Johnny Andoh-arthur

My Community, My Hope: Psychological Sense of Community in Ghana Johnny Andoh-arthur

Community plays vital roles in the life of its inhabitants. Particularly for adolescents', community serves as a key avenue for meeting basic psycho-social needs such as intimacy and belongingness as well as a platform for smooth negotiation of critical developmental challenges such as identity and potential development. These crucial roles of our communities are argued to have been on the decline in recent times leading to erosion of young people's psychological sense of their community. With an overview of African conception of community by some African Scholars and current models of sense of community emerging mainly from non Africans, this books aims to deepen understanding on how adolescents of Ghana perceive Psychological sense of community. Through Interpretative Phenomenological Approach, Psychological sense of community among adolescents is perceived within the framework of the present physical and psychosocial attributes of the community in fostering belongingness and in inducing hope for a successful incorporation into the universal world. Increasing urbanisation in the city and pervasive traditional values in the rural areas are found to play unique roles.