Association, Sociability, and Civic Culture: The Democratic Effect of Community Gardening

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the democratic values of community garden leaders and non-leaders with the intent to understand the democratic effects of participation in community gardening. The results support Putnam's (2000 Putnam, R. D. 2000. Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) assertion that the intensity of membership in voluntary associations is important to the development of democratic citizens. Moreover, the findings reveal the salience of context, namely a leisure-oriented context, in imbuing democratic values. Time spent in a community garden was a stronger, albeit weak, predictor of political citizenship orientations than was time spent talking and visiting with other community gardeners, which implied the significance of the garden space and its public sphere effects.