Social class and social cohesion: a content validity analysis using a nonrecursive structural equation model.

The psychosocial construct of “social cohesion,” understood as social behaviors indicating trust, reciprocity, and concern for the well-being of the members of one’s community, is the key determinant of health in the “income inequality and social cohesion model” model (Ref. 1, p. 211). Social cohesion is defined as participation in public affairs, civic responsibility or involvement in public life. Social cohesion can be measured with indicators of voting participation, newspaper readership, or number of cultural voluntary associations (Ref. 1, p. 119–120). Here we define social cohesion as the amount of individual participation in social groups in the community. Indicators of membership in civil organizations, a measure of social cohesion used in the “income inequality and social cohesion” research program, 1 would be appropriate according to that definition. But in order for a psychometric measure to have content validity, it must include a representative sample of indicators of the construct it is supposed to measure. Current measures of social cohesion downplay or do not include forms of participation in social groups that are characteristic of working class communities such as union membership. 2 Furthermore, these working class forms of cohesion can affect the health of communities through labor and political action (e.g., research on collective control 3 ). However, the “income inequality and social cohesion” model does not contemplate the relation between class and social cohesion. In political sociology, research within the resource mobilization framework has revealed that members of the middle class have more time and resources to devote to civic participation than members of the working class. 4 Therefore we expect that the forms of civic social activism tapped by current indicators 1