7.1 My High School Community

The Philadelphia High School for Girls (aka Girls’ High) is very well known for having a strong identity and a very active alumna network. As a member of the Philadelphia High School for Girls alumna association, I am part of the facebook group called “I hate to admit it but I loved Girls’ High”. This group allows me to keep in touch with fellow high school grads, discuss recent happenings within the school, organize community service events, fundraise, and send reminders about dance shows coming up, theater performances and concerts. In this post, I will describe the Girls’ High community through Haythornthwaite’s (2007) Social Network Analysis (SNA) and analyze the importance of the social network, common ground and reciprocity in the sustaining of this group.

Etzioni and Etzioni (1999) define a community, as “…a group of individuals that crisscross and reinforce one another…” (129). Haythornthwaite states that SNA focuses on “…what is happening between people, within collectives and across boundaries, in order to find out what kind of collective exists.” (124-125) My community is very tightly connected for several reasons. First, the existence of this online group allows members to keep connected and up to date with current events. Also, most members are still very involved with school events. Further, there are several characteristics of the institution that kept school spirit alive during my years at Girls’ High and that still play a very important role today. For instance, the school’s high selective admission procedure, the several time commitments (sports teams, clubs and organizations), the strong traditions and celebrations (“songs of the seasons”, “career day”), the uniqueness of the school (last all girls public school left in the nation), the strong competition with neighboring schools and the high interaction frequency (both online and face-to-face of the members), all lead to a very cohesive organization.

Haythornthwaite discusses three very important elements of communities that can be applied to my alumna association: social networks, common ground and reciprocity.

Social networks “…are built on the foundation of actors who are connected or tied by maintenance of one or more relations.” (126). The actors are the subjects, in this case, Girls’ High alumna, who are communicating with one another through the use of face to face interaction (alumna events) and through the use of CMC (e.g. facebook group as well as list serves). The relations connect the actors and are based on the exchange of information, support (financial and moral) and advice. The ties are what maintain such relationships. In the case of the alumna community, they are very strong. This is because the network tends to be dense (high interaction frequency), the actors are very similar (all graduated from the same institution), and all have access to similar resources and information (discounts, invitations to events).

Common ground is the idea that members have similar views, share historical events, use similar language and routines. Members of the alumna association have attended the same high school, share common experiences (teachers) and memories (prom). Also we have all encountered similar situations and faced similar emotions. For instance, after graduation, most of us attended co-head colleges and had to interact with male student on a day-to-day basis, something we weren’t accustomed to. Our “common ground” allowed us to share our opinions and give each other advice. This lead to the creation of several facebook threats, groups and conversation topics on the list serves.

Reciprocity is the idea that because there is “…continued orientation to the community…” and that members “…spend their energy responding to other in the community, giving help without requiring an immediate payback or even any payback.” (129). This kind of reciprocity has helped the community sustain itself throughout the years. This reciprocity has lead us to converse and give each other advice on a wide variety of topics, ranging from the best GRE prep courses to best spring break vacation destinations. Not only has this provided each one of us with more information and resources but has also deepened our friendship level and made our network even stronger.

CMC interactions have strongly affected this community. Etzioni and Etzioni (1999) state that communities who share both types of media, face-to-face and CMC, tend to bond better and to share values more efficiently than “…communities that rely upon only one of the other mode of communication.” (131). In the case of the alumna community, this statement has been proved correct. Has we solely relied on face-to-face interaction, the group would have been active during those few months when all the members are back from school and would have surely died out in a few months. On the other hand, had we solely relied on CMC (facebook group), we would not have attended the same social events and would have thus run out of topics to discuss. By combining the two, the group has survived over the years and has been flourishing.

If you're interested:
Seach on facebook: "I hate to admit it but I loved Girls' High", "Girls' High Alumna", "Philadelphia High School for Girls"
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_High_School_for_Girls




MY COMMENTS:
http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/10/71-virtual-team.html

http://comm245blue.blogspot.com/2007/10/crunkapella-this-aint-no-archsing.html