SEGREGATED WORLDVIEWS:
How Segregated Neighborhoods Could Sabotage the Valley’s Ability to Solve Pressing
Regional Problems
Neighborhood organizers seek to unite broad coalitions to address pressing social problems, but
they must overcome the barrier of neighborhood segregation. The neighborhood in which
community leaders reside shapes their worldviews. These segregated worldviews can sabotage
community organizers’ efforts to build broad-based community-wide coalitions.
In an effort to discern major actionable issues that would be supported by a broad base of
community leaders and constituents, the Relational Culture Institute (RCI)—a nonprofit
organization working with faith-based and other community organizations in the South San
Joaquin Valley to improve the quality of life for the region—with funding support from the James
Irvine Foundation, carried out interview research with community leaders in Visalia (n=74) and
Bakersfield (n=89) from August to November 2006.
The interview instrument and protocol were prepared and piloted by David Lighthall, Ph.D., and
Yolanda Barba with input from Keith Bergthold and others. Nine interviewers received training
and compensation for interviews completed. Interviewees’ responses were noted in a
spreadsheet document and accessed for data analysis using SPSS and N-Vivo. RCI contracted
with the Social Science Research Lab at California State University, Fresno to perform
qualitative and quantitative data analysis and produce written reports summarizing the findings.
Matthew Jendian, Ph.D., and Timothy Kubal, Ph.D., Research Associates with the Social Science
Research Lab performed the analyses under the supervision of lab director Edward Nelson, Ph.D.
Using qualitative and quantitative data analysis on the data collected, researchers sought to
explain the variation in respondent’s views about the problems and solutions for issues facing
their community. Several variables, predicted to have some influence, did not reveal statistically
significant associations with respondents’ views: respondent’s gender, their length of residence
in the valley, their length of job tenure, and their organization type. When accounting for
variation in respondent’s views, the only statistically significant variable was the income type of
the neighborhood in which the respondent resided. This led to the central finding of segregated
worldviews among community leaders in Visalia and Bakersfield based on the respondent’s
neighborhood income type—mixed, low, middle, or upper. Four segregated worldviews are
prevalent: quality of life, problems, solutions, and rationales.
Quality of Life
Quality of life is one of the most important segregated worldviews.
In Visalia, a near majority of respondents (49%) viewed the City of Visalia’s quality of life as
improving. While only 2% responded that the quality of life was declining, 33% responded that
there were “serious problems, but they were being addressed.” Visalia respondents living in the
upper income neighborhoods were more critical of the community’s quality of life. Positive
statements that Visalia was “A city with a high quality of life that is on the upswing” were highest
among respondents from low-income neighborhoods (75% agreed) and lowest among
respondents from upper income neighborhoods (only 18% agreed). Conversely, negative
statements that Visalia was “A city facing serious problems that are starting to be addressed”
were most likely expressed by community leaders from upper income neighborhoods (45%
agreed), and least likely among those from mixed income (25%) and low income (18%)
neighborhoods.
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In Bakersfield, the majority of respondents (46%) viewed the City of Bakersfield’s quality of life
as improving. Only 3% of all respondents believed the quality of life in their community was
declining. However, this was also a segregated worldview, with 100% of respondents expressing
this view coming from the middle and upper income neighborhoods. Twenty-three percent of all
respondents said there were “serious problems, but they were being addressed.” This view, too,
was segregated; 86% of respondents from low-income neighborhoods agreed, while only 21%
from upper income neighborhoods agreed. The most optimistic assessment of the community’s
quality of life—“that the city was on an upswing”—was also segregated. Fifteen percent from the
middle income, 11% from upper income, and 0% from the low-income neighborhoods agreed.
Problems
Another important segregated worldview involves different assumptions about the most
important community problem.
In Visalia, respondents living in lower-income neighborhoods predominantly identified the
environment (40%) as the most important problem facing the city. Respondents living in
mixed-income neighborhoods identified jobs and economic development (24%) as the most
important problem. Respondents living in middle- and upper-income neighborhoods most
frequently identified jobs and economic development (19%) as the most important problem.
In Bakersfield, 43% of respondents living in lower income neighborhoods identified the
environment as the most pressing problem, while the environment was the most important
problem to only 21% of respondents from upper income neighborhoods and 10% of respondents
from middle-income neighborhoods. Eleven percent of respondents from upper income groups
identified health as the number one problem, but 0% from mixed and low-income groups
identified health as the most pressing problem. Twenty-one percent of respondents from upper
income neighborhoods identified education as the most pressing problem, while 12% from
middle income, 13% from mixed income, and 0% from low income chose education as the most
pressing problem.
Solutions
In Visalia, the overwhelming majority (62.4%) of respondents felt that the problem was being
addressed “somewhat, but insufficiently.” Nearly 18% of respondents felt the problem was being
addressed “effectively, but there is a way to go.” This was the most optimistic response choice,
and it unveiled segregated worldviews; 50% of those from poor neighborhoods agreed, while all
other neighborhood groups had no more than 28% agreeing with the optimistic assessment of
solutions. Conversely, 15.3% of all respondents felt the problem was “not being addressed at all
or very poorly.” This was the most pessimistic response choice and it unveiled segregated
worldviews. From upper income neighborhoods, only 8% agreed with the pessimistic response,
while 18% from mixed income neighborhoods and 16% from middle-income neighborhoods
agreed with the pessimistic statement about solutions.
In Bakersfield, the majority (52.8%) of respondents felt that the major problem was being
addressed “somewhat, but insufficiently.” Eighty-eight percent of respondents from upper
income neighborhoods agreed with this statement, as did 65% from mixed income
neighborhoods. Nearly 13% of all respondents felt the problem was “not being addressed at all
or very poorly.” This pessimistic response was most likely among respondents from mixed
income neighborhoods (22% agreed) and least likely among respondents from upper income
neighborhoods (12% agreed). Conversely, 23.6% of all respondents agreed with the optimistic
view that problems were being addressed “effectively, but there is a way to go.” These
optimistic views were most likely among respondents from middle-income neighborhoods (32%
agreed) and least likely among those from low-income neighborhoods (0% agreed).
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Rationales
Why do community leaders take action and devote their lives to their cause; why is their work
important, and which problems are core issues that shape all others? Understanding rationales
can help answer these types of foundational questions. Rationales provide the explanation for
behavior, so that rationales that are widely shared provide an opportunity to unite people, while
segregated, divisive rationales will likely be less successful at uniting disparate populations.
In Visalia, of the ten main rationales, none appeared in only one neighborhood type. It was
common for rationales to be shared, but it was uncommon for them to be widely shared. In
Visalia, only four rationales were mentioned by people in all four neighborhood groups:
education, environment, public safety, and political power. These represent the least divisive
rationales. The remaining top six rationales were shared among fewer than four neighborhood
groups, making them relatively more divisive rationales: housing, jobs, private or personal
problems, sprawl, urban transportation, and youth.
In Bakersfield, of the ten main rationales, none appeared in only one neighborhood type. It was
common for rationales to be shared, but it was uncommon for them to be widely shared. Only
four rationales were mentioned by people in all four neighborhood groups: education, poverty,
housing, and public safety. These represent the least divisive rationales. The remaining top six
rationales were shared among fewer than four neighborhood groups, making them relatively
more divisive rationales: jobs, private or personal problem, sprawl, youth, environment, and
health.
Conclusion
Our quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data collected from 163 interviews with
community leaders in Visalia and Bakersfield suggests that segregated neighborhoods provide an
important and often-unacknowledged impediment to coalition building. Community organizers
seek to build coalitions across boundaries of difference, but the analysis presented here suggests
that a major barrier to coalition building is not the obvious differences of gender or organization,
but rather the major barriers are rooted in differences created by residential segregation. While
differences can be an important strength for social groups, unacknowledged differences such as
segregated worldviews present a potent threat that could sabotage the South San Joaquin
Valley’s community organizers in their attempts to build coalitions that solve pressing social
problems.
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