The U.S. Virgin Islands is experiencing an economic recession, manifested through social disorders such as abandoned and vandalized houses. Research points to social disorders and lack of community engagement as key factors inhibiting community development efforts. In order to strengthen these struggling communities, research has highlighted the need for public-private partnerships. Guided by Ajzen's theory of planned behavior, which posits that attitudes can predict behaviors, this study examined the relationship between social disorder and engagement of small business owners in community development. Small business owners in the U.S. Virgin Islands received an Internet or paper survey; a total of 79 completed surveys out of the 220 who were contacted. A Spearman rank-ordered correlations test and multiple regression were used to analyze the responses, with physical and social disorder, number of employees, and years of operation as the independent variables, and community engagement level as the dependent variable. The findings revealed a strong community engagement from the business owners, although none of the independent variables had a statistically significant relationship with the dependent variable. The findings also indicated which areas of social disorder most concerned small business owners. This study can have a positive social impact by identifying common areas of distress, which can help spur greater collaboration between community stakeholders and local small businesses, thereby creating an improved local environment.

The title, “You simply must own your classroom”, is taken from a quote from one of my informants. After review of earlier research on how teachers handle their leadership in the meeting with disturbing pupils and which strategies they use to solve problems in the classroom, interesting questions developed. What experiences do teachers have of disturbing situations in the classroom? Which strategies do they use to solve the problems? What kind of support do the teachers consider necessary in teaching? Are there any differences in teachers’ experiences and strategies between the two selected schools? The study is supported by earlier research that deals with pupils’ and teachers’ perspective and strategies in different classroom cultures in terms of norm-breaking behaviour of pupils. The study is also supported by three different theoretical perspectives such as power structure, social order/disorder and support strategies. I conducted the study through interviews with sex teachers who work in the same municipality but in two separate schools. All teachers work in Secondary School. The study is meant to be deepening in order to gain a broader understanding of which strategies teachers use to solve problems. In my study I came to the conclusion that all teachers are most disturbed by the pupils who speak straight out and discard comments that do not even affect the substance, pupils who talk too much, do not listen and throw erasers at each other. Furthermore, I have concluded that all teachers in this study place great emphasis on social communication and individual conversation with the pupil to solve a problem. To solve the problem, the teacher should possess certain communication skills. The results have shown that all six teachers create a relationship with their pupils to counter the social disorder in the classroom. Furthermore, I concluded that teachers want to solve problems on their own, but that sometimes “extreme cases” require special support from parents, the counselor and principal at the school. Finally I concluded that the teachers call for training in leading science and conflict management, since it is missing in their teacher education.

In 2008, Atlanta was the first city in the United States to completely eliminate its high-rise public housing projects. Georgia State University professors Drs. Ruel, Oakley, and Reid undertook a three-year study to determine the health, behavior, and attitudes of residents both before and after relocation. This study sought to determine whether residents' self-esteem and self-efficacy improved after relocation into areas that have lower levels of social disorder and poor housing conditions. Overall, results show that while housing conditions, social disorder, and fear of crime had little or no significant effect on changes in residents' self-esteem, an improvement in these indicators in residents' new neighborhoods had a significant effect on self-efficacy. The significance of decreased social disorder and poor housing conditions, as well as fear of crime on residents' self-efficacy (but not self-esteem) has important implications for future research regarding neighborhood and housing effects as well as public housing relocation.

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Kollektiv styrka baseras på sammanhållningen och viljan hos invånarna att ingripa för bostadsområdets säkerhet. Viljan att ingripa påverkas av denna ömsesidiga tillit och de förväntningarna på att ingripa som delas inom området. Detta arbete är en kvantitativ studie baserat på enkäter från 691 respondenter som besvarat frågan ”Vad är bra respektive dåligt med ditt bostadsområde?”. Denna fråga har undersökts för att ta reda på hur den individuellt upplevda kollektiva styrkan påverkar vilka positiva och negativa faktorer man ser hos sitt bostadsområde. Resultaten visar att respondenter med låg upplevd kollektiv styrka oftare anger den sociala oordningen och den fysiska oordningen som negativa faktorer med bostadsområdet. De med hög kollektiv styrka tenderar att ange den sociala strukturen som positiv faktor med sitt bostadsområde. / Collective efficacy is based on the willingness of the residents to intervene for the neighborhoods sake. The willingness to intervene is affected by the mutual trust between the residents and the expectations that is shared for others to intervene. This quantitative study is based on a survey answered by 691 respondents. They’ve answered the question: ”What is good and what is bad with your neighborhood?” This question has bin examined to learn how the individual perception of collective efficacy tends to affect what positive and negative aspects of their neighborhood the respondents see. The results of the study show that respondents with a low perception of collective efficacy more often tend to see the social- and physical disorder as negative factors with their neighborhood. Those with a greater perception of collective efficacy tend to see the social structure as a positive factor with their neighborhood.