Abstract
It is widely believed that civic associations are capable to produce social capital, here understood as an individual asset resulting from relations of mutual support and assistance. Although hardly anybody denies that socializing is widespread in many civic associations, it still remains to be shown that this socializing provides a genuine commitment to support. This paper explores the relationship between involvement in civic organizations and social support. The data analysed come from a nation-wide survey “Organized Sport and Social Capital—Revisited” (OSSCAR) representing the adult population in Germany. Findings show that participation in civic associations is associated with higher levels of social support. This effect is stronger for active participants and weaker for passive members. Path analyses further indicate that this effect is mediated by a person’s sociability orientations as well as her commitment to prosocial values. These findings help providing a more nuanced understanding of mechanisms of social capital formation in civic associations.
Highlights
Social support is usually linked to financial and/or informational advantages, i.e. addresses the convertibility of social capital into economic and cultural capital. Following this conceptualization of social capital, two research questions are at the core: First, do members of civic associations have an advantage regarding their levels of individual social capital or not? For instance, do they receive more support from their social network compared to non-members, and if yes, how large is this advantage? Assuming that such an advantage exists, the second question refers to the origins of social capital: What produces individual social capital in civic associations? Is it a byproduct of regular interactions with like-minded individuals or the consequence of specific value orientations propagated and acted out in an association?
The present study used large-scale survey data to analyse the associations between civic participation and one key aspect of individual social capital, namely the support generated from social networks
We have argued that socializing and friendship formation are integral parts of many civic associations, especially those in the domain of leisure and culture
Summary
Levi 1996; Newton 2001; Portes 1998; Putnam 1993, 2000; Smith and Kulyniych 2002; Stolle 1998; Wollebӕk and Selle 2007; Zimmer and Freise 2008) Some of these studies conceive social capital as a collective good, which unfolds its potentials at the group level, i.e. in communities, regions or nations, while other scholars regard social capital as an individual asset, having its roots in a person’s social network Being part of a “weak” network—i.e. weak in resources or in solidarity—would not qualify as capital It follows that in both cases, an actor may still feel socially integrated, while at the same time the utility function of these group memberships would be marginal
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