korean Studies). v TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii List of Tables vii List of Figures viii Abstract ix Introduction 1 Korean Immigrants in Southern California 4 The Civic Role of the Ethnic Church 5 Research Context 8 The Study Site: Eternal Church 11 Overview of Chapters 13 Chapter One: Current Trends and Challenges in Civic Engagement Research 15 Traditional Models of Civic Engagement 15 Civic Skills 16 Organization Participation 18 Social Capital 23 Social Psychological Factors 27 An Overarching Issue: Bonding vs. Bridging 31 A Starting Point 33 Chapter Two: Theoretical Framework—Communication Infrastructure Theory 35 Background and Conceptual Assumptions 35 Components of CIT and Civic Engagement Outcomes 41 Multilevel Storytelling Resources 42 Communication Action Context 46 Chapter Three: Applying CIT to Current Study 48 The Church within CIT 48 Addressing the Bonding and Bridging Issue 49 The Church vs. Neighborhood 49 Ethnically-Bounded Storytelling Networks 50 Developing the Church Measures 57 Existing measures of church participation 58 A Multidimensional Approach to Church Participation: General Assumptions 62 The Proposed Measures 65 Chapter Four: Research Questions 69 RQ1 – ICSN and Neighborhood Civic Engagement 69 RQ2 – Church Engagement and Neighborhood Civic Engagement 70 vi RQ3 & RQ4 – Church Factors and ICSN 71 RQ5 – Eternal Church and Bridging Opportunities 72 RQ6 – Ethnically-Bounded Storytelling Networks and Civic Engagement 73 Chapter Five: Research Design 74 Self-Administered Survey Method 74 Survey Participants 76 Survey Measures 77 Civic Engagement Outcomes Variables 77 Storytelling Communication Resources 80 Church Factors 81 Bonding vs. Bridging Storytelling Resources 85 Structural Variables 86 Field Observations 87 Chapter Six: Results – Survey Analyses and Field Observation Findings 88 RQ1 – ICSN and Neighborhood Civic Engagement 88 RQ2 – Church Engagement and Neighborhood Civic Engagement 91 RQ3 – Church Connectedness and Church Engagement 92 RQ4 – ICSN and Church Factors 94 Summary of RQ1-4 Results 95 RQ5.1 – Perceived Church Storytelling Resources (Survey Responses) 97 RQ5.2 – Field Observations 101 Church Bulletins 101 Other General Observations 104 RQ6 – Ethnically-Bounded Storytelling Network and Neighborhood Civic Engagement 106 Neighborhood discussion 107 Local media 108 Bridging community organizations 108 Chapter Seven: Discussion and Implication of Findings 110 Summary and Implication of Findings 110 Communication Predictors of Civic Engagement 111 Relationship between Church Factors 114 The Missing/Weak Connection between ICSN and Church Factors 116 The Role of Ethnically-Bounded Storytelling Networks 119 A Discussion of Communication and Immigrant Civic Engagement 120 Limitations and Directions for Future Research 122 References 125 Appendices Appendix A: Recruitment Instructions and Script for Church Staff 138 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Eternal Church parish group breakdown and membership. 13 Table 2: Demographic characteristics of survey participants. 77 Table 3: Zero-order correlations of structural, ICSN, and neighborhood civic engagement variables. 89 Table 4: Predictors of Korean immigrants’ civic participation in their residential neighborhoods. 91 Table 5: Zero-order correlations between church engagement and neighborhood civic engagement dimensions. 92 Table 6: Zero-order correlations between structural variables, church connectedness, church engagement, and ICSN. 93 Table 7: Survey responses for perceived church storytelling resources 98 Table 8: Zero-order correlation between bonding and bridging storytelling resources, and civic engagement variables 107 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: ICSN, church factors, and neighborhood civic engagement. 96 Figure 2: Perceived church storytelling resources by level of church participation (survey responses). 100 ix ABSTRACT Despite overall high levels of education and economic success, Korean immigrants face large barriers to accessing mainstream public services and resources, score low on rates of health insurance, homeownership, and English language proficiency (Asian Americans Advancing Justice, 2013), and are disengaged from civic and political life (Choi, Lim, & Mitchell, 2008). The existing literature points to the ethnic church playing an important role in the integration of immigrants into the host society. However, a lack of knowledge about everyday communication patterns of recent immigrants makes it difficult to fully understand the conditions under which civic engagement does or does not occur, and therefore how changes might be made to facilitate civic engagement. This dissertation utilizes Communication Infrastructure Theory (CIT) to empirically examine first generation Korean immigrants’ pathways to civic engagement via the storytelling network and church participation. More specifically, it adapts components of CIT by centralizing the bonding vs. bridging issue, and proposes and examines multidimensional aspects of an individual’s relationship to the church: church connectedness, perceived church storytelling resources, church belonging, church collective efficacy, and church participation. Surveys administered to Korean immigrants attending a large Korean church located in Los Angeles provide the main data for analysis. Field observations along with secondary data—such as church bulletins and flyers—also inform the research findings. 1 INTRODUCTION The challenges of civil society and democratic participation in urban communities are brought to the surface by globalization and population diversity. One core issue and area of research among social scientists is the increasing number of immigrants making up significant proportions of residential neighborhoods across the U.S. In Los Angeles, Hispanic and Asians together compose 59 percent of the population, while 6 in every 10 speak a language other than English at home, and 4 in every 10 were born outside the U.S. (Census, 2012). During the last four decades, immigration has been a driving force behind the dramatic upswing of Latinos and Asians in the U.S. population at large (Pastor, 2013). What are the limitations of applying models of civic engagement developed for the 20 th century in today’s multiethnic, multicultural context? How do the consequences of immigration come into play at the local community level for both new and settled immigrants? The challenge of creating a sense of “we” that engages not only “us” but also “them” has far-reaching consequences for conflict resolution, collective problem-solving, and social change in 21 st century multiethnic, multicultural contexts. Traditional models of civic engagement identify civic skills (Verba, Sidney, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995; Eliasoph, 2011); resources such as time and money (Verbal et al. 1995), and knowledge (Galston, 2001; Torney-Purta et al., 2001) psychological orientations of the individual including social trust (Putnam, 1995; Shah, 1998) and tolerance (Flanagan, 2004); and participation in social institutions (Tocqueville, 1969; Putnam, 1995; Wuthnow, 1999; Skocpol, 1999). Civic skills is a key component of Verba et al.’s (1995) Civic V oluntarism Model, and is defined as “the communication and organizational 2 abilities that allow citizens to use time and money effectively in political life” (p. 304). With time and money, civic skills are an important capacity building resource that is necessary for individuals to engage in civic and political life, when they want to (psychological predisposition) and if they are invited to do so (recruitment). When individuals possess civic skills, they also feel confident about knowing how to productively mobilize the other resources towards political activity. These factors, however, are identified under the assumption that immigrants have gone through a natural process of political socialization similar to their non-immigrant counterparts, and do not account for structural and contextual barriers to such civic skills, resources, and institutions. Similarly, when we apply traditional models of civic engagement to Korean immigrants, the story becomes one of dis-engagement, dis-interest, and lack of resources. Is the story really that bleak? Are immigrants socialized into civic engagement in ways that are significantly different from the ways that the longer established members of society become involved in civic life? How and why do Korean immigrants in Los Angeles become civically engaged, and how can we account for the differences in levels of engagement? Furthermore, this research brings immigrants’ everyday communication practices to the forefront of civic engagement research and inquiry. Communication is not only concerned with access to information, but the discursive processes through which social support, knowledge, norms, and collective identities are created, shared, and sustained by immigrant groups. The proposed research utilizes communication infrastructure theory (CIT) to empirically examine the communication resources implicated in their levels of civic engagement. Specifically, it examines the role of 3 interpersonal networks, media connections, and organizational associations in the local community context. Furthermore, this research proposes and tests new measures of church connectedness, perceived church storytelling resources, church belonging, church collective efficacy, and church participation to capture multidimensional aspects of church participation. The goal of this dissertation is to move towards a more nuanced understanding of what it means to practice democracy in America’s multicultural context. First, this involves taking a serious look at what civic engagement means to a specific group of new immigrants considering cultural, structural, and contextual challenges to engagement. It also involves bringing to the surface immigrants’ everyday communication practices. In other words, this dissertation acknowledges that there is something about migrating from one country to another that matters and makes the immigrants’ pathways to and experience of civic engagement significantly different from non-migrants but also other immigrants groups with a longer history in the U.S. The research will examine the case of first generation Korean immigrants attending a large Korean church located in Los Angeles. Self-administered surveys in Korean will provide the main data for analysis. Participant observation and interviews with key leaders and informants of the church, along with secondary data—such as the church website, bulletin boards, and flyers—will provide a contextualized description of the study site and also help identify the bridging and bonding communication resources offered by the church itself. 4 Korean Immigrants in Southern California According to the 2010 Census, there are 230,876 ethnic Koreans in Los Angeles County, the third largest Asian group followed by ethnic Chinese and Filipino. Despite overall high levels of education and economic success, Korean immigrants face large barriers to accessing mainstream public services and resources, and score low on rates of health insurance, homeownership, and language proficiency (Asian Americans Advancing Justice, 2013), and disengaged from civic and political life (Choi, Lim, & Mitchell, 2008). Asian Americans generally report lower levels of participation compared to other racial groups. Even compared to other Asian groups, Koreans in particular score low on voting (Ramakrishnan & Ahmad, 2014, p. 64-65). This side of the story is often hidden behind Korean immigrants’ model minority image, which practitioners and academics caution is a “myth” and “paradox” (Lee, 2012). Reports and various indicators of Korean immigrants’ civic life and democratic participation show us that: 1) existing data are far from giving us a full picture of the current state of civic engagement for Korean American immigrants; 2) the information that is available depicts a pretty stark story of dis-engagement, dis-interest, and a lack of resources; and 3) Ultimately, it is difficult to fully understand the conditions under which civic engagement does or does not occur, and therefore how changes might be made that facilitate civic engagement. 5 The Civic Role of the Ethnic Church Scholars in immigration, sociology, religion, and race and ethnicity studies have examined the importance of religion for immigrants and new settlers in the U.S. From the immigrants’ point of view, religion and the church play an integral part of their experience of migrating, arriving, and adapting to the host society (Handlin, 1973; Smith, 1978; Hirschman; 2004). Smith (1978) points to the experience of migration as a “theologizing experience.” The key point here is that the growth and abundance of the “ethnic church” is a unique characteristic of the religious and immigrant history of the U.S. In explaining why ethnic churches have and continue to thrive in the U.S., Kim (2011) points out that America’s “religious exceptionalism” and “ethnic/racial segregation” are well suited for each other. In other words, it is not a coincidence that ethnic churches are thriving in the U.S. and continue to play important roles in immigrants’ lives. Religious participation is a crucial part of the immigrants’ integration process, and the ethnically and culturally-based forms of organization and activities lead to a stronger sense of bonding and loyalty to the church and other members, which in turn provides a basis for steady membership retention and even expansion. The church is an important group/organization that has direct consequences on the immigrants’ quality of everyday life in the new environment. Both upon arrival and as their stay prolongs, new immigrants redress the woes of being uprooted from the familiar and deal with the difficulties of settling into a completely new world through religious participation. The ethnic church helps immigrants to adapt to the new environment by acting as a social shield and safe haven; providing essential information 6 and resources; and developing civic responsibilities and connections to the broader community. Wuthnow (1999) observed that the role of the church was in “their ability to forge connections and regions and drawing together people from different ethnic backgrounds and occupations” (p. 362). No doubt, these studies bring to surface the important role that the church plays in immigrants’ integration into the host society. Moving beyond adaptation and survival, the implications that church attendance has on the immigrants’ commitment to the local community and civic life, remains less explored. One of the less examined functions of immigrant religion is its role in fostering members’ outward focus and involvement in the broader community that includes the world outside of the walls of the church. Ecklund (2005) speaks about the inward and outward functions of religious participation of immigrants: providing resources for immigrants’ “adaptive functions” while helping immigrants to “develop responsibilities to a broader community” (p. 16). The point being that focusing only on the inward functions of religious participation of immigrants prevents us from seeing “the possibility that religion might also help new Americans focus outward and develop responsibilities to a broader American community” (Ecklund, 2005, p. 16). Foner and Alba (2008) argue that the differences in the roles of immigrant religion (e.g. immigrant religion in the U.S. vs. Western Europe) is largely shaped by whether or not religion “can play a major role for immigrants and the second generation as a bridge to inclusion in the new society” (p. 361). Another civic role that the ethnic church plays is setting the agenda for important social and political issues that the individual church members (or the church community at large) may be further motivated to engage with. Flory, Loskota, and Miller (2011) 7 point out that the “faith community has the opportunity to provide a moral frame for seeking solutions to important issues confronting our city rather than simply striving for pragmatic short-term solutions” (p. 42). At the same time, there may be some less positive consequences. For example, Yoo & Kim (2014)’s study show that some Korean churches may undertake political organizing and bring certain issues to the surface for reasons other than addressing the needs of the most vulnerable populations in the Korean community (p. 177). Korean-Americans’ rate of church attendance and participation are very high, with numbers reported at 71% (Kim, Ball-Rokeach, & Song, 2003; PEW, 2013). Some scholars note examples of the Korean church being very much a part of its local community: despite the strong ethnic attachment it tends to promote, religious institutions are indeed firmly rooted in the local community and contribute to community development by connecting individuals to various resources within the community (Choi, 2010); the Korean church precedes Korean businesses in connecting Koreans to resources and giving them a sense of belonging to a larger community (Jang & Kim, 2013); religious participation and volunteerism among Asian Americans are significantly correlated with wider community volunteering (Ecklund & Park, 2005); and religious participation and affiliation in itself neither promotes nor slows mobility/assimilation into the host country (Hurh & Kim, 1990). At the same time, others have criticized the Korean church as being too insular and that religious participation takes away too much of the immigrants’ time and resources. Does religious participation connect immigrants to other types of resources outside of the church? What is the role of religious participation in the immigrant’s wider 8 network of civic possibilities that not only includes the church, but also their residential neighborhood, the local community surrounding the church, the workplace? Does it take away time from non-religious, and potentially more civically-oriented activities? Or, does the church act as a buffer so that the immigrant may take more risks in exploring other groups and activities, and feel more confident to participate when the invitation/opportunity comes inside or outside of the church? These are some of the questions that the dissertation seeks to address. Research Context This dissertation study is an endeavor that reflects my own personal journey and research program at USC. My initial contact with the research site took place in late August/early September 2014, but the study came to fruition as part of a more prolonged observation, involvement, and curiosity in the everyday life of multiethnic local communities across Los Angeles. Before I introduce the research site and move on to the more technical details of this study, I will share with the readers a small part of the journey of “getting there” in the hopes of laying the background on 1) how this original dissertation research was conceived, 2) how I was able to conduct the study, 3) and last of all, to engage in researcher reflexivity (Berger, 2015). Especially with the last goal, I hope to make transparent my positioning within the research site—Grace Church 1 . Having lived in Los Angeles for 10 years as an international student I was aware of the presence of a strong church culture in the city, especially with the Korean 1 Pseudonym for research site church. The church will be referred to as “Eternal Church” throughout the manuscript. 9 community. Even though I myself was not a regular church attendee, many of my close friends and acquaintances were. Driving through different parts of the city gave more concrete evidence—the highly visible presence of churches of all shapes and sizes, some bigger than others. At the same time, as a result of being part of the Metamorphosis Project 2 research team for the past five years, I was able to move beyond a surface level observation of “there are so many churches here” to a deeper questioning of “what does this noticeable church culture tell us about the Korean immigrant community in Los Angeles?” And, of course, building on the work others before me at Metamorphosis have conducted on this topic: Wilson’s (2001) work on community organizations in multiple neighborhoods points to the importance of churches as a dominant part of Korean immigrants’ everyday life, but that the church’s definition of “community” and “community building” is often more culturally defined than geographically (neighborhood) focused. Kim, Ball-Rokeach, and Song’s (2003) study conducted in partnership with the Korean ethnic newspaper, Korean Daily, also find that 71% of the Korean respondents in Southern California attended religious meetings at least once a week. In fact, this is not just unique to the Korean community. A survey of Latino and African American residents in South Los Angeles shows that out of the top five community organizations residents connected to, 4 of them were churches (Ball-Rokeach, Moran, Hether, & Fran, 2010). The only in-depth study on church or faith-based organizations that has been conducted by Metamorphosis researchers—Chavez & Ball- Rokeach (2008)—examines through focus groups, in-depth interviews, and participant 2 The Metamorphosis Project, born in 1992 and led by Dr. Sandra Ball-Rokeach, is a community- based communication research center housed at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. www.metamorph.org 10 observations the role of the Catholic parishes among Latino immigrant communities in Los Angeles. Thus, my dissertation study on Korean immigrants, church participation, and civic engagement builds on these previous research studies and findings, and seeks to contribute knowledge about the civic role of the church in a multiethnic context from a communication perspective. My initial contact with the research site started with a family friend taking me to Eternal Church, where I was introduced as a newcomer during Sunday worship service. I went through the steps of formally signing-up as a new member and was assigned to Parish 12 3 . After service, I was taken to a room for newcomers and was greeted by my cell group leaders. The family friend played an important role formally introducing me to the church, but also helping me to make personal connections with other church attendees and staff at church—in particular the pastor leading Parish 12, Pastor Lee 4 . In a phone conversation with Pastor Lee, I explained my research interest, the dissertation study, and what the data collection part of it would entail. Pastor Lee not only offered assistance with survey administration, but henceforth played a central role as my research site contact person. One of the most important roles he played was to help me to get in 3 All of the individual parish groups operate and take part in Sunday worship at the Eternal Church location, led by the church head pastor. In addition to the main Sunday worship service, separate parish group meetings take place at different times during the week and in different locations, and each group has an assigned pastor. Parish group 12, where I was assigned to, is one of the larger parish groups. It meets on Sunday after the main workshop service in one of the church buildings. Within parish group 12, people are assigned into smaller “cell groups” of 10-14 people which is led by a cell group leader. The assigned cell group lasts for 4 months, after which members are re-grouped and new leaders are appointed to form new cell groups. These cell group meetings take place right after the parish group meeting. Details of the parish group breakdown can be seen in Table 1. 4 Pastor Lee is a pseudonym for the pastor leading group 12, and who was my main contact person during the research process. 11 contact with the head pastor of the church, which led to his review of the survey and endorsement of the study at the church-wide level. The Study Site: Eternal Church Eternal Church was founded in 1999, and has been in its current location on the border of Koreatown and Downton Los Angeles since 2006. According to numbers provided by the non-profit organization Korean Churches for Community Development, it is among the top 16 Korean Mega churches in the greater Los Angeles area in terms of congregation size and budget. Unlike some of the other mega churches, Eternal Church did not branch off from a church in Korea and was founded specifically in and for Los Angeles—on the front page of the welcome brochure I received during my very first visit to Eternal Church, it says: “In LA, there is Grace Church.” The church does not specifically identify as “Korean” although it is primarily attended by, staffed, and mostly serves the Korean-American community. The church draws people from as far as Torrance and Harbor City, but the majority of the congregation resides in Los Angeles. This is made clear in the way the church breaks down the parish groups. During the initial stages of this study speaking to various informants, I was able to gather that the church is known to have a “low threshold” for entrance and an open-door policy, and is relatively diverse in terms of the congregation socioeconomic status and background. The main worship services that are open to all are offered in Korean and offered 3 times on Sundays. They are also offered throughout the week on Wednesday and Friday evenings, and each morning on Monday through Saturday. English translation headsets 12 are available for non-Korean speaking attendees during one of the Sunday services. Separate English ministry services are offered once a week on Sundays, and Spanish ministry services are offered once on Sundays and on Thursdays. In terms of the organizational structure, the church is broken down into 22 separate bureaus each responsible for different administrative and programming duties of the church. On the membership side, the congregation is broken down in to 17 different parish groups. For the purpose of this study I only examined groups 1-14 which are categorized by age and geographic location. Table 1 shows each of the group categories and information for each in terms of age, geographic location, and number of members. These parish groups are predetermined categories created by the church. The church keeps a database of newcomers and frequently updates information on existing members. This database gets updated weekly to input new member info and monthly to update changes for existing members (e.g. changing from one parish group to another). Based on the database from March 2015, the following numbers (Table 1) were obtained for the 14 parish groups. The numbers for those coming from outside of LA are not very significant, and there are no clear clusters, or an area where a significant number of people outside of LA are coming from. Also, considering that the church identifies as a Los Angeles church, this study focuses on Parish Groups 5-14 (details of this process included in Ch. 5 Research Design). 13 Table 1. Eternal Church parish group breakdown and membership. Overview of Chapters I start in Chapter 1 with an overview of civic engagement models most applicable to this current study, focusing on the current trends and challenges. The four models are civic skills, organizational participation, social capital, and social psychological factors. In this chapter I also introduce the overarching issue of bonding and bridging that underlies these models, which will be revisited throughout the following chapters. Parish Geographic Location Age Range Marital Status Mem- ber # 1 North East/West LA (Glendale, Pasadena, Alhambra, La Crescenta, La Canada, Valley) Unspecified Unspecified 88 2 South East LA (Orange County, Chino, Fullerton, Buena Park, Cerritos, Diamond Bar) Unspecified Unspecified 41 3 South West LA (San Pedro, Palos Verdes, Torrance) Unspecified Unspecified 76 4 West LA (Culver City, Santa Monica) Unspecified Unspecified 15 5 Los Angeles Up to 35 yrs old (born 1980 and after) Married 103 6 Los Angeles 36-43 yrs old (born 1979-1972) Married 215 7 Los Angeles 44-50 yrs old (born 1971-1965) Married 206 8 Los Angeles 51-58 yrs old (born 1964-1957) Married 155 9 Los Angeles 59-68 yrs old (born 1956-1947) Married 121 10 Praise/Culture and Missionary Group 40 yrs old and over (born before 1974) Unspecified 47 11 Los Angeles 20s (born 1995-1985) Single 152 12 Los Angeles 30 yrs old and over (born before 1984) Single 263 13 Los Angeles 69-73 yrs old (born 1946-1942) Unspecified 30 14 Los Angeles 74 yrs old and over (born before 1941) Unspecified 210 14 Chapter 2 introduces and discusses in-depth the theoretical framework for this study—community infrastructure theory (CIT). I examine its background and conceptual assumptions, and the components of the theory as they relate to civic engagement outcomes. The three components are the multilevel storytelling resources (interpersonal networks, geo-ethnic media, and local community organizations), integrated connectedness to the storytelling network (ICSN), and the communication action context (CAC). For the purpose of this current study, I focus more on the first two components, only briefly describing the CAC. Chapter 3 takes CIT and applies the theory to my case of Korean immigrants, church participation, and civic engagement. I discuss step-by-step how I have adapted the theory and re-conceptualized some of its components for the following: conceptualizing the church as a meso-level storytelling agent; addressed the bonding vs. bridging issue; and developing multidimensional measures for church participation. Chapter 4 proceeds with the proposed research questions following the literature review and theory as I apply them to my case. Chapter 5 outlines the research design— the survey method, explanation of the measures, and field observation. Chapter 6 presents findings from the survey analyses and findings from field observations, addressing each of the research questions outlined in Chapter 4. Lastly, the discussion section, Chapter 7, includes a summary and implications of findings for each research question. The chapter ends with a discussion of communication and immigrant civic engagement, identification of limitations of the current study, and directions for future research. 15 CHAPTER ONE: CURRENT TRENDS AND CHALLENGES IN CIVIC ENGAGEMENT RESEARCH This section provides background on key theoretical models in civic engagement research in the social sciences. First, drawing across literature from the fields of political science, sociology, psychology, and communication, I overview some of the key predictors of civic engagement outcomes, and point to contemporary challenges. The four models are: civic skills, social capital, organizational participation, and social psychological factors. Next, I will discuss an overarching challenge that underlies the models in the context of immigrant civic engagement research. I will end the section with an introduction to a communicative approach to immigrant civic engagement. While situating my work within the traditional civic engagement literature and current discussions about the challenges of 21 st century diversity and civic engagement research, the goal is to move towards improving our analytic frameworks for studying civic engagement practices of recent immigrant immigrants that can achieve what Bronfenbrenner (1979) calls phenomenological validity. In the discussion chapter, I will revisit some of these issues as they pertain to my research findings. Traditional Models of Civic Engagement In this section, I identify key factors used in traditional models of civic engagement. First, I start with civic skills, and then move to organizational participation, social capital, and social psychological factors. At the end of each section, I discuss how I 16 draw upon the specified model in moving toward conceptualizing immigrant civic engagement, and ultimately applying a communication theory to analyze Korean immigrants’ pathways to civic engagement. Civic skills. Civic skills include measures of communication skills, such as good vocabulary, reading, writing, typing, and computer proficiency, and organizational skills, such as knowing how to work in group settings, holding and organizing meetings, writing an agenda, and delegating work (Verba, Sidney, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995; Eliasoph, 2011). Kirlin’s (2003) overview of civic engagement literature in the fields of political science, education, and developmental psychology identify four different types of skills that are commonly mentioned including communication, organization, collective decision making, and critical thinking skills. A group of scholars, civic leaders, and federal officials who participated in a conference to develop a federal policy agenda for civic skills identified the following as important civic skills: speaking and listening, collaborating and organizing fellow citizens, understanding formal politics, advocacy, information gathering and processing, and technology (Levine, 2010). Verba et al. (1995) define civic skills as “the communication and organizational abilities that allow citizens to use time and money effectively in political life” (p. 304). Their Civic V oluntarism Model identifies three participatory factors leading to political activity: resources, psychological predispositions, and recruitment. With time and money, civic skills are an important capacity building resource that is necessary for individuals to engage in civic and political life, when they want to (psychological predisposition) and if they are invited 17 to do so (recruitment). When individuals possess civic skills, they also feel confident about knowing how to productively mobilize the other resources towards political activity. On April 29, 2010, the CIRCLE conference on Federal Policy and Civic Skills brought together multiple stakeholders and experts across the nation to discuss the current trends in and develop a federal policy agenda for civic skills. One of the findings is that although civic skills is commonly used predictor in civic engagement research, there is no agreed-upon definition or national indicator for civic skills, and normally surveys will resort to capturing “opportunities to develop civic skills as well as the outcomes of civic participation,” as proxy for civic skills (italics by author) (CIRCLE, 2010, p. 3). Contemporary challenges. First, when do certain skills develop into “civic” skills? Starting with a repertoire of “civic” skills already includes certain types of skills and excludes others. Are there perhaps some types of skills that turn out to be unexpectedly useful in a context different from where the skills were originally learned? Civic skills are a type of skill, which, by definition, can be purposefully learned, taught, and mastered. However, opportunities for developing civic skills may be difficult to parse out from the social functions of the organization, or they may be a byproduct of the institution’s attempt to fulfill other goals (Djupe & Gilbert, 2002). Connected to this is the debate about the transferability of civic skills from one context to another. Are some skills universal while others are context-specific? There may be challenges to transferring skills learned within the boundaries of a specific organization to various different social contexts. Others have argued for a more fluid explication of civic skills—that skills learned and practiced in one context are transferrable to different contexts. There may be “spill over” effects of church skills to the broader civic area such that “a turn inward to 18 the church does not mean a turn away from civic and political life” (Djupe & Gilbert, 2006, p. 118). Second, scholars have presented different arguments about unequal access to civic skills in contemporary urban contexts. Some have pointed out that the likelihood of getting quality civic skills training is related to one’s SES (Schwadel, 2002), while others have said that wealthier children have more opportunities to learn civic skills, claiming “schools have generally sidelined their civic missions in an era of standards and accountability focused on other subjects” (Levine, 2010, p. 7). Verba et al. (2003)’s Civic Voluntarism Model points out that, compared to time and money, civic skills are a resource that is more equally available to individuals through institutional participation. For recent immigrants, language and cultural barriers will limit their access to mainstream institutions. Ethnic and culturally-specific groups that address local issues and connect them to other resources in culturally and linguistic sensitive ways are likely to be important. Organization participation. At different stages in life, individuals belong to and participate in various institutions and organizations. To the extent that civic skills learning takes place in different institutional and organizational contexts, individuals have different levels of access to the opportunities to learn, develop and practice civic skills. These opportunities are first and foremost available during childhood and adolescence in the primary institutions of family and school. However, civic skills learning is a lifelong project and also takes place in various organizational contexts outside of the home and school. Confirming much of what Tocqueville (1969) and Putnam (1995) argued in their 19 respective time periods about the role of civil institutions in American democracy, Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995) note “civic skills that facilitate participation are cultivated in the major secondary institutions of adult life, including churches, non-political organizations, and the workplace” (p. 366). Organizational (or institutional participation) is important for reasons other than exposure to community activities and development of civic skills. First, they are also places where individuals may be recruited to participate in civic activities available not only within, but others outside through the extension of social ties .Second, these institutions aid the process of integration into the local community by introducing into the individuals’ everyday life ritual, norms, and social support, and thus giving individuals a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves. They fulfill their role as socializing agents when participants experience the “I” becoming “We” and pursue a common goal for and on behalf of a collective. Churches, schools, and cultural associations are “communities of memory” that give qualitative meaning to and a common sense of tradition in the lives of individuals that otherwise seem fragmented (Bellah, 1993, p. 111). A sense of identity is also a central concept in these communities of practice where learning of skills takes place in socially-embedded contexts (Torney- Purta et al., 2010). Some have looked particularly at the church as an important institution that plays an equalizing role. In particular, churches are important for two reasons. First, they are “the domain of equal access to opportunities to learn civic skills” regardless of income, race or ethnicity, or gender (p. 320), and “may partially compensate for the weakness of institutions that ordinarily function to mobilize the disadvantaged” (p. 333). Scholars 20 have pointed to the church as an institution is more accessible to the lower class and minorities than others such as the school or the work-place (Levine, 2010; Verba et al., 1995). Testing the church equalizer hypothesis, Schwadel (2002) examines the individual level and contextual effects of income on access to civic skills among a sample of Christian congregations in the United States. The results show that churches are still prone to income inequality where those with higher income are more likely than those of lower income to participate in organizational activities and take on leadership positions. Contemporary challenges. Organizational participation matters for civic engagement to the extent that members learn how to be (and experience being) good citizens of society at large. In other words, it contributes to individuals’ motivations and confidence in working with others to solve real life problems outside of their comfort zone—the formal boundaries of any institution or organization. The types and number of organizations that an individual is involved in has frequently been used in the literature as a proxy for civic engagement. However, as some critics have pointed out, the assumption that the intensity and range of organizations that individuals belong to has a linear relationship to civic engagement needs further qualification. In other words, claims that more organizational participation leads to further civic engagement can be examined by paying closer attention to the inter and intra-organizational differences. First, organizations can be different in their civic orientations, organizational mission, and their position and partnerships in the broader society. Second, the social structure within the organization may influence members’ different civic engagement outcomes. Despite the seemingly civically-oriented goals and missions of the leaders and staff of the organization (Andrews, Ganz, Baggetta, Han, & Lim, 2010), interpersonal 21 dynamics within the organization may create barriers to civic opportunities for all participants. Eliasoph (2011) observes how the structural and interpersonal dynamics within the Community based youth organizations (CBYO) create barriers to civil skills attainment for certain groups and not others, as is the case of disadvantaged youth whose “only routes to learning civic skills” were “heavily guided and highly personal attachments” to the organization leaders and programs (p. 106). Others have voiced similar concerns. Even though interpersonal relationships and power dynamics within CBYOs tend to be more egalitarian in general (Flanagan, 2003), some of the practices within the organization “may actually marginalize some young people by insisting that they assimilate to a majority culture” (Flanagan, 2004, p. 729). In multiethnic contexts, the opportunity that the organization provides for its members to become more integrated into the local community may depend on its bonding and bridging functions. A co-ethnic setting will be helpful for recent immigrants in providing a sense of protection and also social cohesion, which may then lead to other benefits: “Feeling similar to other members in the respondent’s primary church small group is also positively related to practicing skills, confirming the importance of incorporating a social dimension into theories positing an organizational influence on individual behavior. Social similarity, already high in most groups, boosts the likelihood of practicing a skill by about one-tenth and adds almost a quarter of a civic skill when the respondent is most like other members” (Djupe & Gilbert, 2006). Intra-organizational dynamics are also important in the primary institutions such as the family or school. A useful case in point is the “trickle up” effects of parent-child dynamics. Especially within the immigrant family, socialization processes may take on 22 more varied forms than what we might normally observe. Traditionally, within the family, parents are seen as both powerful socializing agents and models of civic behavior. Research that sees the child-parent interaction as a two-way influence (McDevitt & Chaffee, 2002) opens up room for discovering the role of immigrant children within their families. Jang & Kim (2013)’s study of Korean communities revealed that “English- speaking children were “the “hands, feet, mouths, and brains” of their parents, playing multiple roles in home settings” (p. 240), similar to Latino children’s work as media brokers (Katz, 2010) and translators or “para-phrasers” (Orellana, Dorner, & Pulido, 2003). Without the more in-depth observations, these practices may be easily overlooked. In fact, much of this translating and brokering work is seen as very quotidian and “just normal” by the immigrant children themselves (Orellanda, Dorner, & Pulido, 2004), while it is also normalized and an invisible component of family functioning (Katz, 2010). Lastly, scholars examining the more grassroots formation of immigrant civic engagement point us to new forms of associational participation. Terriquez’s (2012) study of Latinas in LA calls for the conceptualization of parental school involvement as a form of civic engagement. Saldivar-Tanaka, & Kransy (2004)’s work on Latino community gardens in NYC show that in poor urban neighborhoods that lack amenities, community gardens become proactive sites that encourage and educate members to be engaged in their community. These two examples are part of a line of studies that offer starting points for where we can look for emergent forms of civic engagement among immigrants. This line of research addresses an important gap in civic engagement research. Their objective is in line with others that have called for a more sophisticated understanding of civic engagement in light of population diversity and institutional 23 complexity in urban settings. There is a need for in-depth examination of everyday experience of civic engagement and the role of religious institution as a conduit (or obstacle) to civic engagement among one of the most rapidly growing immigrant groups. Recognizing the significance of both the inter- and intra-organizational differences on the participants’ civic engagement, this research conceptualizes individuals’ organizational participation not as an indication of the individual’s level of civic engagement, but as an anchoring site leading to the development of civic skills, opportunities to take part in the local community, and acquisition of social capital. Social capital. As mentioned in the previous section, one of the more widely cited benefits of organizational participation is the building of social ties. In short, social capital can be understood as aspects of individuals’ social life and social relations that help individuals reach both personal and collective goals. Political scientist Robert Putnam’s (1995) famous declaration of the decline of social capital triggered serious debates about the nature of and relationship between our social life and the civic health of American society. The basic premise of Putnam’s argument is that social life is not what it used to be—people are participating less in voluntary organizations and community clubs, and spending time and doing things less with others, and thus the title of his famous book “Bowling Alone.” Defined by Putnam (1995) social capital is “the features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit” (p. 67). James Coleman (1990) conceives social capital as the: “social-structural resources as a capital asset for the individual” (p. 302), and emphasizes two things: First, 24 its relational characteristic: “social capital inheres in the structure of relations between persons and among persons. It is lodged neither in individuals nor in physical implements of production” (p. 302); And, second, its functional aspects: “social capital is productive, making possible the achievement of certain ends that would not be attainable in its absence” (302). Although Coleman did not define it specifically in terms of its role in civic or political goals, he explains how social capital works to shed light on the cooperative aspects of human behavior and collective problem solving and goal attainment. Overall, studies show a positive relationship between social capital and civic engagement related outcomes in various contexts (Jin & Lee, 2013). Social ties can be useful to the extent that they generate everyday conversations, and keep individuals in the loop on the knowledge and information that they may not have direct access to—such as media stories. Katz & Lazarsfeld’s (1955) two-step flow theory of mass media says that the flow of ideas from mass media go through an opinion leader, then to their interpersonal networks. Arguing against the idea that media has a direct, “magic bullet” effect on the audience, the two-step flow accounts for a human- centered mediation process (the opinion leader) that filters and directs the flow of information from media to audience. Paek, Yoon, & Shah (2005)’s study reveal an “aggregate level two-step flow” which explains that overall newspaper readership levels of a community may create a certain type of “climate” or “culture” so that these ideas flow through interpersonal networks and reach non-readers, but influence non-readers to potentially learn about and discuss local issues. In addition, differences in homeownership at the community level may shape the local culture of a community in such a way to encourage or discourage more news consumption. Paek, Yoon and Sha 25 (2005) explain that in communities with high rates of home ownership, individuals may feel more attached to their communities leading to more local news consumption, while at the same time, the content of the news may be such that they get “a qualitative different impression of the imagined community” (p. 597) from those with lower rates of home ownership (p. 597). Despite concern that political ads (especially attack ads) may encourage or discourage participatory behaviors, Shah et al. (2007)’s study show that “media effects were largely indirect, channeled through political discussion and messaging” (p. 696). By including individuals’ information seeking and discussion on the Internet, they could more closely examine the mediating role of interpersonal communication in the effects of political ads—or in their words, “the centrality of expression and discussion for the distillation of ideas encountered in the news” (p. 678). Exposure to political advertising has direct effects on further information seeking, rather than shaping political behavior. Contemporary challenges. One of the challenges scholar have taken on is examining the implications of different types of social ties on civic engagement. Studies have compared and examined the relative effects of bonding and bridging ties on civically oriented participation, with inconsistent findings. On the one hand, studies have shown that they are not mutually exclusive, be complementary, and sometimes correlate in relation to various civically oriented outcomes (Flora, Agnitsch, & Ryan, 2006; Jin & Lee, 2013; R. Leonard & Bellamy, 2010; Park & Bowman, 2015) . Other studies point to the gap between bonding and bridging capital, and the benefit of one over the other (Cheung & Kam, 2010; Lancee, 2012). Hampton’s (2013) study of people’s social networks shows that an individual’s network diversity can be associated with higher 26 levels of democratic engagement, which, as he cites, is contrary to findings from Mutz’s (2006) multi-data analysis on political discussion and participation that shows “hearing the other side” does not necessarily lead to more democratic outcomes. Granovettor (1973) makes the argument that information and ideas are more likely to be diffused across groups through weak ties than strong ties, and states that weak ties are “vital for individual’s integration into modern society (1983, 203). Multiethnic coalitions and organizations with bridging functions may provide individuals with access to weak ties. Perhaps less addressed, but also important are the ways in which individuals’ bonding and bridging social networks impact each other and change over time. Some point out that bonding capital may be a necessary condition for the development of bridging capital (Horiuchi, 2008), while others say that in some contexts the transition from bonding to bridging is more exclusionary rather than complementary (Leonard, 2004). On the one hand the time and energy put into developing and maintaining bonding social capital might eliminate possibilities for exposure to and development of bridging social ties in the first place. Furthermore, too much dedication to bonding and in-group social cohesion may produce barriers to developing bridging ties, such as out-group prejudice. On the other hand, they may be complementary and either increase or decrease simultaneously. Others have focused on the context within which the social ties are formed to identify different “types” based on their primary functions—for example “religious social ties”, “work ties”, or “neighborhood social ties.” This line of work brings to focus an important but perhaps less studied aspect of social capital—that often social capital is a 27 byproduct of the other goals that individuals pursue to ensure survival and well-being in today’s complex urban society (Coleman, 1990; Wuthnow, 2003). Social psychological factors. Another explanatory factor in civic engagement is group-based identities and the sense of belonging and connectedness that is associated with the group. This group-based identity can be explained in other words as: “group consciousness” (Verba et. al, 1995), “a sense of place,” “affection for the polity” (Flanagan, 2004), “identity within a community of belonging” (Torney-Purta, Ameado, & Andolina, 2010), or “groupness” (Lee, 2007). At the same time, individuals can have a sense of belonging in the communities of practice such as schools, churches, community organizations, and voluntary associations, or to the residential neighborhood (Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006). Individuals participate in and belong to multiple groups, and may self-identify with multiple groups at a time. Group-based identity is relevant in civic engagement to the extent that it leads to further development of psychological dispositions such as trust and compassion. Scholars have pointed to trust and compassion as two important social psychological factors related to civically oriented behaviors (Uslaner & Brown, 2005). Social psychological factors may also be an important explanation for why some organizations are better at promoting civic engagement among its members than others. For example, civic skills learning in the community of practice is often accompanied by a need for intimacy among the participating members, especially for disadvantaged youth (Eliasoph, 2011). According to Flanagan (2004), the ideal organization and institution that promotes engagement with the larger political process is one that cultivates empathy 28 and compassion. Empathy and compassion are especially important in coordinating efforts for civic engagement across different groups. Evidence establishing the relationship between trust and civic engagement among a more or less homogenous group has been widely reported. Although different conclusions have been made about the direction of the effects, feelings of trust toward others leads to working with the others in civic engagement related activities, and more participation in civic activities builds trust among participants. Perhaps the most commonly examined group-identity as a motivation for civic or political action is race and ethnicity. Lee (2007) talks about a sense of “groupness” in racial and ethnic communities that can be a powerful motivator for society-wide transformation or political action, as in the case of the 1960s civil rights movement. Making serious note of the increasing immigrant population of Asian Americans and Latinos in the U.S., Lee (2007) discusses how varieties of politics that go beyond voting is likely to emerge as a result of our shifting ideas about membership, identity, and belonging. However, Kim & Lee (2001) warn that at times group identity can be a double-edged sword when it comes to building coalition across different racial groups. Contemporary challenges. One of the challenges is addressing the gap between seemingly different psychological predispositions of trust among in-group members, and empathy leading to outreach and cooperation with members of an out-group. Studies point out that different sets of psychological depositions are related to civic engagement, depending on the referent group, as in the concepts “generalized” vs. “particularized” trust (Uslander & Conley, 2003). Other research has shown that subjective perceptions and feelings attached to a specific geographic area (not necessarily individual people) 29 may be related to individual’s civic engagement activities. McGrath & Rubio-Cortés (2012) argue that civic pride, defined as “a strong sense of identification with and affection for a particular place,” is “the glue that makes communities capable of overcoming challenges and divisions and working together toward common solutions and the common good” (p. 18-19). We know that a sense of pride is good, and it is sometimes seen as a marker for the civic health and vitality of the community. Projects and interventions at the community level, where residents take part in shaping the community’s identity may also increase a sense of neighborhood pride (Santo, Ferguson, & Trippel, 2010). Less explored is the extent to which social desirability and perceptions attached to certain neighborhoods may influence their motivation to invest in their own community. Popular perceptions of certain neighborhoods may determine whether they move to a neighborhood in the first place, but also their continued investment in and likelihood to stay. With immigrant groups with high mobility, they may not be able to develop the long history and have the opportunity to invest in the neighborhood. As alternative, popular perceptions—such as media images and interpersonal discussions of the neighborhood—may be more easily accessed and affect individual’s likelihood of engaging in neighborly activities. Research shows that mass media over a long period of time contribute to the collective social and cultural imaginary and historical meaning of space, and can shape individuals’ spatial stereotyping based on race and ethnicity (Matei, Ball-Rokeach, & Ungurean, 2007; Matei & Ball-Rokeach, 2005; Matei, Ball-Roeakch, & Qiu, 2001). Furthermore, when media or other agents tell bad stories about the community, residents may feel disinclined to tell share stories with others about their own 30 neighborhoods (Ball-Rokeach, Kim, Matei, 2001, p. 398). Following this line of research, this study examines civic engagement grounded in the neighborhood context, and feelings of attachment to and confidence in other residents to come together to address neighborhood problems. This study recognizes that being attuned to issues of identity and the psychology of attachment and belonging brings to attention the challenge of conceptualizing a single model of civic engagement in a multi-ethnic, multicultural context. This challenge is an important one as Dewey (1927) noted when he said that democratic ideals of communities involve “different groups interact flexibly and fully in connection with other groups” (p. 20). Gudykunst (1994) in his intergroup communication work also emphasizes the importance of bridging differences and embracing diversity in community building. Keeping in mind that the democratic ideal entails that the individual “denotes effective regard for whatever is distinctive and unique in each, irrespective of physical and psychological inequalities” (Dewey, 1927, p. 21), this current study examines feelings of belonging and perceived collective efficacy as important dimensions of civic engagement, in addition to actual participation. Psychological factors associated with group attachment and belonging may explain why individuals are motivated to engage for a common good, even at the cost of (or in the absences of ) their time, money, and resources. And they also help explain why individuals pursue common goals and participate in civic engagement despite differences in background and interests. 31 An Overarching Issue: Bonding vs. Bridging The challenge of striking a balance between bonding and bridging activities may pose different kind of challenges to different ethnic groups that coexist in a community. Eliasoph’s (2011) description of “mixers” and “protectors” in a community-based youth organization gets at different ways of reacting to or “doing diversity.” Where mixers sought to break down walls, cross boundaries, and get out of their comfort zones to experience different cultures, protectors, who were mostly ethnic minorities, sought mainly to build up walls and create an emotionally safe place as “a matter of survival, learned after years of repetition” (Eliasoph, 2011, p. 187). Some of the intergroup communication literature also sheds light on the seemingly opposing requirements for bridging vs. bonding for ethnic minorities. Especially in politically charged situations, trying to reduce prejudice directed at the minority group is by nature psychologically different from forming alliances and working together across majority and minority groups (Nagda, 2006; Wright & Lubensky, 2009). The challenge is facing up to the question: Why should individuals (or groups) care about bridging and reaching across different groups at all, especially if the group’s survival depends on protecting itself against a dominant or oppressive majority? For the dominant group that already has control and power over limited resources, why should they worry about their less well-off counterparts? For recent immigrants in particular, it might be that bonding social capital develops prior to bridging social capital as some scholars argue (see Becker and Dinhgra, 2001; Putnam, 2007; Weisinger and Salipante, 2005). Cultural orientations may also be at work. Immigrants’ perceived cultural differences between the host and home countries 32 (Lee & Moon, 2011, 817), or cultural orientations such as insularity and inclusivity (Kim & Wilcox, 2013, 31) may direct immigrants towards more bonding activities within their ethnic groups. From a newcomer’s perspective, faced with cultural and linguistic barriers, relationship building with co-ethnics may in fact be a prerequisite before bridging activities can even be considered or successfully attempted. Some have expanded the bridging and bonding terms to identify different types of civic engagement activities directed at different referent groups, such as co-ethnic vs. general civic engagement. For example, in examining multi-generational Korean immigrants Seo and Moon (2013) point to a possible “spillover effect” from coethnic civic engagement to mainstream civic engagement for those with longer residential tenure. Findings from Seo’s (2011) earlier work with a sample of Asian Americans also show some evidence of the spill-over effect from coethnic to general political participation. However, ethnic media reliance was found to be negatively related to general political participation (p. 353). How do people envision “collective identity” or a sense of “we” when they have such conflicting reactions to “difference”? A common component that underlies different models of civic engagement but is not explicitly dealt with is maintaining this balance between “strengthening within” vs. “reaching without,” or in social capital language, between “bridging” vs. “bonding” (Jang & Kim, 2013). For example, it is one thing for ethnic-based associations to help build strong social networks among its members (Jang & Kim, 2013), and for the association to foster an outward-looking focus outside of their ethnic and association boundaries (Ecklund & Park, 2005). What may need to be brought to attention is that both types of engagement (mixing or separating, bridging or bonding) 33 have their strengths and weaknesses and there will be times when one approach will be more effective than the other. More about how I address the bonding vs. bridging issue in this current study is described in Ch. 3. A Starting Point The first step is identifying immigrants’ everyday communication patterns and examining implications on integration into the host country by means of developing feelings of belonging with other community members (neighborhood belonging), a sense of trust and confidence in working with others to solve problems (perceived collective efficacy), and actual participation behaviors in the residentially-based local context (civic participation). By communication patterns I mean the intensity and range of individuals’ connections to co-ethnic and local/mainstream communication resources through which they come to understand and orient themselves in the new social environment. Do bonding and bridging communication resources play a different role in immigrants’ neighborhood civic engagement? The next step is to evaluate side-by-side immigrants’ civically-oriented attitudes, competencies, and behaviors in church and in their residential neighborhood. The last step is to contextualize the role of the church within individuals’ broader network of communication patterns. By conceptualizing the church as a meso-level communication resource (i.e. a community organization), I can first identify and the test the relationships between different aspects of church participation on civic engagement. 34 What about church participation? Does it inhibit or facilitate immigrants’ participation in the broader community? Such an endeavor starts with and is informed by Communication Infrastructure Theory (CIT). CIT was developed by the Metamorphosis Project which is a community research center housed at USC, and led by Sandra Ball-Rokeach. CIT is a communication theory that, building on the works of other social science and humanities scholars, provides a conceptual and methodological framework for identifying multilevel communication processes and evaluating their effects on the civic, social, and physical vitality of urban local communities. The next chapter describes this theoretical framework. 35 CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK – COMMUNICATION INFRASTRUCTURE THEORY The theoretical framework for this research, CIT, brings communication to the forefront of civic engagement research. Specifically, it is concerned with first identifying the “different communication opportunity structures” (Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006a, p. 175) of a local community, and seeing how they make it easier or more difficult for residents to participate in civic life—to share a positive collective identity, stay informed about common issues and problems, get to know their neighbors, come together to fix neighborhood problems, and participate in civic life. These communication opportunity structures which are called communication infrastructures, are composed of multilevel, multimodal discursive processes (called the “storytelling network”) set in the specific physical and social environment of the local community context (called the “communication action context”). First, I will provide background on the literature that informs CIT research and the important conceptual assumptions. Second, I will describe the key components of the theory and their implications on civic engagement outcomes. Background and Conceptual Assumptions First, CIT builds on the concept of Anderson’s Imagined community. Originally proposed to explain the stability of nationalism and national identity through time, Anderson’s (2006) concept of the imagined community as “an imagined political 36 community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (p. 6). This is applied to not only the nation, but all communities of all sizes which can be distinguished by the ways in which they are imagined. They are imagined in the sense that the community’s boundary and what constitutes within are defined in the imagination of each of the individual members of the community, even if they never come to know each other. They each hold to an “image of their communion” (p. 6) and share a sense of “horizontal comradeship” (p. 7) based on their collective sense of belonging to the community. Anderson points to print-capitalism as the “technical means for ‘re-presenting’ the kind of imagined community” (p. 25). In the absence of concrete knowledge about or experience of face-to-face interaction with others, the imagined community can be seen at work in novels and newspapers which create a mass ceremony and habits of simultaneous consumption that make it possible for “people to think about themselves, and to relate themselves to others” (p. 36). In communication infrastructure theory (CIT), imagined community is at work in the storytelling neighborhood process whereby residents, media, and organizations tell stories about their neighborhood. A collective identity becomes activated when individuals are connected to these storytelling agents that give them some idea about the characteristics, concerns, interests, and problems of the neighborhood. Through their connection to the storytelling network, individual residents come to share a common idea about the kind of neighborhood they belong to without having to directly experience every aspect of the neighborhood or interact with every other resident. Second, CIT conceptualizes communication as the discursive processes. Fisher’s narrative paradigm (1989) is an alternative view to the rational paradigm that emphasizes 37 “argumentative competence” and says humans make decisions based on “knowledge of issues, modes of reasoning, appropriate tests, and rules of advocacy” (9). In contrast to the rational paradigm, Fisher suggests the narrative paradigm which assumes first and foremost that humans are storytellers. Everyone can potentially be rational in the narrative paradigm as it is within human nature to create and share narratives with others, but to also understand the world through narratives: “the narrative impulse is part of our very being” and “is a feature of human nature” that is “meaningful for persons in particular and in general, across communities as well as culture, across time and place” (Fisher, 1989, p. 8). It is through narratives that we make sense of our lives (MacIntyre, 1981), build our values and goals (Turner 1980), and process and remember information in ways that can be utilized for decision making (Weick & Browning, 1986). Narrative rationality is a capacity we all share as human beings and it is through the creating and sharing of narratives through which individuals make sense of their own lives, relationship with others, and place in the world. At the same time, there is no one grand master narrative. Stories compete with other stories, and “some stories are better than others, more coherent, more “true” to the way people and the world are” (Fisher, 1989, p. 10). Individuals choose to participate in one over the other based on historical, cultural context, but also individual differences in biography and character. Ultimately, we choose to participate in stories based on “whether the stories they experience ring true with the stories they know to be true in their lives” (p. 8). There are two ways that CIT expands on Fisher’s narrative paradigm. First, narratives are created not only by individuals, but also by media and organizations. Not 38 only do media and organizations create and disseminate bits of information, but these “information systems are conceived in more narrative form as storytellers” (Ball-Rokeach & Jung, 2009, 543). Second, the storytelling neighborhood in CIT is a specific type of storytelling in which the focus of the storytelling is on the residential neighborhood. Individuals participating in storytelling in the process construct an identity as a residential member of the neighborhood (Ball-Rokeach, Kim, & Matei, 2001). The residential members become a part of a collective sense of “we” shared by other residents who live and breathe in the shared physical space of the neighborhood. However, the potential for generalized storytelling to a more specific neighborhood storytelling does not happen automatically. The neighborhood storytelling is thematically a more focused type, and it can be constrained and/or facilitated by both internal and external factors within the neighborhood. The possibility that there will be an abundance or richness of stories on any given moment is very much dependent on the neighborhood’s communication environment. Third, the communication action context of CIT draws from that of Habermas (1984; 1985). In CIT, the communication action context is the “discourse preconditions for storytelling neighborhood” which can vary along the dimensions of openness and closedness (Ball-Rokeach, Kim, & Matei, 2001). More specifically, the communication action context in the communication environment in which the storytelling network process is embedded. For a specific neighborhood, one can examine then “whether the communication action context enables or constrains the storytelling system’s potential to turn its multilevel storytelling processes to neighborhood referents and audiences” (Ball- Rokeach, Kim, Matei, 2001, 400). Questions can be asked about aspects of the 39 neighborhood’s physical infrastructure, public spaces, institutions, but also demographic composition that make it easier for residents to get together, spend time, and talk with each other. The volume, content, and focus of neighborhood storytelling will be influenced by characteristics and integrity of the storytelling agents, but also by the extent to which the CAC facilitates this integration. Lastly, CIT builds on Media System Dependency Theory (MSD). Emerson’s (1962) power-dependence model explains how power is a property of the relation between actors, rather than an attribute of the actor, so that “power resides implicitly in the other’s dependency” (p. 32). Adopting the model to a theory on media effects, Ball- Rokeach & DeFleur (1976) suggest a dependency model of mass media effects wherein the media have power to the extent that they have monopoly over the type of information resources—and the gathering, processing, and disseminating of those resources— necessary for individuals to resolve ambiguity. Power does not operate so that it is invested in the media or the audience. The question is not whether media are powerful or weak, but in what cases and how they become powerful (Ball-Rokeach, 1998). This then puts the focus on the interrelational aspects between audience, media, and society. MSD moves away from a uses/effects approach to one of power-dependence to explain individuals’ relationship to media. In addition, media is seen as embedded in the larger social, political, economic context in which alternative routes for knowledge construction can be available, and the focus becomes how media information resources become central to such under certain conditions. In an effort to reflect the changing media environment that includes new media, the theory shifts the focus from mass media effects to communication effects. 40 In CIT, in addition to expanding the scope of media to include new media, meso- level storytellers (community orgs, geo-ethnic media) are introduced that act as the critical two-way link between the macro systems of mass media and individuals. CIT then expands the scope of MSD theory so that the “media become part of a larger storytelling system” where “the critical concern is not the separate activities of each of these storytellers, but the strength of their relationships with each other” (Ball-Rokeach & Jung, 2009, 541-542). A major component of what makes CIT an ecological approach is the dependency relation concept. The dependency relation between the micro-, meso-, and macro- storytelling agents can be described in terms of intensity, scope, and structure. Intensity and scope in particular are useful concepts that guide data collection methods at the individual level. To define briefly, in the initial conceptualization, intensity is a qualitative characteristic of the dependency relation between the individual and interpersonal networks, local media, and community organizations. It measures the frequency of exposure or the degree of helpfulness of that particular storytelling agent for a specific goal (e.g. “how often do you have discussions with others about things happening in your neighborhood or community?”). Scope is the range of different types of resources and is usually captured by summing the number of different mediated and organizational storytelling resources identified by the respondent. This has been less explored but equally applicable in the assessment of the strength of the links between the meso-level storytelling agents (community orgs and local media) (see Matsaganis, 2008). To go back to the media example, moving away from media “use,” the theory turns to the idea of individual’s connectedness to media. The term connectedness is a more ecological 41 concept that describes: “individuals’ relation with a wider scope of communication resources ranging from interpersonal communication, new and old media, and small and big media” (p. Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006, CT, p. 181). Another unique feature of CIT is that it focuses on the overall “integration” of the storytelling network. In other words, “it focuses not only on the strength of each community storyteller but also on the value added when they form a storytelling network” (Kim, Ball-Rokeach, 2006, CT, p. 181). The ICSN measure was developed to captures this overall level of integration. In the next section, I will present key components of CIT before moving to Chapter 3 where I discuss how the theory has been adapted for this current study. Components of CIT and Civic Engagement Outcomes In CIT terms, the discursive process refers to the “storytelling network” (STN) set in the “communication action context” (CAC). Thus, the content of that which is communicated and that which CIT tries to capture is not merely information but includes a wider range of communication processes through which perceptions, imaginations, and knowledge specific to a local community are discursively created by its multiple participants. Local community storytelling may take place at the micro- and meso- levels and is “a generic process of constructing and reconstructing discourse about community identity, issues, and action strategies” (Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006a, p. 177). The three levels at which storytelling takes place include: 1) the residents who talk with neighbors, family and friends; 2) community and non-profit organizations located in and/or serving 42 the residents; 3) local media that target a specific geographic area or ethnic group. Research shows that individuals’ varying levels of connection to this storytelling network impacts neighborhood belonging (Ball-Rokeach, Kim, & Matei, 2001), offline and online civic participation (Ognyanova et al., 2013), intergroup perceptions (Broad, Gonzalez, & Ball-Rokeach, 2014), and overall civic engagement (Chen et al., 2013; Kim & Ball- Rokeach, 2006?). The following sections will discuss how each of the three types of storytelling resources are conceived in the theory and their implications for individuals’ civic engagement outcomes. Multilevel storytelling resources Interpersonal networks. The micro-level storytelling resource is conceived in CIT as the individual’s interpersonal networks made up of neighbors, friends, family, relatives, co-workers and others. Interpersonal networks are storytelling resources to an individual to the extent that there is exchange of everyday conversation and talk about the local community. For example, a person’s large network of friends or family members does not automatically operate as interpersonal storytelling agents. The interpersonal networks become interpersonal storytelling resources when the person is talking to those friends and family members about things happening in a particular geographic or ethnic community, a particular issue in order to better understand it, or to seek advice and address a problem. It not only matters if and how much people are talking, but what you are talking about. Of the three types of storytelling, it is assumed that this micro-level process—the everyday discussion of neighborhood stories with others—will be “the more 43 powerful predictor of belonging” as it involves “more active imagining of community than either connecting to local media or participation in community organizations” (Ball- Rokeach, Kim, & Matei, 2001, p. 401). Geo-ethnic media. Although everyday discussion with others about not only the problems and issues, but also the opportunities, improvements, new resources and problems of your community are important, practices of bridging and community- building in multiethnic communities cannot be sustained alone by individuals. In CIT, one of the meso-level storytelling resources is local media. Particular attention is given to a specific type of local media—geo-ethnic media. Geo-ethnic media are “media that are produced by and for (a) immigrants, (b) racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities, as well as (c) indigenous populations living across different countries” (Matsaganis, Katz, & Ball- Rokeach, 2010, p. 6). Geo-ethnic storytelling involves “production of culturally relevant, locally focused content for their audience that encourages residents to connect with community resources, organizations, and each other” (Lin & Song, 2006, p. 208). Examining the news content of Korean, Chinese, and Latino ethnic media in three different communities, Lin and Song (2006) observe that the storytelling in ethnic media differs from that of mainstream media in story type, source, or topic. Geo-ethnic media, however, is not limited to those targeted to immigrant groups. Media targeted to any ethnic or racial group of a particular geographic area considered geo-ethnic. Geo-ethnic media have important implications for civil society in increasingly diversified communities, in particular, among immigrant communities: “ethnic media with geo-ethnic storytelling play a democratic role in promoting conversation and mobilizing people toward concrete civic actions in the host society; meanwhile, they also 44 help localize global experience in the practices of everyday life” (Lin & Song, 2006, p. 368). It has consequences for neighborhood engagement and feelings of belonging. For example, “although ethnic media help with immigrants’ adaptation in the initial phase, a possible damaging impact on adaptation emerges when immigrants depend on ethnic media for too long” (p. 382). Lin and Song (2006) suggest that ethnic media produce more culturally relevant but also locally vital stories that are useful for immigrants in achieving everyday goals. Ultimately, geo-ethnic media can be an important meso-level storytelling agent that might directly impact immigrants’ sense of belonging, but also connect them to other media platforms, local organizations, professionals, and stimulate interpersonal discussions. Local community organizations. Along with geo-ethnic media, community organizations are also an important meso-level feature of the storytelling network. Community organizations are conceived as “more locally based organizations whose primary goals concern one or another form of linkage in a particular residential area” (Ball-Rokeach, Kim, & Matei, 2001, p. 397), and may include non-profit organizations that either engage in community organizing and advocacy work, or provide health, social, financial, or legal services and resources to community members. When community organizations have a ground-level understanding of residents’ everyday lives, and are at the forefront of addressing the most pressing issues of a community, they help to stimulate active storytelling both within and beyond the boundaries of the organization. Along with local media, meso-level storytelling resources play a crucial role in creating the “connective tissues in the overall storytelling system wherein multiple narratives are constructed, engaged, and negotiated” (Ball-Rokeach, Kim, & Matei, 2001, p. 398). In 45 other words, “stories they tell serve as catalysts for micro-level storytelling (e.g. activate neighbors’ storytelling their neighborhoods) or as bridge between macro and micro storytelling (e.g., getting neighborhood stories into mainstream media or on the agenda of civic decision makers” (Ball-Rokeach, Kim, & Matei, 2001, p. 399). Integrated Connectedness to Storytelling Network (ICSN). The overall quality of the storytelling network is expressed by the level of “integration” of the three storytelling network agents including interpersonal networks, local media, and community organizations. Thus, over and beyond the influence of each of the storytelling agents alone, CIT focuses on the extent to which the individual is connected to an integrated storytelling network. The integrated connectedness to the storytelling network (ICSN) measure captures this dimension. ICSN is calculated as a weighted summation of three interaction terms between scope of connections to the local media (LC), scope of connections to community organizations (OC), and intensity of interpersonal neighborhood storytelling (INS) (Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006a). ICSN = √LC × INS + √INS × OC + √OC × LC The main theoretical proposition of CIT is that integrated connections to the storytelling network are crucial for civic engagement. Studies show that the hypothesis holds up in different contexts (REF). Why this is the case can be explained as such: “When embedded in a neighborhood environment where key community storytellers encourage each other to talk about the neighborhood, individual residents are more likely to become 46 community members rather than mere occupants of physical spaces, to have a stronger sense that they can solve various neighborhood problems, and to be more willing to participate in civic actions” (Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006a, p. 189-190). This current study tests the relationships between respondents’ ICSN and civic engagement outcomes among Korean immigrants attending Eternal Church. Communication Action Context (CAC). The other component of CIT is the communication action context. The local neighborhood context can be characterized by its physical and structural characteristics, and sociocultural dynamics. CIT research shows that “the sociocultural geography of local community is a crucial contextual factor that directly constrains or facilitates neighborhood storytelling” (Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006a, 185), while “place-based social groups” are central in maintaining a viable social fabric (Matei, Ball-Rokeach, & Qiu, 2001). For example, are the public places such as parks, malls and sidewalks clean and convenient such that residents feel comfortable meeting, greeting, and conversing together? Kim & Ball-Rokeach (2006b) propose a “conditional compensation hypothesis’’ wherein the importance of individuals’ connections to storytelling resources is higher in disadvantaged neighborhoods (i.e., less desirable communication action contexts) because, once connected to storytelling network resources, residents in disadvantaged areas may turn their storytelling more actively than those in advantaged areas to building and maintaining community in spite of environmental constraints. (p. 419). Thus, the nature of the storytelling can be different by neighborhood, conditioned by different components of the CAC. 47 CAC can be related to socio-economic dynamics. For example, when there is a change in racial-ethnic composition of the neighborhoods this might result in cultural and linguistic barriers to communication at either the micro-level (between residents) or the meso-level (between geo-ethnic media, or community organization serving specific ethnic groups). In neighborhoods that have a large presence of immigrant groups, this may lead to the case of ethnically-bounded storytelling networks wherein the referent of the stories becomes a specific group (Chinese vs. Korean vs. Anglo), rather than the neighborhood as a whole. In addition, whether people are part of a majority or minority ethnic group may determine the extent to which they are likely to engage with and talk with others. Residential tenure and homeownership are also two contextual factors often identified that may shape individuals’ access and connection to the storytelling agents (Kang & Kwak, 2003; Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006b). These dynamics matter to the extent that they either constrain or facilitate neighborhood storytelling. The research context in CIT is normally set in a geographic community whether that is a city or neighborhood. As will be detailed in the following chapter, this current study takes a slightly modified approach. It starts with a specific site in a community, with recruitment of survey respondents taking place at this site, and extends outwards to examine the differing effects of church participation on civic engagement in the respondents’ own respective neighborhoods across Los Angeles City. For the purpose of this study, I focus on the individual level of analysis and on the storytelling network component of CIT, leaving the communication action context and the effects of community-level variables to be explored in future research. 48 CHAPTER THREE: APPLYING CIT TO CURRENT STUDY The Church within CIT In CIT-led community engagement work and collaborative research projects, most have focused on non-profit community organizations (both service and advocacy oriented), along with local media, as one of two meso-level storytelling agents in the storytelling network. With the exception of Chavez & Ball-Rokeach (2008) qualitative study of the Catholic parish in Los Angeles, the church, although an important part of the immigrants’ associational life has not been the focus of CIT inquiry. This research utilizes CIT to more closely examine the role of the Korean ethnic church in relation to other storytelling agents and how they may influence first generation Korean immigrants’ civic engagement outcomes. The research site, Eternal Church, in this study can be seen as operating at the meso- level. The church as a physical location and space in the community, makes available human, cultural, and social capital that otherwise would not be available in the community. It also brings community members physically together on a regular basis for activities and programs, with shared assumptions, rituals, and goals. And it has the capacity for storytelling and to disseminate stories to its members on a broader scale than individuals (or groups of individuals) alone. In CIT resident surveys the church has been normally treated as one type of “organizational or group activity” among others including sports and recreational, cultural, political, educational, and charity-based. 49 Thus, focusing on the church as an institutional player in the community, the goal of this research is to examine the church vis-a-vis its functions to provide opportunities for congregants to become integrated into their respective communities. The functions may be that by members participating in the church, they may generalize that to belonging, collective efficacy and participation in their neighborhoods. Or, the church, itself, may be directly promoting such. In order to do examine such the functions of church, I have created and utilized in the analysis the following church-related measures: church dependency, perceived church storytelling resources, church belonging, church collective efficacy, and church participation. The process was guided by CIT and informed by literature on religious participation and civic engagement, and will be described in detail in the “Developing the Church Measures” section of this chapter. They will be referred to as “church factors,” and are measures assessing dimensions of individuals’ relationship to the church. Addressing the Bonding and Bridging Issue The church vs. neighborhood. First and foremost, by design, the current study centralizes the bonding and bridging issue by comparing side by side the more insular form of civic engagement in the church context, and the more outward-looking form of civic engagement in the neighborhood context. These two types can be distinguished on two levels. First, is the referent group—the “others” to whom individuals’ feelings of belonging and collective efficacy are directed. In church engagement, the feelings of trust and social cohesion are directed at the other church attendees who may or may not be 50 their neighbors. In residentially-based civic engagement, they are directed at the other residents in the neighborhood where they live—in other words their “neighbors,” which may or may not include Koreans or other people from church. The second difference is the type of problems or issues that prompt action. In church engagement, the activities are specific to what may take place within the church and focused on problems or issues at church. This also applies to church collective efficacy which refers to the confidence that other churchgoers will come together to solve church problems. On the other hand, residentially-located civic engagement is specific to things happening outside of the church, and prompting action to solve neighborhood specific problems. In a broader sense, this study conceives differences in individuals’ levels of church engagement and civic engagement as one way in which the bonding and bridging challenge can be observed for immigrants. Specifically, it tests with survey data whether respondents’ ethnic and context-specific feelings of belonging, collective efficacy, and participation activities are significantly correlated with feelings of belonging, collective efficacy, and participation for the broader referent group of the local community where they live or residential neighbors. Ethnically-bounded storytelling networks. This research addresses the call that civic engagement research for immigrants needs to consider more in-depth the role of different types of social relations forged, and with whom the networks are constructed. Does the network include people who share a common culture and language? Or does it include dissimilar others which may require more effort and time to build? And, more importantly, what are the implications of being connected to different types of social 51 networks on civic engagement outcomes? Are there times where trust-building, collective problem-solving and action are practiced and learned first within co-ethnic contexts, and transferred to other bridging contexts? Similarly, it is one thing for ethnic-based associations to help build strong social networks among its members (Jang & Kim, 2013), and another for the association to foster an outward-looking focus outside of their ethnic and association boundaries (Ecklund & Park, 2005). Although bonding and bridging can be defined in other ways, this study conceives of the difference between the two based on ethnicity. In other words, bonding includes or is directed at other Koreans. Bridging includes or is directed at both Koreans and non-Koreans, or specifically other ethnicities that are non-Korean. Considering that the Korean national identity and culture is markedly more homogenous than that of the U.S., recent immigrants from Korea may face a more pronounced challenge of identifying with “other ethnicities”—both culturally and linguistically. Thus, in addition to testing the effects of respondents’ levels of ICSN on civic engagement, this dissertation will test the separate effects of bonding and bridging interpersonal discussion, media connectedness, and organizational participation on civic engagement outcomes. In CIT, bonding (as opposed to bridging) communicative practices can be translated into ethnically-bounded storytelling networks, which in turn have consequences for community-level civic engagement. Research shows that in multiethnic, multicultural neighborhoods, storytelling networks, even within the same residential community, tend to be ethnically-bounded; that is, ethnicities tend to connect mostly to each other, to their own community organizations, and to their own, often, ethnic media 52 (Ball-Rokeach, Kim & Matei, 2001; Chen et al., 2013; Lin & Song, 2006). It also means that the types of issues, stories, identities, and imaginations created and shared are specific to or target an ethnic group. Ethnically-bounded storytelling networks have implications for how the community may be “imagined” differently by different groups of people, even as they physically live in and share the space of a residential neighborhood. What is included and excluded in the “imagined community” has consequences for where the individuals’ feelings of belonging, trust, and commitment are directed. This research takes into account the ethnically-bounded nature of immigrant storytelling networks, and identifies Korean immigrants’ connections to Korean vs. non- Korean multilevel storytelling resources, in addition to identifying their neighborhood storytelling network. An individual is connected to an ethnically-bounded storytelling network when they are connected to co-ethnic interpersonal networks, organizations that target the Korean community or primarily run by Koreans, Korean language media. If there are bridging storytelling resources then their storytelling network is less ethnically- bounded. The following sections break down components of the storytelling network. First, it discusses the implications of immigrants’ connectedness to bonding vs. bridging storytelling resources in multiethnic contexts, and described what has been done to capture this in the current research. Co-ethnic vs. multiethnic interpersonal networks. In a pluralistic society, civic engagement faces the challenge of reaching across to include “others” that are socially and/or culturally distant from “us.” This is most commonly referred to as “bridging” in the social capital literature, which contrasts with “bonding,” connecting with like-minded 53 and similar people (Putnam). The bonding and bridging distinction is an important one that sensitizes us to the fact that the benefits of social capital for civic engagement are not always direct or obvious. Making connections between social capital and civic engagement outcomes require careful thinking, especially in multiethnic communities. For example, who are the individuals talking to, and what for? A common component that underlies different models of civic engagement is maintaining a balance between “strengthening within” vs. “reaching without,” or in social capital language, between “bridging” vs. “bonding” (Putnam, 1995; Jang & Kim, 2013). For recent immigrants in particular, bonding social networks may need to be established prior to developing any type of boundary-crossing social relationships. Lee and Moon (2011) argue that “perceived cultural differences with host society may encourage immigrants to build bonding social capital within their ethnic community” (p. 817), and may pose the bonding vs. bridging issue to be experienced and perceived more saliently. This challenge may also play out differently for different ethnic immigrant groups. It may pose a greater challenge for immigrants from ethnically homogenous countries that may not have had direct exposure to the type of cultural and ethnic diversity present in local communities in the U.S. Thus, this research makes the distinction between discussing things happening in their local communities with Koreans and non-Koreans. In particular, their church participation in a Korean church will contribute to prevalence of discussion with other Koreans. While it is assumed Korean immigrants will have a preference for and experience greater instances of co-ethnic interaction and social capital, it does not assume a complete absence of interaction with individuals of other ethnicities. For example, the 54 workplace and school setting may expose individuals to cross-boundary contact and interaction in the form of projects and tasks, which in turn may lead to friendships or alliances forged with individuals of other ethnicities. Especially in terms of civic engagement outcomes in multiethnic neighborhoods, individual differences in intensity of bridging neighborhood discussion may take on more significance than the intensity of bonding neighborhood discussion. Re-conceptualizing media storytellers. Normally, individuals’ connections to geo-ethnic media are evaluated by a two-step process whereby they are asked to identify: 1) the type of news sources they use to stay informed about their community, which may include television, radio, newspapers, Internet, followed by a question 2) whether the media source was mainstream commercial, public, or geo-ethnic (produced for the specific area or ethnic group). The index for local media connectedness is based on the number of media that are identified as geo-ethnic. In other instances, questions are asked about connectedness to geo-ethnic newspapers, TV , radio, and the index being created by summing the number. Several challenges arose for my case. First, the type of prompting and skip pattern questions used work well in telephone interview and online surveys, but difficult on self-administered paper surveys. Second, both instances require the respondent to be able to conceptualize specific types of geo-ethnic media outlets. By design, the Korean immigrants of this study come from multiple neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is a large city and consists of many smaller neighborhoods and the concept of geo-ethnic media will be very limiting and difficult to conceive for the respondents. Third, some of the Korean ethnic newspapers and Korean language TV channels have a “local media” 55 component in addition to home country news. It was necessary to consider that geo- ethnic media “content” may be consumed along with other types of media. To overcome these challenges, connectedness to local media is conceived in this study as getting news about the community they live in through English media, and getting such news through Korean media. This allowed me to separate the issue of time spent on Korean vs English language media outlets from being connected to local news content. This was achieved by a twostep process. First, time spent on Korean language media and English language media were separately assessed to see if individuals’ overall time spent on media is more ethnically-bounded than others. The media include both traditional and new media. With these adjustments, the goal is to parse out the “local” dimension of respondents’ media connectedness, regardless of the media outlet, while separately testing if it makes a difference if the local stories are connected via English vs. Korean media. Bonding vs. bridging organizations. Being connected to more organizational resources does not always lead to quality outcomes. It matters what types of organizations and groups immigrants are connecting to. Different types of organizations have different group styles which “belong to broader cultural repertoires” and reveal the different ways that “people coordinate themselves as a group in relation to the world outside the group” (Lichterman, 2009). Group styles of an organization may set the stage for (or at times, hinder) members’ participation in co-ethnic vs. mainstream volunteering (Lee & Moon, 2011), intergroup dialogue and intercultural competencies (Gurin et al, 2011), and ways of reacting to difference and “doing diversity” (Elisaoph, 2011). The challenge of 56 bonding and bridging social ties can be seen playing out at the intra-organizational level in multiethnic communities. For example, youth in an ethnically diverse community- based organization split into “mixers” and “protectors.” Where mixers sought to break down walls, cross boundaries, and get out of their comfort zones to experience different cultures, protectors, who were mostly ethnic minorities, sought mainly to build up walls and create an emotionally safe place as “a matter of survival, learned after years of repetition” (Eliasoph, 2011, p. 187). CIT assumes that when community organizations and local media are functioning as vibrant and effective meso-level storytelling agents, they can stimulate and help organize community members to address the most pressing community issues across all ethnic groups. Furthermore, they can play a crucial role in sustaining those community-wide connections through time and crises situations. In resident surveys, CIT studies have examined different types of organizations such as political, cultural, religious, and sports and recreation. Another feature is identifying whether it is a “local” organization—located inside the respondents’ neighborhood. This is determined in two ways: by a follow-up multiple choice question that asks if the organization they participate in is located within their neighborhood, or an open-ended question that asks them to give the name and description of the organization—this information is then used by the researcher to further investigate the nature of the organization in terms of its bonding and bridging orientation. Another feature that has been examined is how much overlap there is in the organizational affiliations of residents of different ethnicities/races in a neighborhood (Matsaganis, 2008; Chen et al., 2013). This research identifies the bonding and bridging functions of the church as identified by the participants. 57 Considering the wider geographic distribution of the survey respondents of this study, and to more systematically categorize bonding and bridging community organizations, a different follow-up question was added. In addition to the identification of Korean vs. English language media, community organizations identified by respondents are further classified as bonding and bridging on the basis of the ethnic group(s) that the group/organization primarily targets. The goal is to examine if Korean immigrants’ organizational participation matter for civic engagement outcomes even if it is only limited to co-ethnic groups, or do the civic benefits of organizational life become greater when a multiethnic group is included in their associational life? Developing the Church Measures Research in the areas of sociology, religion, psychology, nonprofits, and health has examined the role of religion in individuals’ civic engagement activities. By religious participation, I restrict myself to individuals’ behaviors and attitudes that take place specifically within, or involve others from Eternal Church. Individuals’ connections to Eternal Church are in addition to their scope of connections to other organizations (as part of ICSN), or their behaviors and attitudes related to their residential neighborhood. Considering different identifiers are used for the formal place of worship depending on the religious tradition, I will specifically refer to religious participation taking place within a church. Thus, “church participation” is used interchangeably with “religious participation.” Research that capture different types and levels of religious participation has most commonly looked at: worship (church) attendance, private vs. public types of 58 religiosity, church activities, religious salience, and religious tradition. Religion has been identified as playing an important role in volunteering, physical and mental health, cross- racial interaction, and other civic engagement related activities. Existing measures of church participation. This section first discusses the current and most commonly identified factors as they relate to civic engagement outcomes. Afterwards, the next section discusses how CIT is applied to conceptualize church participation. Responding to calls for more multidimensional examinations of the effects of religion, this current research proposes a communicative and ecological model to identify different components of an individual’s church participation, and then to test how the different components affect civic engagement outcomes. Frequency of attendance. The most common and widely used measure of religious participation is frequency of religious attendance. This is normally asked in surveys as: “how often do you attend religious services?” and respondents are given response options ranging from: “few times a week,” “once a week,” “once every two weeks,” “once a month,” and “once every few months.” Conflicting findings have been reported on the relationship between frequency of attendance and civic engagement related outcomes. On the one hand, studies show that frequency of religious attendance may buffer fears of property crime (Matthews, Johnson, & Jenks, 2011), and moderate effects of neighborhood deterioration on feelings of distress (Acevedo, Ellison, & Xu, 2014). Others have shown no significant relationship with secular volunteering (Johnson, Cohen, & Okun, 2013), or that it makes no significant difference in the individuals’ exposure to social change volunteering activities even across different religious traditions 59 (Guo, Webb, Abzug, & Peck, 2013) . Some studies point to a negative relationship with civic engagement outcomes (Driskell, Lyon, & Embry, 2008; Houston & Todd, 2013). Others show that the effects of attendance on civic engagement related outcomes may also be moderated by other factors such as the type of religious traditions (Guo et al.'s, 2013) or demographic factors such as gender (Sirin & Katsiaficas, 2011). Active forms of participation. Others have examined the degree and/or frequency of the more active forms of participation that go beyond regular worship attendance. Participation in religious activities outside of the regular worship service generally have a positive relationship to civic engagement related outcomes (Driskell et al., 2008; Houston & Todd, 2013; Merino, 2013). In the study of the Black church, Robnett and Bany (2011) examine how the more active forms of church participation such as serving on a committee, giving time to a special project, or helping to organize a meeting are related to more political engagement, but the effects are moderated by gender so that “church involvement more highly facilitates the political participation of black men than black women” (Robnett & Bany, 2011, p. 705). Another form of participation that requires a significant amount of commitment on behalf of the individual—going on mission trips—has a strong and positive effect on civic engagement. Youth who participated in mission trips experienced what it meant to reach out and help others, but also reported being more sensitized to the needs of the community back home (Beyerlein, Trinitapoli, & Adler, 2011). The more active types of participation in church can contribute to individuals’ civic engagement outcomes when they mirror the types of communication, social, and organizational skills an individual needs to navigate and take part in the civic or political arena. 60 Private vs. public religiosity. Studies show that both private (individual) and public (collective) forms of religious activities can have a positive effect on civic engagement. The benefit of the more public forms of religious participation is in the development of social ties. Social ties developed at church have both direct positive effects on individuals’ health (McDougle, Handy, Konrath, & Walk, 2013) and civic engagement (Lewis, MacGregor, & Putnam, 2013), but also rippling effects on the non- religious as well (Lim & MacGregor, 2012; Merino, 2013). On the other hand, Johnson et al., (2013) compares Mormons to Catholics and non-Catholic Christians, and found higher levels of intrinsic religiosity is associated with higher likelihood of engaging in family and religious volunteering. The internal values and norms of the religion are important and make a difference in the likelihood of the congregants to engage with various forms of volunteering or other civically-oriented activities. As Johnson et al. (2013) explain, “not all religious groups emphasize the same values and social norms, and the distinctive values of a particular religious group also matter (e.g., the extent to which volunteer service is emphasized)” (p. 844-845). As much as the Mormon emphasis on family and religion may play a role in encouraging family and religion-specific volunteering activities, the lack of a specific emphasis “on providing assistance to out- group members” (Johnson et al., 2013, p. 849), may just as well explain the non- significant relationship between intrinsic religiosity and secular volunteering. Similarly, Acevedo et al.'s (2014) study of adults in Texas shows that nonorganizational (individual) forms of religious activities (e.g. frequency of prayer, bible study, reading religious materials, consuming religious media) have a stronger buffering effect on distress caused 61 by neighborhood disadvantage, more so than organizational religious activities or secular volunteering. Different mechanisms can explain the role of the church in individuals’ civic engagement. Where the more private forms of religious involvement is related to civic engagement, the particular effects of the religious beliefs and motivations provided by the church may be at work. On the other hand, where the more public forms of religious activities have an effect, it can be that the pro-social effects help to dampen emotional distress, assist everyday problem solving, and expose individuals to various civic engagement recruitment opportunities. However, as Paxton, Reith, & Glanville's (2014) recent cross-national study shows, the public and private aspects of religiosity are often contingent upon one another. In studying their effects on volunteering, they call for a more “nuanced perspective” of the difference dimensions of religiosity, bringing to attention that “the binary debate between ‘‘network’’ and ‘‘belief’’ theories of religion’s pro-social effects is at least partially misplaced” (Paxton et al., 2014, p. 620). Religious tradition. Religious tradition is another commonly used variable. In an overview of studies looking at religious traditions and civic engagement, Driskell et al. (2008) report that the findings are “inconsistent, but generally show differences” (p. 582). In their own study of a nationally representative survey of 1,721adults, Driskell et al., (2008) conclude that Mainline Protestants and Jews are more likely to be civically engaged than Evangelical Protestants and Black Protestants, and refer to other research that continue to show differences in religious traditions matter for civic engagement. Measures of church attendance can play a different role on the more general community- wide interests and activities depending on religious traditions and the different cultures of 62 the church. Unless there is an explicit effort on behalf of the church to orient its members to bridging activities (e.g. Ecklund, Davila, Emerson, Kye, & Chan, 2013) or a clear narrative that connects religion to civic life (e.g. (Ecklund, Shih, Emerson, & Kye, 2012), attendance in worship service is likely to be limited to foster bonding within the boundaries of the church (Beyerlein & Hipp, 2006). McClure's (2014) study exemplifies how religious tradition makes a difference in the likelihood of congregation attendees to participate in community and outreach activities. In addition, putting aside theology, each religious organization has what sociologist Paul Lichterman (2005, 2007) calls a distinct group style that shapes how members “spiral out” into the larger community. Others alike point to the significance of variances even within religious traditions, such as political ideology or organizational hierarchy, that can differentially influence members’ civic engagement activities (López-sanders, 2012). A multidimensional approach to church participation: general assumptions. Building on previous literature (Driskell et al., 2008; Paxton et al., 2014) and utilizing CIT, this research takes a multidimensional approach in order to evaluate the effects of church participation on individuals’ civic engagement outcomes. Before describing each of the three dimensions of church participation proposed, I will describe some general assumptions underlying the development of the measures. First, the research follows scholars such Cnaan and Curtis (2013) and Lichterman (2005) whose analytical approach focuses on the social and organizational functions of the church, rather than theology. Cnaan and Curtis (2013) explain: “They are the societal mechanism by which people of faith come together to form a collective that sets 63 organized and accepted means to jointly express religiosity” and thereby, “the social energy created by a congregation helps produce public goods that are beneficial to members and society alike” (p. 12). Similarly, this research focuses on the social and organizational functions of the church. What this means is that rather than analyzing the church’s theological premises, I focus on its organizational properties and its capacity to act as a storytelling communication resource for individuals. Second, this research takes a resource-based approach. Specifically, the church is conceptualized as a meso-level communication resource. It is a resource to the extent that it provides individuals with different types of capital (e.g. social, human, or cultural capital) useful for dealing with ambiguous situations or solving problems in their everyday life. It is a communication resource in that such capital can be tapped into when individuals take part in its discursive process (e.g. informal conversations, formal announcements on church materials, participating in meetings) through which social support, knowledge, norms, and collective identities are created, shared, and sustained. The church is a meso-level resource that brings together micro- and meso-level resources. For example, an individual may be referred to a health or legal professional by a fellow church member, or may be introduced to other civic organizations in the area when they participate in events and programs at church. Third, the research focuses on the church as one of several geo-symbolic sites— perhaps along with workplace and school—that are important to the social integration of immigrants into the host country. Studies that examine practices within the local neighborhood context put more emphasis on aspects of the social environment in which civic engagement takes place. Some works explicitly call for a more grass-roots and 64 ecological approach to civic engagement, which involves seeing civic engagement not as individual instances, but a wider net of civic possibilities and moments of engagement that cross multiple social groups and associations (Warren & Wicks, 2011; Gimpel, Lay, & Schuknecht, 2003; Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006; Saldivar-Tanaka, & Kransy, 2004; Wilkin, Katz, & Ball-Rokeach, 2009). Following this line of work, this research captures and compares immigrants’ engagement in the church and in their residential neighborhood. For recent immigrants, the church is one place where the motivation, skills, and actual practices related to “community engagement” may be experienced and further developed. This research tests whether members learn how to come together in the church context and that this learning is then transferred to the residential neighborhood. Fourth, the current study is an in-depth examination of the different levels of religious participation among members of a large Korean-American Christian church. This case study approach allows: 1) the effects of religious tradition and organizational culture to be held constant, and 2) to capture the more nuanced variations in the social and communicative processes at the individual level, and how they impact civic engagement. Thus, the focus is on the intra-organizational and individual level differences in examining the relationship between communication and church factors, and civic engagement outcomes. Last of all, the research takes an ecological approach to conceptualize the church in the context of the individuals’ wider network of interpersonal, mediated, and organizational communication resources. Thus, in addition to testing the effects of church factors on civic engagement outcomes, this study introduces individuals’ ICSN into the 65 model to examine the moderating effects of ICSN on the relationship between the church factors and civic engagement outcomes. The next section describes the measures. The proposed measures Church connectedness. Church connectedness captures the different types of individuals’ dependency relations (Ball-Rokeach, 1985) with the church in terms of intensity and goal scope. This most closely correlates with the traditional measures of frequency of attendance with the distinction made between attendance for worship/service, and attendance for other activities. If the individual spends more time at church, they will be exposed to more opportunities to connect with social and human capital available at and through the church. On the other hand, if they spend more time at church, this may take away time from other potential community engagement activities, especially if the church does not promote the kind of community work outside of the church boundaries. Frequency of attendance is helpful for capturing and comparing differences in the absolute (time) resources that an individual devotes to the church. Although research shows that the church appears as an important source of organizational participation, the implication of varying levels and types of church factors on immigrants’ civic engagement is yet to be explored. Perceived church storytelling resources. This measure will be used to provide a description of the social and communicative functions of the church as perceived by the respondents. More specifically, the extent to which the church connects its members to interpersonal, mediated, and organizational storytelling resources beyond the church 66 boundaries can shed light on the extent to which it help members better integrate into the broader local community. The goals include meeting people, staying on top of the surrounding local community, connecting to other organizations or groups, and connecting to services or professionals. The storytelling potential of the church as perceived by the individual provides a starting point for examining if the church can play “central roles in the individuals’ lives as facilitating their understanding of their social environs and themselves, acting and interacting, and playing with others or by oneself” (Ball-Rokeach, 1985, p. 496). Church engagement. Operationalizing “church engagement” places the idea of religious participation within the individual immigrant’s wider network of civic possibilities and resources. The goal is to look beyond immigrant’s civic engagement as either engaged vs. not engaged and consider the multiple symbolic and physical spaces that are significant to the immigrant and where the motivation and skills for, and actual practices of “community engagement” may take place. The church becomes one of many potential sites for feelings of belonging, collective efficacy, and participation with varying degrees of interaction and cooperation with Koreans, non-Koreans, their immediate local community, and the broader society. With conflicting findings in the present body of knowledge about the role of the church in immigrant’s civic engagement, the question may be directed at understanding at what times and under what conditions the immigrant’s sense of belonging, collective efficacy and participation within the church becomes a precipitant for broader civic engagement. Church belonging. According to CIT, neighborhood belonging resembles social cohesion and captures individuals’ neighborly feelings and behaviors (Kim & Ball- 67 Rokeach, 2006, p. 416). Church belonging is adapted from neighborhood belonging but measures the subjective and objective indicators of belonging within the confines of the church and other fellow churchgoers. The subjective dimension is captured by individuals’ positive attitudes and behaviors towards others at church, such as being interested in knowing what they are like and exchanging gifts. The objective dimension is captured by the number of people they know and trust to ask for personal favors such as asking for a ride or talking about personal problems. Church collective efficacy. According to CIT, perceived collective efficacy is a community-level belief that “we” can come together to solve shared problems (Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006). Similar to church belonging, this measure again takes collective efficacy to the level of the church and the local community surrounding it. It asks the respondents about counting on other church members to do something if there is a problem that needs to be taken care of in the church or the surrounding area. The question asks how many people they think can be counted on if things need to be taken care of on a community level, such as “stop sign or speed bump is needed to prevent speed driving” or “church facility has become unsafe due to poor maintenance.” Church participation. According to CIT, civic participation measures “actual “behavior” implicated in local policy-making and community opinion-making processes” (Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006, p. 416). Church participation also measures the more active forms of participation—so beyond just attending service on Sunday—but specific to the church context. Survey questions ask about participation in attending meetings, communicating to a church leader, pastor, deacon about problems, posting on the church website, participating in a missionary program, organizing an event or program at church, 68 volunteering within the church or in the surrounding community, and donating money to causes supported by the church. To summarize, with the three different measures, the goal is to understand the functions of the church as it: 1) Provides opportunities for individuals to bond with similar others (church belonging); 2) Increases trust and confidence in the collective “we”—that people can come together to solve problems (church collective efficacy); 3) Provides opportunities for experiencing and practicing civic skills and roles (church participation); 4) Connects individuals to storytelling resources both within and outside of the church (perceived church storytelling); 5) Serves as both an anchor and gateway whereby individuals become more integrated into the social fabric of the broader community that the church is embedded in. 69 CHAPTER FOUR: RESEARCH QUESTIONS The first research question concerns one of the main theoretical propositions of CIT—that ICSN is an important predictive factor of civic engagement. When individuals are connected to the local storytelling network, they will develop feelings of belonging with other community members, a sense of trust and confidence in working with others to solve problems, and actual participation behaviors in the local context. Thus, the first set of research questions asks if there is a positive relationship between ICSN and civic engagement among first generation Korean immigrants at Eternal Church. RQ 1: Does neighborhood ICSN have a positive effect upon the level of civic engagement among Korean immigrants? RQ 1.1: Does ICSN have a positive effect upon the level of neighborhood belonging among Korean immigrants? RQ 1.2: Does ICSN have a positive effect upon the level of collective efficacy among Korean immigrants? RQ 1.3: Does ICSN have a positive effect upon the level of civic participation among Korean immigrants? RQ 1.4: Controlling for SES (age, gender, education, and income), does ICSN, neighborhood belonging, and collective efficacy significantly predict levels of civic participation among Korean immigrants? For recent immigrants, the church is one place where the motivation, skills, and actual practices related to “community engagement” may be experienced and further developed. Although religious participation can have various positive effects on an 70 individuals’ quality of everyday life, research shows conflicting findings about the role of the ethnic church for recent immigrants in promoting bridging activities and participation in the local community outside of church boundaries. Thus, this research tests whether Korean immigrants of Eternal Church learn how to come together in the church context and that this learning is then transferred to the residential neighborhood. On the one hand, especially for recent immigrants, high dependency on church activities may limit the amount of absolute time and resources available and preclude opportunities for participation in the broader community, in which case church factors and neighborhood- specific civic engagement will be negatively correlated. On the other hand, as scholars have pointed out, bonding and co-ethnic activities may be a necessary condition for bridging and mainstream civic engagement, in which case the church factors and civic engagement outcomes will be positively correlated. Thus, the following research question is proposed: RQ 2: Is there a significant relationship between Korean immigrants’ church engagement and neighborhood-specific civic engagement dimensions? RQ 2.1: Does church belonging positively correlate with neighborhood belonging? RQ 2.2: Does church collective efficacy positively correlate with neighborhood collective efficacy? RQ 2.3: Does church participation positively correlate with neighborhood civic participation? Going beyond testing the effects of church factors on civic engagement, this study examines individuals’ multidimensional relationship to church (church 71 connectedness and church engagement) in the context of their connections to other interpersonal, mediated, and organizational communication resources (ICSN). The same level of church participation may mean different things for two people who have different ICSN. For someone who is a part of multiple organizations and frequently talks to others about the local community (high ICSN), their activities at church may be an added effect on civic engagement. However, for someone who is only connected to the church (low ICSN), it may be that their church participation is indeed a barrier to broader engagement in the local community. Or, perhaps for some, regardless of ICSN, the church is indeed an important place where the motivation and skills for, and actual practices of engagement take place and that the church is playing a significant role as a civic institution. Thus RQ 3 and RQ 4 explore where there are significant relationships between church factors, church engagement, and ICSN: RQ 3: Is church connectedness a significant predictor of church belonging, collective efficacy, and participation? RQ 4: Is there a significant relationship between ICSN and church factors? RQ 4.1: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church service attendance? RQ 4.2: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church non-service attendance? RQ 4.3: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church belonging? RQ 4.4: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church collective efficacy? RQ 4.5: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church participation? 72 From the point of view of the individual church attendees, Eternal Church primarily provides opportunities for bonding. However, bonding organizations may have bridging elements. In addition to examining respondents’ scope of connections to community organizations, and whether bridging community organizations make a significant difference in civic engagement outcomes, I ask if there is a bridging element to this church. In other words, to what extent is the church involved “in” the community, or alternatively, “brings” the community into the church? And to what extent does this church direct people beyond itself into the surrounding community by connecting them to other social, organizational, and institutional resources? Thus, the final research question proposed is: RQ 5: To what extent does Eternal Church provide bridging opportunities for the respondents? In other words, in what ways does the church direct people to opportunities to meet people of different backgrounds, stay on top of what is going on in the community, and help them connect with other organizations/groups, services and professionals? This study will provide a descriptive analysis of the church in terms of its bridging elements from the perspective of the respondents (survey measure: perceived church storytelling) and the researcher’s observations (field observations). Last of all, one of the challenges for civic engagement research identified in the earlier chapters was better incorporating the bonding and bridging issue into existing models. As discussed previously, especially for recent immigrants who come from 73 countries that are ethnically and culturally homogenous, the bonding and bridging issue may carry more weight and be more pronounced in their everyday life experience in a multiethnic city like Los Angeles. Thus, separate from the effects of local storytelling resources (ICSN) on civic engagement, this study compares the effects of bonding vs. bridging storytelling resources on civic engagement outcomes. Thus, the following questions are proposed: RQ 6: Do ethnically-bounded storytelling networks make a difference in Korean immigrants’ civic engagement outcomes? RQ 6.1: Is there a significant difference between the effects of bonding vs. bridging neighborhood discussion on neighborhood civic engagement? RQ 6-2: Is there a significant difference between the effects of local media connectedness through Korean vs. English language media on neighborhood civic engagement? RQ 6-3: Is there a significant effect of bridging community organizations on neighborhood civic engagement? 74 CHAPTER FIVE: RESEARCH DESIGN Self-Administered Survey Method Survey data were collected as part of an original research study on Korean immigrants’ communication ecologies, church participation, and civic engagement. The data used for this dissertation come from surveys from 272 Korean immigrants attending Eternal Church at the time of survey administration in the summer of 2015. Individual survey packets were created and provided to church staff members who then distributed them to members of the 10 parish groups. Each packet included one paper survey, a pen, and an IRB information sheet. In order to keep consistent the survey administration process across the parish groups, the church staff members were provided with a recruitment script which they read out before passing out the surveys (see Appendix A). The survey was introduced as a Korean immigrant community participation survey. Other important information in the script included: that participants had to be over 18 years or older to participate; they were either currently attending or working at Eternal Church; participation in the survey was voluntary, and that it was not going to impact their relationship with the church in any shape or form. They were informed that if they completed the survey and provided an address, they will be mailed a $25 gift certificate. The participants completed the surveys in their own time and returned them to church staff in sealed envelopes. Out of the 379 surveys distributed, 270 were completed and returned (71% response rate). 75 Considering low response rates of Korean immigrants that have participated in CIT research, the 71% rate is considered high. An important factor that helped achieve this response rate was the buy-in from the church at the organizational level. As mentioned in the introduction, Pastor Lee played an instrumental role by directly coordinating with the other church staff members, but also putting the researcher in contact with the head pastor of the church. The head pastor approved the study and brought it up during the church staff meetings as a “project” to be carried out. For example, during one of the regular Parish 12 meetings, several reminders about the survey were announced at the start. At the same time, to ensure that the survey was not seen as an internal study being conducted by the church, the information sheet and the recruitment sheet both clearly stated that the survey was part of a research study being conducted by USC. They were also informed that the survey does not ask about their religious opinions or to evaluate aspects of the church in sensitive ways. Returning completed surveys in sealed envelopes was also taken to ensure participants of the anonymity of their responses from church staff. All collected surveys were entered into digital format by the author and a research assistant. A guideline was created to ensure consistency of coding, and a list of survey issues was logged. The researcher communicated frequently with the research assistant to discuss and solve unclear issues in coding, most of which were related to hand writing issues in the open- ended questions. 76 Survey Participants A total of 272 participants were included in the final analysis. A convenience sampling method was used to achieve an approximately even distribution of participants across the parish groups that are identified by the church as consisting mostly of LA residents, which were Parish 5-14 (see Table 1 for Parish groups) 5 . Survey packets were created and distributed to each of the parish groups in proportion to their member size— specifically, 25% of the total number of members for each parish group was reached. The demographic characteristics of the 272 survey participants are listed in Table 2. For comparison, the demographic characteristics of randomly selected telephone survey participants for the Kim, Ball-Rokeach, & Song (2003) study is also listed. 5 Originally, I bound the area to those Parish groups identified as LA, but in the final sample 43 addresses were outside of Los Angeles. 77 Table 2. Demographic characteristics of survey participants. Kim, Ball-Rokeach, & Song (2003) Random Sampling Current Study Convenience Sampling Sample Size N = 491 N = 272 Gender Male (42.9%) Male (40.2%) Female (57.1%) Female (59.8%) Age 18-29 (21.7%) 19-29 (12.2%) 30-39 (27.7%) 30-39 (19.1%) 40-49 (25.8%) 40-49 (21.4%) 50-59 (9.5%) 50-59 (18.7%) 60 and older (15.3%) 60 and older (28.6%) Education High school degree or less (36.1%) High school degree or less (34.9%) Undergraduate degree (50.4%) Undergraduate degree (52.1%) Graduate degree (13.6%) Graduate degree (12.9%) Occupation Full-time (40.5%) Professional (15.2%) Part-time (9.5%) Self-employed (18.5%) Self-employed (16.4%) Manual worker (5.8%) Laid off/unemployed (4.6%) Student (16.4%) Student (5.3%) Homemaker (26.9%) Homemaker (9.2%) Unemployed (14.5%) Retired (13.0%) Other (1.5%) Residential Tenure in US Less than 5 years (23.3%) Less than 5 years (6.1%) 5-10 years (23.2%) 5-10 years (7.7%) 10-20 years (32.5%) 10-20years (34.9%) 20 years or more (20.7%) 20 years or more (51.3%) Survey Measures (RQs 1-4, RQ 5.1, & RQ 6) A. Civic engagement outcome variables. Neighborhood belonging. The respondents’ neighborhood belonging was measured with the 8-item ‘‘belonging index’’ first developed by Ball-Rokeach et al. (2001), and utilized in other studies (REF). The index captures objective and subjective dimensions of individual’s attachment to a residential area and neighborly feeling and behaviors. The four questions that get at the subjective dimension are: “being interested 78 in knowing what your neighbors are like” (16% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed), “enjoying meeting and talking with your neighbors” (20.2% agreed or strongly agreed), “ease of becoming friends with your neighbors” (25.3%% agreed or strongly agreed), and “exchanging gifts with your neighbors” (11.9% agreed or strongly agreed). Respondents used a 5-point Likert scale to answer each question: “strongly disagree (=1),” “disagree (=2),” “neutral (=3),” “agree (=4),” and “strongly agree (=5).” To capture the objective dimensions of neighborhood belonging, respondents were asked to write the number of neighbors they know to ask of the following things, and the numbers were : “keep watch on their house or apartment’’ (M = 2.47, SD = 1.303), ‘‘ask for a ride’’ (M = 2.91, SD = 1.356, ‘‘talk with them about a personal problem’’ (M = 2.92, SD = 1.418), and ‘‘ask for their assistance in making a repair’’ (M = 2.64, SD = 1.216). To keep the metric consistent with the subjective dimensions, the responses were recoded into values between 1 and 5 where 1 = 0 neighbors, 2 = 1 neighbor, 3 = 2 neighbors, 4 = 3 neighbors, and 5 = 4 or more neighbors. The scores for the 8-items were added to create a neighborhood belonging composite variable that ranges between 8-37. The mean value is 20.79 (SD = 6.567). Cronbach’s alpha test for index scalability is .84. Perceived collective efficacy. Perceived collective efficacy was measured as a composite variable containing five items about residents’ confidence in their neighbors’ willingness to participate in neighborhood problem solving processes (Sampson et al., 1997). The five items asked are the following: How many of your neighbors do you feel could be counted on to do something if “a stop sign or speed bump was needed to prevent people from driving too fast through your neighborhood” M=2.85, SD = 0.949, “the 79 sports field that neighborhood kids want to play on has become unsafe due to poor maintenance or gangs” (M = 3.16, SD = 0.996) “you asked them to help you organize a holiday block party” M = 2.63, SD = 0.883), “a neighbor is showing clear evidence of being in trouble, or getting into big trouble” (M =2.78, SD = 0.846) and “Homelessness is becoming a problem in your neighborhood” (M = 2.95, SD = 0.989). Respondents used a five point likert scale to answer the questions: “none (=1),” “few (=2),” “some (=3),” “most (=4),” and “all (=5).” The average score of the five items was used to assess respondents’ perceived collective efficacy (range 1-5, M = 2.88, SD = 0.747). Cronbach’s alpha test for index scalability is .87. Civic participation. Respondents’ scope of civic participation was measured by adding the number of civic and community-oriented activities that individuals have participated in in the past 2 years. The respondents’ were asked about 9 different activities including: Attended a city council meeting, public hearing, or neighborhood council meeting; Written a letter, sent an email, or made a phone call to the editor of a newspaper, television station, or magazine or called a radio station to voice your opinion; Signed a petition; Taken part in any political demonstration or protest; Talked to a community leader or an official, such as a school administrator or a police officer, about unfair policy or local issues; Boycotted a brand or product; V olunteered for a social cause or neighborhood initiative, such as a neighborhood cleanup project, a school event, meals-on-wheels programs or a community cultural festival; Organized or participated in a program/activity to help a neighbor in need of assistance; Donated to support a political, social or charitable cause. For each, respondents answered either “yes (value = 1)” or “no (value = 0).’’ The sum of the responses for the 9 items were created as a synthetic 80 variable assessing respondents’ scope of civic participation (range 0–9, M = 1.96, SD = 1.984). B. Storytelling communication resources. The integrated connectedness to a neighborhood storytelling network (ICSN) is composed of three variables: intensity of interpersonal neighborhood discussion, local media connectedness, and scope of community organizational membership (Ball-Rokeach, Kim, & Matei, 2001). The intensity of interpersonal neighborhood discussion was captured by two questions: The first is, “How often do you talk about the neighborhood where you live, with other Koreans?” (M = 4.42, SD = 2.52). The second is, “How often do you talk about the neighborhood where you live with people of other ethnicities (not Korean)?” (M = 2.91, SD = 2.093). For each question respondents were asked to circle one number on a ten point scale where 1 means “never” and 10 means “all the time.” A synthetic variable assessing respondent’s intensity of interpersonal neighborhood discussion is created by adding the two scores (range 2-19, M = 7.33, SD = 3.927). Local media connectedness was measured by asking respondents about getting news in the media about the community where they currently live. The question asked: “How often do you get news about the community where you currently live through Korean media?” (M = 2.81, SD = 1.051). And then “How often do you get news about the community where you currently live through English language media?” (M = 2.18, SD = 0.945). For both questions, respondents used a 5-point scale ranging from 1 being “Never” to 5 being “Always.” A synthetic variable assessing connectedness to local media is created by adding the two scores (range 2-10, M = 4.98, SD = 1.682). 81 Scope of connections to community organizations was measured by asking if the respondent or anyone in their family participated in the following six different groups: sports or recreational (19.5%), cultural or ethnic (7.4%), educational or school related (8.9%), neighborhood specific groups (12.4%), political (0.8%), and others (7.8%) For each type of group they participated in, they answer “yes” and were assigned a value of 1. A final synthetic variable for scope of connection to community organizations was created by summing the scores for all six categories (range 0-5, M = 0.56, SD = 0.898). To prevent the effects of negative skew, a dichotomous variable was created so that participation in any one of the six organizations was coded as “1” and participation in none of the six organizations was coded as “0.” 36.6% respondents participate in one or more organizations. The ICSN score was calculated by summing the three interaction terms between local media connectedness, scope of connections to community organizations, and intensity of interpersonal neighborhood storytelling (Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006b) (M = 7.64, SD = 3.794, Range = 2 – 18.14). C. Church factors. Church connectedness. Church connectedness is measured by frequency of attendance for two different types of activities. The response options for frequency of attendance for regular service were: 1 = Never (14.3%), 2 = Less than once a month (12.0%), 3 = At least once a month (32.7%), 4 = At least once every few weeks (34.2%), 5 = At least once a week (4.1%), 6 = 2-3 times a week (1.5%), 7 = 4-5 times a week (0.8%), 8 = Almost every day (0.4%). Frequency of attendance for activities outside of 82 regular service is also measured using the same scale: 1 = Never (4.6%), 2 = Less than once a month (5.3%), 3 = At least once a month (19.1%), 4 = At least once every few weeks (28.2%), 5 = At least once a week (9.9%), 6 = 2-3 times a week (9.9%), 7 = 4-5 times a week (12.2%), 8 = Almost every day (10.7%). Perceived church storytelling resources. A 10-index measure asks the respondents about the different storytelling resources available at church. This measure asks the extent to which the church is important to them for 1) meeting other Koreans (important or extremely important = 61.5%, 2) Meeting people who are not Korean, and of different ethnicities (11.9%), 3) Meeting people who have similar backgrounds (38.5%) 4) Meeting people who have different backgrounds (45%), 5) Staying on top of what is going on in the community where I live (33.5%), 6) Staying on top of what is going on in the Korean community in Southern California (33.7%), 7) Connecting with other Korean organizations or groups in the Southern California area (19.2%), 8) Connecting with other mainstream/US organizations or groups in the Southern California area (13.8%), 9) Connecting with Korean services or professionals in Southern California (22.2%), 10) Connecting with mainstream/U.S. services or professionals in Southern California (16.8%). The response options are a five-point likert scale where 1 = not at all important, and 5 = extremely important. Church belonging. The respondents’ church belonging was measured by adapting the 8-item ‘‘belonging index,’’ first developed by Ball-Rokeach et al. (2001), to the church context. The index captures objective and subjective dimensions of individual’s attachment to the church and a sense of social cohesion with other people at church. The four questions that get at the subjective dimension are: “being interested in 83 knowing what your fellow churchgoers are like” (29.6% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed), “enjoying meeting and talking with people at church” (45.5% agreed or strongly agreed), “ease of becoming friends with people at church” (41.5% agreed or strongly agreed), and “exchanging gifts with people at church” (30.6% agreed or strongly agreed). Respondents used a 5-point Likert scale to answer each question: “strongly disagree (=1),” “disagree (=2),” “neutral (=3),” “agree (=4),” and “strongly agree (=5).” To capture the objective dimensions of church belonging, respondents were asked to write the number of people at church they know well enough to ask of the following things: “to go out for lunch or dinner outside of church’ (M = 2.821, SD = 1.6962), ‘‘ask for a ride’’ (M = 2.0046, SD = 1.55565), ‘‘talk with them about a personal problem’’ (M = 1.8360, SD = 1.44758), and ‘‘ask for their assistance in filling out a form’’ (M = 1.6360, SD = 1.49514). Considering responses to the open-ended questions ranged between 0 and 75, 10 was assigned the maximum possible value, and each was further divided by 2. The scores for the 8-items were added to create a neighborhood belonging composite variable that ranges between 0-40. The mean value is 21.004 (SD = 7.184). Cronbach’s alpha test for index scalability is .84. Church collective efficacy. Church collective efficacy was measured as a composite variable containing five items about respondents’ confidence in their fellow churchgoers willingness to participate in neighborhood problem solving processes (Sampson et al., 1997). The five items asked are the following: How many of your fellow churchgoers do you feel could be counted on to do something if “a stop sign or speed bump was needed to prevent people from driving too fast around church” (M = 3.4749, SD = .80835), “a church facility has become unsafe due to poor maintenance” (M = 84 3.6602, SD = .69448), “you asked them to help you organize a holiday block party” (M = 3.4054, SD = .69448), “a fellow churchgoer is showing clear evidence of being in trouble, or getting into big trouble” (M = 3.4556, SD = .72132), and “Homelessness is becoming a problem around the church” (M = 3.3320, SD = .80561). Respondents used a five point likert scale to answer the questions: “none (=1),” “few (=2),” “some (=3),” “most (=4),” and “all (=5).” The average score of the five items was used to assess respondents’ perceived collective efficacy (range 1-5, M = 3.4618, SD = .5985). Cronbach’s alpha test for index scalability is .84. Church participation. Respondents’ scope of participation in church was measured by adding the number of community-oriented activities that individuals have participated in. The respondents’ were asked about 8 different activities including: Attended a meeting discussing issues related to the church (outside of the regular parish/cell group meetings); Written a letter, sent an email, or talked to your parish leader, pastor, deacon about a problem at church; Posted your thoughts or opinion on the church website; Helped organize an event or program at church; V olunteered to help with cleaning, doing the dishes at church, or did volunteer work related to service or worship; V olunteered to help in the surrounding community around the church?; Donated money to a political, social or charitable cause that was specifically supported by the church or the pastor; Participated in missionary work organized by the church?. For each, respondents answered either “yes (value = 1)” or “no (value = 0).’’ The sum of the responses for the 8 items were created as a synthetic variable assessing respondents’ scope of participation in the church context (range 0–8, M = 3.6868, SD = 2.433). 85 D. Bonding vs. bridging storytelling resources. Connectedness to local news – Korean media. To assess respondents’ connectedness to local news through Korean media, they were asked: How often do you get news about the community where you currently live through Korean media? Response options were: 1 = “Never,” 2 = “rarely,” 3 = “sometimes,” 4 = “often,” 5 = “always.” (M = 2.81, SD = 1.051). Connectedness to local news – English language media. To assess respondents’ connectedness to local news through English language media, they were asked: How often do you get news about the community where you currently live through English language media? Response options were: 1 = “Never,” 2 = “rarely,” 3 = “sometimes,” 4 = “often,” 5 = “always.” (M = 2.18, SD = .945). Bonding neighborhood discussion. The intensity of bonding interpersonal neighborhood discussion was captured by asking respondents, “How often do you talk about the neighborhood where you live, with other Koreans?” (M = 4.42, SD = 2.52). Respondents were asked to circle one number on a ten point scale where 1 means “never” and 10 means “all the time.” Bridging neighborhood discussion. The intensity of bridging interpersonal neighborhood discussion was captured by asking respondents, “How often do you talk about the neighborhood where you live with people of other ethnicities (not Korean)?” (M = 2.91, SD = 2.093). Respondents were asked to circle one number on a ten point scale where 1 means “never” and 10 means “all the time.” Bridging community organizations. The bridging community organizations variable is a dichotomous variable created in two steps. First, respondents who were 86 connected to at least one of the six types of organizations (sports or recreational; cultural or ethnic; educational or school related; neighborhood specific groups; political; and others) were assigned a score of “1.” If they answered “yes” to participating in the organization, they were asked to select one of the three options that best describes the group/organization they participate in: 1) Serves only Koreans, 2) Serves all ethnicities including Koreans, 3) Serves mostly other ethnicities (non-Koreans). If they selected 2) or 3), their score of “1” was recoded into a score of “2.” To summarize, “0” = connected to no organizations, “1” = connected to at least 1 organization but they all serve only Koreans (as identified by the respondent) or that information is not specified, and “2” = connected to at least 1 organization and one of them is a bridging organization (serves all ethnicities including Koreas or serves mostly other ethnicities). The final step was to recode the 3-scale item into a dichotomous variable so that “1” = connected to at least 1 bridging organization, and “0” = connected to only bonding organizations or not connected to any organizations (M = .15, SD = .353). E. Structural variables Income. Respondents were asked to give an estimate of the household income for the previous year. Response options are: 1 = ‘‘less than $15,000,’’ 2 = ‘‘$15,000 to less than $20,000,’’ 3 = ‘‘$20,000 to less than $35,000,’’ 4 = ‘‘$35,000 to less than $45,000,’’ 5 = ‘‘$45,000 to less than $60,000,’’ 6 = ‘‘$60,000 to less than $75,000,’’ 7 = ‘‘$75,000 to less than $100,000,’’ and 8 = ‘‘$100,000 or more.’’ Education. Respondents were asked to indicate their highest grade or level of school that they have completed. Response options are: 1 = “eighth grade or less,” 2 = 87 “some high school,” 3 = “high school graduate,” 4 = “some college or technical school,” 5 = “college graduate,” 6 = “some graduate study,” and 7 = “graduate degree.” Age. Respondents were asked to give the year of their birth. The year was subtracted from the current year 2015 to get the number for their current age. Gender. Gender was coded 0 = “Male” and 1 = “Female” Field Observations (RQ 5.2) Between September 2014 and July 2015, I made observations and kept research notes from attending worship services, parish group meetings, cell group meetings, a cleaning festival, a special guest lecture, participated in smart phone chat room discussions, and numerous conversations with church staff and church attendees. I collected 18 church bulletins that are passed out at the start of each service. These qualitative data will be used to provide a contextualized description of the study site in RQ 5.2. 88 CHAPTER SIX: RESULTS – SURVEY ANALYSES AND FIELD OBSERV ATION FINDINGS RQ 1. ICSN and Neighborhood Civic Engagement RQ 1: Does neighborhood ICSN have a positive effect upon the level of civic engagement among Korean immigrants? RQ 1.1: Does ICSN have a positive effect upon the level of neighborhood belonging among Korean immigrants? RQ 1.2: Does ICSN have a positive effect upon the level of collective efficacy among Korean immigrants? RQ 1.3: Does ICSN have a positive effect upon the level of civic participation among Korean immigrants? RQ 1.4: Controlling for SES (age, gender, education, and income), does ICSN, neighborhood belonging, and collective efficacy significantly predict levels of civic participation among Korean immigrants? Correlational coefficients were computed among the structural variables (age, gender, education, and income), ICSN, and the three civic engagement outcome variables (neighborhood belonging, collective efficacy, and civic participation). Using the Bonferroni approach to control for Type I error across the 28 correlations, a p value of less than (.05/28=.001786) was required for significance. The results of the correlational analyses presented in Table 3 show that 10 out of the 28 correlations were statistically significant at the p < .001 level and were greater than or equal to .21. In addition, 5 out of 89 the 28 correlations were statistically significant at the p < .01 level and were greater or equal to .15. Overall, ICSN had significant positive correlations with the three civic engagement outcomes (RQ 1-1, RQ 1-2, RQ 1-3). The correlation between ICSN and civic participation was significant and largest among the three civic engagement outcomes, r(258) = .42, p < .001. The correlation between ICSN and neighborhood belonging was also significant, r(258)= .32, p < .001. The correlation between ICSN and collective efficacy was smallest, r(255) = .19, p < .01. Among the structural variables, education was significantly and positively correlated with ICSN, r(250) = .17, p < . 001. Age, gender, and income were not significantly correlated with ICSN. Table 3. Zero-order correlations of structural, ICSN, and neighborhood civic engagement variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 M SD 1. Age 1.0 3.51 1.667 2. Gender (male) .236** 1.0 0.60 0.491 3. Education -.450** -.250** 1.0 4.23 1.457 4. Income -.491** -.181* .324** 1.0 3.92 2.129 5. ICSN -.043 .040 .165* .079 1.0 7.64 3.794 6. Neighborhood Belonging .154 .159* -.020 -.039 .317** 1.0 20.80 6.567 7. Collective Efficacy .041 .046 .020 .052 .187* .261** 1.0 2.88 0.747 8. Civic Participation .150* .127 .110 -.019 .419** .386** .211** 1.0 1.96 1.984 ** Correlation is significant at the .001 level (2-tailed) * Correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed) 90 After establishing significant correlations between variables, RQ 1-4 was tested using a three-step hierarchical multiple regression. The dependent variable, which is the level of civic participation in the neighborhood context, is predicted by structural variables, ICSN, belonging, and collective efficacy. First, age, gender, education, and income are entered into the model as control variables. Second, ICSN is entered into the model. Third, belonging and collective efficacy are entered into the model. Results from the hierarchical multiple regression can be seen in Table 4. The first model that includes only the structural variables shows that less than 10% of the variance in civic participation is due to structural variables, F(4, 226) = 5.938, p < .001, R 2 = .095. Age, gender, and education were significantly related to civic participation. Income was not significantly related to civic participation. In the second model, ICSN provided statistically significant addition to the model, Δ F (2, 225) = 46.675, p < .001, Δ R 2 = .155. In the last model, belonging and collective efficacy provided a significant addition to the model, Δ F(2, 223) = 8.400, p < .001, Δ R 2 = .053. ICSN remained both significantly and positively predictive of levels of civic participation. Between the two civic engagement dimensions, only neighborhood belonging was significantly and positively predictive of levels of civic participation. Collective efficacy was not significant in the final model. The final model, R 2 = .303, F(7, 223) = , p < .001. 91 Table 4. Predictors of Korean immigrants’ civic participation in their residential neighborhoods. Model 1 Model II Model III Beta Beta Beta Structural Variables Age 240** .215** .161* Gender (male) .141* .125* .097 Education .279*** .200** .191** Income .011 -.007 -.021 ICSN .402*** .315*** Belonging Collective efficacy .216*** .079 R 2 change .095 .155 .053 R 2 .095** .251** .303** * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001 RQ 2. Church Engagement and Neighborhood Civic Engagement RQ 2: Is there a significant relationship between Korean immigrants’ church engagement and neighborhood-specific civic engagement dimensions? RQ 2.1: Does church belonging positively correlate with neighborhood belonging? RQ 2.2: Does church collective efficacy positively correlate with neighborhood collective efficacy? RQ 2.3: Does church participation positively correlate with neighborhood civic participation? Correlation coefficients were computed among the church engagement and neighborhood civic engagement dimensions. The results of the correlational analyses presented in Table 5 show that levels of belonging (RQ 2-1), collective efficacy (RQ 2-2), 92 and participation (RQ 2-3) all significantly and positively correlated between the church and neighborhood contexts. The correlation coefficient for church collective efficacy and neighborhood collective efficacy was highest at .275, p < .001. The correlation coefficient for church belonging and neighborhood belonging was slightly lower at .265, p < .001. The correlation coefficient for church participation and neighborhood civic participation was lowest at .246, p < .001. Thus, there is a significant positive relationship between Korean immigrants’ church engagement and neighborhood civic engagement. In other words, the higher the levels of church engagement, the higher the levels of neighborhood civic engagement. Table 5. Zero-order correlations between church engagement and neighborhood civic engagement dimensions. Church Engagement Index M (SD) Neighborhood Civic Engagement Index M(SD) Pearson Correlation Belonging (0-40) 21.00 (7.184) Belonging (0-40) 20.79 (6.567) .265** Collective Efficacy (0-5) 3.46 (0.599) Collective Efficacy (0-5) 2.88 (0.747) .275** Participation (0-8) 3.69 (2.433) Participation (0-9) 1.96 (1.984) .246** ** Correlation is significant at the .001 level RQ 3. Church Connectedness and Church Engagement RQ 3: Is church connectedness a significant predictor of church belonging, collective efficacy, and participation? 93 Correlation coefficients were computed among the structural variables (age, gender, education, and income), church connectedness (frequency of service attendance, and frequency of non-service attendance), church engagement (church belonging, collective efficacy, and participation), and ICSN. Using the Bonferroni approach to control for Type I error across the 45 correlations, a p value of less than (.05/45=.0011) was required for significance. The results of the correlational analyses presented in Table 6 show that 13 out of the 45 correlations were statistically significant at the p < .001 level and were greater than or equal to .200. Table 6. Zero-order correlations between structural variables, church connectedness, church engagement, and ICSN. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 M (SD) Structural Variables 1. Age 1.0 3.51 (1.667) 2. Gender .236** 1.0 0.60 (.49114) 3. Education -.450** -.250** 1.0 4.23 (1.457) 4. Income -.491** -.181* .324** 1.0 3.92 (1.241) Church Connectedness 5. Service -.396** -.079 .168* .200* 1.0 3.11 (1.241) 6. Non-service -.110 .065 -.015 .100 .497** 1.0 4.66 (1.924) Church Engagement 7. Belonging .031 -.039 .162* .011 -.294** -.401** 1.0 21.00 (7.184) 8. Collective Efficacy -.113 -.024 .093 .150 .029 -.043 .334** 1.0 3.46 (.5985) 9. Participation .079 .016 .038 -.145 -.404** -.427** .499** .099 1.0 3.69 (2.433) 10. ICSN -.043 .040 .165* .079 -.007 -.111 .093 .048 .177* 1.0 7.64 (3.794) ** Correlation is significant at the .001 level * Correlation is significant at the .01 level 94 Service attendance is a significant predictor of church belonging, r(264) = -.294, p < .001, and church participation , r(262) = -.404, p < .001. The correlation coefficients are negative, which means that the more frequent the attendance of church service, the lower the level of church belonging and church participation. Non-service attendance is also a significant and negative predictor of church belonging r(260) = -.410, p < .001 level, and church participation r(257) = -.427, p < .001 level,. Thus, the more frequent attendance of church non-service activities, the lower the level of church belonging and church participation. Both of the church connectedness variables were not significant predictors of church collective efficacy. Church connectedness is a significant negative predictor of church belonging and participation, but not collective efficacy. In other words, frequency of attendance leads to lower feelings of belonging with fellow church goers and lower participation in church activities. RQ 4. ICSN and Church Factors RQ 4. Is there a significant relationship between ICSN and church factors? RQ 4.1: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church service attendance? RQ 4.2: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church non-service attendance? RQ 4.3: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church belonging? RQ 4.4: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church collective efficacy? 95 RQ 4.5: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church participation? As shown in Table 6, ICSN had a significant and positive correlation to church participation, r(254) = .18, p < .001. Church connectedness, church belonging, church collective efficacy were not significantly correlated to ICSN (RQ 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4). Summary of RQ 1-4 Results Figure 1 summarizes the RQs tested thus far. ICSN and church engagement each have strong positive effects on neighborhood civic engagement (RQ 1 & RQ 2). Frequency of attendance, whether it is for service or non-service activities, is a negative predictor of the level of church engagement in terms of belonging and participation (RQ 3). These significant relationships are shown in solid, blue lines in the Figure. Among the three church engagement dimensions (belonging, collective efficacy, and participation), church participation is significantly connected to ICSN (RQ 4.5) but is weaker compared to the other connections. This relationship is shown by the orange line as opposed to the blue line in the Figure. The dotted orange line shows the absence of a significant connection between church connectedness and ICSN (RQ 4.1, RQ 4.2). 96 Figure 1. ICSN, church factors, and neighborhood civic engagement. Next, RQ 5 more directly examines the missing and weak relationships between the church and the local storytelling network reported from RQ 4. The findings from the perceived church storytelling resources survey measure, and analyses of the qualitative data provide a contextualized description of the extent to which bridging opportunities are both 1) perceived by the Korean immigrants attending Eternal Church (RQ 5.1), and 2), actually provided by Eternal Church (RQ 5.2). In other words, in what ways does spending time at church and becoming invested in the church through active participation help individuals to become more integrated into the local community outside of the church boundaries? To what extent do individuals’ varying relationships to the church provide opportunities to become more connected to interpersonal, mediated, and organizational storytelling resources in their local community? RQ 5: To what extent does Eternal Church provide bridging opportunities for the respondents? In other words, in what ways does the church direct people to opportunities to meet people of different backgrounds, stay on top of what is going on in the community, and help them connect with other organizations/groups, 97 services and professionals (RQ 5.2) and to what extent are the perceived importance of such resources by the respondents (RQ 5.1)? RQ 5.1: Perceived Church Storytelling Resources (Survey Responses) Overall, the church was perceived by the respondents as providing some level of connection to interpersonal (meeting people), community story (staying on top of community stories), organizational (connecting to other groups and organizations), and service/professional (connecting to other services and professionals) storytelling resources. Table 5 shows the percentage of respondents who indicated 4 = “important” or 5 = “extremely important” for each of the 10 perceived church storytelling resources questions in the survey. The role of the church in providing opportunities to meet other people was most prominent. In particular, 6 out of 10 respondents indicated the church was important to them for meeting other Koreans. 1 out of 3 respondents perceived the church as important to them for staying on top of local community stories, and 1 out of 3 respondents perceived the church as important for staying on top of Korean community stories. 98 Table 7. Survey responses for perceived church storytelling resources. Church Storytelling Resource Types % of Respondents (N=272) 4 = “important” or 5 = “extremely important” 1. Meeting People (By Ethnicity) Korean (BO) a Other Ethnicities (BR) b 61.50% 11.90% 2. Meeting People (By Background) Similar Background (BO) Different Background (BR) 3. Staying on top Community Stories 38.5% 45.0% Korean (BO) Local (BR) 33.70% 33.50% 4. Access to Services Korean (BO) Mainstream (BR) 22.20% 16.80% 5. Connecting to Organizations Korean (BO) Mainstream (BR) 19.20% 13.80% a BO = Bonding b BR = Bridging In all of the five different types of storytelling resources, the percentage for the bonding types (i.e. Korean or similar background—marked as “BO” in Table 7) as opposed to the more bridging types (i.e. other ethnicities, different backgrounds, local community and mainstream—marked as “BR” in Table 7) were higher, except for meeting people of similar vs. different backgrounds. Where 38.5% of the respondents indicated the church was important to them for meeting people of similar backgrounds, 99 45% of the respondents indicated the church was important to them for meeting people of different backgrounds. This may include meeting other Koreans with different backgrounds. In order to compare percentages between respondents of different levels of church participation, respondents were divided into two groups by level of church participation. The low church participation group includes respondents who participated between 1 and 4 out of the 8 political participation activities. The high church participation group includes respondents who participated in 5 or more of the 8 political participation activities. Figure 2 shows the percentage of respondents who indicated importance of church for all 10 types of storytelling resources. These 10 storytelling resources are the interpersonal and organizational parts of the storytelling network, broken down further into co-ethnic and mainstream types. They include: 1) meeting other Koreans; 2) Meeting people who are not Korean, and of different ethnicities; 3) Meeting people who have similar backgrounds; 4) Meeting people who have different backgrounds; 5) Staying on top of what is going on in the community where I live; 6) Staying on top of what is going on in the Korean community in Southern California; 7) Connecting with other Korean organizations or groups in the Southern California area; 8) Connecting with other mainstream/US organizations or groups in the Southern California area; 9) Connecting with Korean services or professionals in Southern California; and finally, 10) Connecting with mainstream/U.S. services or professionals in Southern California. The red bar indicates the low participation group, and the green bar indicates the high participation group. 100 Figure 2. Perceived church storytelling resources by level of church participation (survey responses). In all cases, perceived importance is higher for the high participation groups, with the difference varying across resources. The most pronounced differences are in perceived importance for connecting to services and professionals (I & J), and groups and organizations (G & H). For each of the four resources, the high participation group was at least twice as more likely than the low participation group to perceive importance of the church in connecting them to those resources. To more accurately determine whether or not the differences between the low and high participation groups are indeed significant differences will need to be further statistically tested. In addition to the qualitative data presented in the next section, such 101 further analyses will help to identify which aspects of church participation leads individuals to become more integrated into the local storytelling network. RQ 5.2: Field Observations In the next section, I will use the church bulletins and notes from field observations to highlight some of the actual storytelling resources provided and promoted by the church itself. Church bulletins. The church bulletin is passed out at the start of service by a volunteer. The bulletins are printed in color and include 3 double-sided pages of text. Two of these pages are devoted to weekly “News & Announcements” where one of them is devoted to information for newcomers, service and parish group meetings, training and seminar, and general announcements, and the other devoted to education/school related news. The third page is devoted to missionary groups and supporting organizations. The fourth page is devoted to statistics for the week including number of new comers, monetary offerings. It also announces parking and service volunteers for the week. Both rotation system for volunteering for tasks such as parking, doing the dishes, working at the café shop, and sitting at the booth, but also self-sign up system for outside of church volunteer work in elderly homes, cleaning around the church, and various fundraising activities for missionary work. I had the chance to participate in one of these volunteer activities. It was called a cleaning “festival” and took place on a Saturday morning and promoted as a church-wide 102 event involving all of the parish groups. There was diligent and very organized cleaning, but there was also camaraderie and a competitive sports game, and a hearty meal prepared by the Women’s Group for all of the volunteers. Such events are formally promoted on the bulletin board and during worship service, but also by cell group leaders to their members via smart phone chat rooms. In the 18 bulletins collected between September 2014 and July 2015 the following types of events and announcements were made. In addition to information on the weekly bulletin, those identified during my field observations, informal conversation with church members, and other secondary materials are indicated with an asterisks (*). Education/seminars. 1. Children Education Campaign (imp) 2. Couples Seminar (School/Education) 3. Dating seminar 4. Bible study for Chinese Social Gatherings/Groups 1. Hiking group 2. Second-generation children parent group 3. Biking* 4. Tennis* Organizations 1. LA Mother School, LA Father School (Korean Church in Irvine) office in Koreatown 103 2. Asian Americans Advancing Justice* 3. Trade Tech College* 4. Korean Churches for Community Development* 5. County of Los Angeles Public Health* Services 1. Free legal consultation services/Tax return seminar 2. Financial 3. Blood test 4. Flu vaccine 5. Oriental medicine treatment Volunteer Opportunities 1. Elderly home volunteering (in Koreatown) 2. Cleaning Festival both on and around church 3. Kitchen cleaning 4. Making kimchi 5. Homeless outreach 6. Various types of local (homeless, ethnic groups, and elderly) and abroad missionary work Activities/Special events 1. Children’s song competition 104 2. Sports festival 3. Christmas concert 4. Valentine day cooking competition 5. Famous Korean Singer Concerts* Other general observations. The church takes up large space in a transient part of the Downtown/Koreatown area with two main buildings, a large open-space court yard, on-site parking lots, and satellite parking structures in adjacent properties, a basketball court, and a playground. There is a metro station right adjacent to the church building and a freeway entrance across the street. There are some commercial buildings in the surrounding area, more so than residential ones. Overall, the church takes up several blocks and has a noticeable physical “presence” in the area. On a given Sunday, there is much visible activity outside of the buildings as cars come in and out of the parking lot for the different service times, and people parked in the satellite parking lots are making their way over to the main building in twos and threes. There is a large open-space area in front of the main building that is tented and where chairs and tables are set up. Before and after each service, this space is used to eat food, greet and meet people, and engage in conversations. People tend to roughly sit with their fellow Parish group members, and sometimes parish groups bring their own food and share among their members. Besides the tented area, there are also three other outside areas that are set up and function regularly each Sunday. The first is the food area where the meals prepared by church members are sold for a $1. The church members who cook the food are part of the volunteer work by the church volunteer bureau, and the women’s group bureau. The second area is the Church Café where coffee, tea, smoothies, and 105 snacks are sold. The café is staffed by members from the younger parish groups (Parish 11, and 12), and cell groups take turns working behind the cashiers and making drinks. The last area is the booth tables for newcomers, getting health check-ups, and other information for church. Besides the above mentioned regular setups and uses of the space, other occasional activities take place in this space—such as fundraising activities, and for recruiting people to join or help at the different church bureaus. There seemed to be a set schedule for when certain spaces are used by different groups. For example, the English ministry service, which is attended mostly by second- generation Korean-American members takes place in one of the smaller buildings, and has fellowship in the space right next to the building. The Parish 12 group has its regular Sunday meetings after the English ministry service members leave the room. During those transition times, there was not much interaction between the two groups. A garage sale takes place Monday-Saturday 8:30am-4pm on one side of the parking lot, and is staffed by church members. I had the chance to talk to a church member working at the garage sale, who told me that all the proceeds go to their missionary work/trips. There are also working staff of different ethnic groups, who were more visible during the less busy days of the week on Monday-Saturdays. A few multiethnic church members took part in the cleaning festival. The immediate surrounding spaces around the church are more multiethnic. As shown in the survey finding (Table 7), 12% of the respondents reported perceived importance of the church for opportunities to meet people of other ethnicities. The extent to which these survey respondents engage in meaningful interactions with individuals from diverse ethnic groups either within the church premises or in the surrounding area are unclear. 106 RQ 6. Ethnically-Bounded Storytelling Network and Neighborhood Civic Engagement RQ 6: Do ethnically-bounded storytelling networks make a difference in Korean immigrants’ civic engagement outcomes? RQ 6.1: Is there a significant difference between the effects of bonding vs. bridging neighborhood discussion on neighborhood civic engagement? RQ 6.2: Is there a significant difference between the effects of local media connectedness through Korean vs. English language media on neighborhood civic engagement? RQ 6.3: Is there a significant effect of bridging community organizations on neighborhood civic engagement? Correlation coefficients were computed among the bonding and bridging storytelling resources and civic engagement outcomes. The bonding and bridging storytelling resources are the three storytelling resource components of ICSN (neighborhood discussion, local media, and community organizations) further divided into bonding and bridging types. The intensity of neighborhood discussion includes 1) talking about things going on in their residential neighborhood with other Koreans (TBO), and 2) talking about those neighborhood stories with people of other ethnicities (TBR). Intensity of connection to local media stories includes 3) getting local news through Korean media (MBO), and 4) through English media (MBR). Lastly, the scope of connections to bridging community organizations is a dichotomous variable where 1 means 5) connecting to at least one community organization that mostly serves other 107 ethnicities, or serves all ethnicities including Koreans (CBR). The civic engagement variables are the three (neighborhood belonging, collective efficacy, and participation) used in the previous analyses. Using the Bonferroni approach to control for Type I error across the 28 correlations, a p value of less than (.05/28=.0018) was required for significance. The results of the correlational analyses presented in Table 8 show that 6 out of the 28 correlations were statistically significant at the p < .001 level and were greater than or equal to .211. In addition, 9 out of the 28 correlations were statistically significant at the p < .01 level and were greater than or equal to .164. Table 8. Zero-order correlation between bonding and bridging storytelling resources, and civic engagement variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 M (SD) Neighborhood Discussion 1. Bonding – (TBO) 1.0 4.42 (2.520) 2. Bridging – (TBR) .444** 1.0 2.91(2.093) Media Local News 3. Bonding - (MBO) .146 .006 1.0 2.81(1.051) 4. Bridging - (MBR) .138 .303* .417* 1.0 2.18(0.945) Community Orgs 5. Bridging - (CBR) .088 .081 .122 -.002 1.0 0.15(0.352) Neighborhood Civic Engagement 6. Belonging .271** .187* .137 .169* -.009 1.0 20.79(6.567) 7. Collective efficacy .026 .113 .175* .126 .142 .261** 1.0 2.88(0.747) 8. Participation .170* .185* .162* .259** .164* .386** .211** 1.0 1.96(1.984) **Correlation significant at the.001 level (2-tailed) *Correlation significant at the .01 level (2-tailed) Neighborhood discussion (TBO & TBR). Both the bonding and bridging neighborhood discussion variables significantly correlated with neighborhood belonging. Between the two, bonding neighborhood discussion has higher correlation r (267) = .271, p < .001 than bridging neighborhood discussion r (267) = .187, p < .01 on neighborhood 108 belonging. The two neighborhood discussion variables were also significantly correlated with civic participation. Between the two, bridging neighborhood discussion has higher correlation r (266) = .185, p < .01, than bonding neighborhood discussion r (266) = .170, p < .01 on civic participation. Neither of the two neighborhood discussion variables significantly correlated with collective efficacy. Thus, although effect sizes vary, each of the bonding and bridging neighborhood discussion variables significantly adds to neighborhood belonging and participation. Local media (MBO & MBR). While bridging local media significantly correlated with neighborhood belonging, r (264) = .169, p < .01, and participation r(263) = .259, p < .001, bonding local media correlated with collective efficacy r (259) = .175, p <.01 and civic participation, r (262) = .162, p < .01. Thus, bonding and bridging local media each have effects on different dimensions of civic engagement. And between the two, bridging local media has a larger effect on civic participation than bonding local media. Bridging community organizations (CBR). The dichotomous variable for connections to bridging community organizations significantly and positively correlated with civic participation, r (260) = .164, p < .01. Correlations with the other civic engagement variables were non-significant. Thus, being connected to at least one bridging community organization may increase levels of civic participation as an added effect to the benefits from being connected local community organizations in general. 109 To summarize the results for RQ 6: Korean immigrants connecting to an ethnically-bounded storytelling network to the extent that they are discussing neighborhood stories with other Koreans and getting local news through Korean media will have increased levels of neighborhood belonging, collective efficacy, and civic participation. When they are connected to a less ethnically-bounded storytelling network to the extent that they are also discussing neighborhood stories with other non-Koreans, getting local news through English media, and connecting to bridging community organizations, their levels of belonging and participation may increase. 110 CHAPTER SEVEN: DISCUSSION & IMPLICATION OF FIDNINGS Summary and Implication of Findings The goal of this dissertation is to move towards a more nuanced understanding of what it means to practice democracy in America’s multicultural context. The first step involved identifying immigrants’ everyday communication patterns and examining implications for integration into the host country by means of developing feelings of belonging with other community members (neighborhood belonging), a sense of trust and confidence in working with others to solve problems (perceived collective efficacy), and actual participation behaviors in the residentially-based local context (civic participation). The next step was to evaluate side-by-side immigrants’ civically-oriented attitudes, competencies, and behaviors in church and in their residential neighborhood. The next step was to contextualize the role of the church within individuals’ broader network of communication patterns. By conceptualizing the church as a meso-level communication resource (i.e. a community organization), I could first identify and then test the relationships between different aspects of church participation on civic engagement. The goal was to address the question: Does church participation inhibit or facilitate immigrants’ participation in the broader community? Last of all, by dividing each of the storytelling resources to bonding vs. bridging types, I examined the role of ethnically- bounded storytelling networks on civic engagement outcomes. This chapter summarizes the research findings and discusses implications of findings for CIT, civic engagement research, and the Korean immigrant community. 111 Communication predictors of civic engagement. First and foremost, this study paints a descriptive picture of the experience of civic engagement among first generation Korean immigrants. First, with respect to indicators of neighborhood belonging, 1 out of 4 were interested in knowing what their neighbors were like, 1 out of 5 enjoyed meeting and talking to their neighbors, and 1 out of 4 thought it was easy to become friends with neighbors. Second, in terms of their perceived levels of collective efficacy, 4 out of 10 Korean immigrants were confident that their neighbors would come together if a park has become unsafe due to poor maintenance, while 3 out of 10 were confident that they would come together to address the issue of homelessness. Lastly, in the last two years, while 1 out of 10 had attended a neighborhood council meeting, contacted the media to voice an opinion, and talked to a community leader about local issues, 4 out of 10 had volunteered at a community event, donated money for a political cause, and organized to help a neighbor in need. RQ 1: Does neighborhood ICSN have a positive effect upon the level of civic engagement among Korean immigrants? RQ 1.1: Does ICSN have a positive effect upon the level of neighborhood belonging among Korean immigrants? RQ 1.2: Does ICSN have a positive effect upon the level of collective efficacy among Korean immigrants? RQ 1.3: Does ICSN have a positive effect upon the level of civic participation among Korean immigrants? 112 RQ 1.4: Controlling for SES (age, gender, education, and income), does ICSN, neighborhood belonging, and collective efficacy significantly predict levels of civic participation among Korean immigrants? RQ 2: Is there a significant relationship between Korean immigrants’ church engagement and neighborhood-specific civic engagement dimensions? RQ 2.1: Does church belonging positively correlate with neighborhood belonging? RQ 2.2: Does church collective efficacy positively correlate with neighborhood collective efficacy? RQ 2.3: Does church participation positively correlate with neighborhood civic participation? Findings from RQ 1 and RQ 2 establish that ICSN and church engagement each have moderate to strong positive effects on Korean immigrants’ civic engagement. In other words, both ICSN and church engagement are predictive of neighborly feelings and behavior, trust in the collective “we” to come together to solve neighborhood problems, and taking part in civically oriented activities. This study confirms the main theoretical proposition of CIT which states that the higher the ICSN, the higher civic engagement outcomes. The study specifically tested the theory in the context of first generation Korean immigrants residing in the greater Los Angeles area, and who are regular attendants of a large Korean church located within the City. It adds to findings from other research that have tested the theory in diverse local settings in the U.S. and abroad that show an integrated storytelling network is a crucial factor in both residents’ well-being 113 and community vitality. Going beyond identifying and stopping at structural variables associated with levels of engagement most commonly examined in the extant literature, this study shows that communication processes are an important mechanism through which opportunities become manifested and where individual agency and potential for community-level change may be at work, and that policy-makers, community practitioners, and leaders may effectively tap into. Furthermore, it allows us to examine the communication processes through which newcomers to a local community are making sense of the world around them and interacting with the social environment. Even after controlling for socioeconomic factors such as education and income, ICSN leads to greater neighborhood belonging, which in turn leads to greater civic participation. One of the contributions of this study was to more closely examine the separate roles of bonding vs. bridging storytelling resources in each of the civic engagement dimensions. The findings show that discussing neighborhood stories with other Koreans and getting local news through Korean media will increase levels of neighborhood belonging, collective efficacy, and civic participation. When Korean immigrants are connected to a less ethnically-bounded storytelling network to the extent that they are also discussing neighborhood stories with other non-Koreans, getting local news through English media, and connecting to bridging community organizations, their levels of belonging and participation may increase. Results from RQ 2 also paint a picture of the more complementary relationship between bonding vs. bridging and what they do for civic engagement. Findings show that feelings and behaviors indicative of “community engagement” correlate significantly between residential neighborhood and church contexts. This particular finding speaks to 114 the line of research that presents a complementary rather than an either-or relationship between co-ethnic vs. mainstream civic engagement. The case of Korean immigrants in my study exemplifies this complementary relationship (or, as others have put it, a spillover effect) between the more site-specific and co-ethnic driven feelings and behaviors of community engagement, and the more generalizable forms of residentially- based civic engagement. What does it mean that their levels of belonging, collective efficacy, and participation are significantly and positively correlated with each other? Especially for those with higher levels of participation, their commitment to the church may parallel a growing commitment to other social contexts including, but not limited to, the residential neighborhood. The findings of this study suggest that this growing commitment is facilitated via local storytelling resources available in the church. Relationship between church factors. RQ 3: Is church connectedness a significant predictor of church belonging, collective efficacy, and participation? RQ 3 explored whether church connectedness (frequency of attendance for church service, and frequency of attendance for non-service activities) was a significant predictor of church belonging, collective efficacy, and participation. The results show that both frequency of attendance for service, and attendance for non-service activities were significant predictors but in the negative direction. As suggested by the negative relationship between frequency of attendance and church engagement dimensions, it is 115 unclear at what point the church attendee turns into “high participation,” and becomes both invested in the church and comfortable with its structure to be able to successfully navigate, but also tap into the storytelling resources available. This may also reflect differences among church members who see the church as an integral part of the local community, or as an isolated service provider. The length of attendance may provide some insight. The negative effect of church connectedness on dimensions of church engagement needs to be further explored. Here are a few scenarios that can be considered as possible interpretations. First, it may be that those who are playing active roles or holding leadership positions may not necessarily be the ones spending the most amount of time at church. There may be an initial increase and plateauing effect of frequency of attendance as the duration of attendance (not necessarily frequency) increases and the individual becomes more socialized into and identifies closely with the collective identity of the church. The motivation to attend may be indicative of needing to fulfill more personal goals such as finding a job, mitigating distress, dealing with a family problem, not necessarily indicating interest in the more socially-oriented functions of the church or in becoming invested in the collective community of the church. In other words, high frequency of attendance may be indicative of high dependence on church for personal goals and an orientation towards intrinsic religiosity (as opposed to extrinsic religiosity) (Allport, 1950). By nature of the type of organization that the church is, frequency of attendance in and of itself may not be a positive predictor of church belonging, collective efficacy, and participation. When I looked at the number of years attending this church, it was 116 negatively correlated to both types of church attendance, while positively correlated to church belonging and participation. Future research may need to examine if there are patterns for groups of people who tend to have high participation. In the field observations, on the one hand I picked up on stories of vulnerability and distress. On the other hand, there were stories about “what is going on” in the community outside of the church boundaries and a sense of commitment to playing the role of a “good community member.” Could it be that relatively newcomers first start off as “service-recipients” and then take on “leadership roles” as their time at church prolongs and their immediate personal needs have been met? The missing/weak connection between ICSN and church factors. RQ 4. Is there a significant relationship between ICSN and church factors? RQ 4.1: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church service attendance? RQ 4.2: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church non-service attendance? RQ 4.3: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church belonging? RQ 4.4: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church collective efficacy? RQ 4.5: Is there a significant correlation between ICSN and church participation? 117 RQ 4 examined the relationship between two strong, and yet different, types of predictors (i.e. ICSN and church engagement) of neighborhood civic engagement. Findings point to a missing/weak connection. Church attendance did not have a significant relationship to ICSN representing the missing connection. Among the church engagement dimensions, church belonging and collective efficacy also did not have a significant relationship to ICSN. The only significant relationship was between church participation and ICSN with a relatively weak effect size. The perceived church storytelling resources measure and findings from qualitative data show that people who are more active in the church perceive higher importance of the church both as an important storytelling resource in and of itself (provides opportunity to meeting various people, and helps them stay on top of what is going on in the community), and directing them to others (i.e. connecting them to other groups, organizations, services and professionals). Understanding the nature of the link between ICSN and church factors is important for the following. First, during times of crises or emergencies, knowing which of the storytelling players Korean immigrants are most connected to (including the church, but others as well) can help practitioners and community leaders to efficiently and effectively distribute key information. It can identify the flows of stories, where they start, and where they converge—to better strategize reaching diverse ethnic groups in the community in ways that are socially supported, culturally-sensitive, and directly applicable in their everyday life. As past research has shown, CIT is useful for targeting hard-to-reach groups (Wilkin & Ball-Rokeach, 2011). 118 Second, in explaining why Eternal Church helps/promotes neighborhood civic engagement. Here are two proposed explanations: 1) Eternal Church plays a gateway role and helps individuals become more embedded in the local storytelling network, which then leads to more neighborhood civic engagement. In other words, the church either brings parts of the storytelling network inside its boundaries, or directs people to parts of their own neighborhood storytelling network. 2) Individuals are taking advantage of resources available at Eternal Church (e.g. meeting and interacting with different kinds of people, staying on top of community stories, and connecting to other organizations, services, and professionals ) in addition to and separate from the time and effort they put into navigating and connecting with resources in the local community. Although weak, the connection between church participation and ICSN suggests the first explanation may be taking place. In addition, findings from RQ 5 (survey responses to “perceived church storytelling resources,” and field observations) suggest that although there may be differences among different groups within the church, the church does introduce various storytelling resources to members through its programs, events, and services provided. Thus, although the church can be seen as primarily having a bonding function, it also has bridging elements that expose and familiarize church members to the broader local community life. 119 The role of ethnically-bounded storytelling networks RQ 6: Do ethnically-bounded storytelling networks make a difference in Korean immigrants’ civic engagement outcomes? RQ 6.1: Is there a significant difference between the effects of bonding vs. bridging neighborhood discussion on neighborhood civic engagement? RQ 6-2: Is there a significant difference between the effects of local media connectedness through Korean vs. English language media on neighborhood civic engagement? RQ 6-3: Is there a significant effect of bridging community organizations on neighborhood civic engagement? One of the goals of this study was to parse out the bonding vs. bridging communication resources and see their separate effects on civic engagement outcomes. Findings from RQ 6 show that Korean immigrants connecting to an ethnically-bounded storytelling network to the extent that they are discussing neighborhood stories with other Koreans and getting local news through Korean media will have increased levels of neighborhood belonging, collective efficacy, and civic participation. When they are connected to a less ethnically-bounded storytelling network to the extent that they are also discussing neighborhood stories with other non-Koreans, getting local news through English media, and connecting to bridging community organizations, their levels of belonging and participation may increase. These findings show that when individuals are embedded in a locally-focused storytelling network—connecting to local topics/stories 120 and local storytellers—the bonding (co-ethnic) vs. bridging (mainstream or multiethnic) differences of the individual communication resources in the storytelling network become less salient for civic engagement outcomes. A Discussion of Communication and Immigrant Civic Engagement Findings from this study put on the table a communication explanation for the civic role of the church. What is it about the church that makes it different or unique? The church may act as a safe place that brings parts of ICSN to its members, in culturally- sensitive ways. Through introduction of organizations and services, and providing a narrative for how to make sense of such resources, the church is acting as a gateway role for individuals to navigate and come in contact with parts of the outside world. CIT provided a particularly useful guideline for understanding immigrant social integration and local community life. Earlier on, I mentioned how in CIT the focus of the research is on unveiling the storytelling agents, and tracing the communication opportunity structures that either assist or prevent individuals in staying connected and interested. The term “communication opportunity structures” was first proposed by Kim & Ball-Rokeach (2006a) and is used interchangeably with communication infrastructures. I revisit this phrase as it brings to attention the ground-level view of understanding how recent Korean immigrants in this study interact with their immediate communication environment, realize their potential to become “community members,” and ultimately, from a research standpoint, more accurately identify the specific sites in which this can be observed. In this case, the church can be seen as creating a safe entry point for recent 121 immigrants into the local communication opportunity structure. The church can be seen playing a gateway role into the local storytelling network, or bringing aspects of the community life to the church so that members may encounter parts of it and make it meaningful to their everyday life in a relatively “protected” and “safe” environment. Thus, one of the contributions from a CIT standpoint is that this study goes beyond treating the church as one of many possible types of community organizations that an individual can connect to, and looks in-depth at what it is about the church that facilitates neighborhood civic engagement. At the same time, I should point out that as much as I focus in on the church and this particular Korean church in Los Angeles to examine pathways to civic engagement for first generation Korean immigrants, there may be another social institution, a cultural practice, a community organization, or an online platform that is playing this gateway role for another geo-ethnic community in Los Angeles. Also, it may be that other Korean immigrant groups attending other churches may have different relationships to the church. Although this study does not address all of the challenges of civic engagement research in multiethnic 21 st century urban society, it moves a step forward in the direction of diversity-sensitive civic engagement research. This study is in line with others that call for a more grass-roots and multidimensional approach to civic engagement. Studies that examine the local neighborhood context (e.g. Gimpel, 2003; Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006a; Saldivar-Tanaka, & Kransy, 2004; Wilkin, Katz, & Ball-Rokeach, 2009) put more emphasis on realities of the social environment in which the civic engagement takes place. This research also responds to calls for better integration between international migration and communication research (Katz, 2014; Ros, Gonzalez, Marin, & Sow, 2007). Ros, 122 Gonzalez, Marin, and Sow (2007) critique our current theories of migration—that they do not pay critical attention to information and communication networks, while Katz (2014) urges that communication processes are “the central mechanisms for understanding how immigrants navigate their local communities—and how these communities are changed by the people who settle in them” (p. 53). When we examine the communication processes implicated in civic engagement, we come to see that civic engagement is not the sole motivation and drive of any one individual—rather, it can be better described as part of an individual’s ongoing discursive interaction with the interpersonal, organizational, and mediated communication resources in their surrounding environment. Some of these communication resources will become more salient or useful at different times in the migration process. For example, for some, churches will play a role as an anchoring institution upon arrival, and the church will be their gateway to other organizations and social networks. For some, family networks may be the primary anchoring communication resource if their reason for migration was to reunite with family, or if relatives help them settle into the host society. Limitations and Directions for Future Research This section discusses limitations of the study and suggestions for future research. First, in order to better examine the missing/weak link between church factors and ICSN, two issues can be addressed in future research. First, is including a “no participation” group in addition to the “low” and “high” participation group in order to more fully explore the participation dimensions. In the current study, the “no participation” group 123 was dropped because of insufficient N=34 (Figure 2). The question of how we deal with the missing link discussed above can be addressed by looking at other comparative cases. Future research that presents comparison cases may reveal the extent to which Eternal Church is a unique case or whether similar outcomes will emerge with other churches as well. In addition to variances in church in its bonding and bridging opportunities and connections to the local storytelling network, the congregants may or may not share similar characteristics with those of Eternal Church. Second, further exploration of the concept of “church dependency” and development of a measure that assesses individuals’ dependency relations (Ball-Rokeach, 1985) with the church may provide further insight into the negative relationship between church connectedness (frequency of attendance) and church engagement (church belonging, collective efficacy, and participation). In the current study, the survey questions for what is now the “perceived church storytelling resources” measure were initially developed to assess relative importance (compared to other alternative communication resources) of the church to the individual for various goals (forming social ties, connecting to organizations, and staying on top of community stories). However, during translation from English to Korean it was difficult to fully capture the idea of “relative importance.” With more concrete examples and scenarios that fully incorporate understanding, orientation, and play goals (Ball-Rokeach, 1985), survey questions may be able to better assess individuals’ variations in levels of church dependency. Church dependency may provide an explanation for why frequency of attendance does not positively predict church engagement. 124 Last of all, future research may explore the connection (or disconnection) between the civic and the political. Questions may be raised about the broader political implications of the locally-focused civic attitudes and behaviors that were examined in this study. For immigrant communities, it may be the case that the requirements for active political participation may not completely align with requirements for active civic participation. This may also have to do with differences between their ideas of what it means to be “a good citizen of the country” and “a good member of the community.” For recent immigrants, legal status (whether or not they have formal citizenship status) will make a difference. How do we account for individuals who are civically competent, willing, and invited to do so, but just do not engage in political life? Is there a further “tipping point” that needs to occur for individuals to move from non-engagement to engagement, and then to sustained participation? Or is it a matter of political groups needing to do a better job of reaching out to immigrant communities? 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She is a member of the 12 th parish of Eternal Church and in an international student from Korea who has lived in Los Angeles for 10 years. She is doing a study on Korean immigrants’ everyday communication patterns and experience in their local communities, and asks if you would like to participate by filling out a paper questionnaire. The questionnaire will take approximately 30-40 minutes. If you complete the questionnaire and provide your address, you will be mailed a $25 gift certificate for Hannam Market. To be eligible to participate in this study, you must be 18 years old or older, and currently attending, or working in Eternal Church. The questions asked do not require special knowledge or experience, and are based on your own thoughts and opinions. They do not ask sensitive questions about your religious views or ask you to evaluate specific people or goals of the Church. The questions are about your everyday life in the U.S. You do not need to provide your name anywhere in the questionnaire, and your responses will not be identified with any of your personal information. Please note that participation in this study is voluntary. Your relationship with the Church, your employer or USC will not be affected whether you participate or not in this study. If you would like to participate, here is what to do: 1) Open the envelope and take out the questionnaire and the pen. Please keep the envelope. 2) Please read the questions and instructions carefully, and answer the questions on the questionnaire as honestly as possible. 3) If you have any questions while going through the questionnaire, you may call the researcher’s (Minhee) cell phone at any time: XXXXXXX 4) When you have finished the questionnaire, put it back into the envelope, peel the sticker off, and seal it. 5) Hand back the sealed envelope to me. The sealed envelope will not be opened until they are returned to the researcher (Minhee). Only Minhee will see your survey responses. 6) Please keep the pen. If you are not interested in taking part, please hand back the envelope to me. INSTRUCTIONS: Please direct all questions the respondents may ask to the researcher. She will be on standby nearby, and can also be reached by phone. Please collect back all envelopes (completed and not completed) and pass them on to the researcher by June 15 th , 2015.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Son, Minhee (author)

Core Title Pathways to immigrant civic engagement: the storytelling network and church participation

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communication

Publication Date 10/22/2015

Defense Date 08/03/2015

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag bonding,bridging,church,civic engagement,communication infrastructure theory,immigrant,Korean,OAI-PMH Harvest,storytelling network

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Ball-Rokeach, Sandra J. (committee chair), Crigler, Ann (committee member), Goodnight, Gerald Thomas (committee member)

Creator Email minheeso@usc.edu,minheeson@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-192955

Unique identifier UC11279166

Identifier etd-SonMinhee-3988.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-192955 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-SonMinhee-3988.pdf

Dmrecord 192955

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Son, Minhee

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA