Items from the Neighborhood Cohesion
Instrument were completed by 1,732 individuals from a
random sample of households in 20 rural communities
across Canada during the summer of 2001. Confirmatory
factor analysis of the NCI items based on polychoric cor-
relations and weighted least squares estimation found three
underlying latent variables. Although items were related to
the three latent variables in a somewhat different manner
than they were in Buckner’s original study, the same three
latent variables were evident, providing convincing evi-
dence that social cohesion has at least three subscales:
psychological sense of community, neighboring, and
attraction. Correlations between subscales were relatively
high (between .67 and .87). Intraclass correlation coeffi-
cients for the three scales were .115, .127, and .112. In
addition, the community means differed on different sub-
scales in a manner that related to recognized characteristics
of the communities. Thus the subscales are appropriate
measures for both individuals and communities and can be
recommended for further research on social cohesion