The Relationship Between Years of Schooling and the Forms of Social Capital: A Study Conducted in an Urban Area, Under Sylhet City

Abstract

Education and social capital have great contribution to the development. The main endeavor of this article divulges the connection between individual’s years of schooling and their social networks, social norms, civic participation, cooperation and social trust as social capital. To find out the relationship between individual’s years of schooling and their social capital descriptive research design has been followed. Mix-method approach -- Social survey technique and Focused Group Discussion (FGD) -- has been applied for collecting data from study area. To analyze the collected data, Likert Scale, Human Development Index (HDI) and the Spearman’s rho correlation were calculated. Hypotheses have been formulated and tested in congruence with the objectives of the study. From the study, it is found that, positive relation exists between years of schooling and various components of social capital. It also signifies that, educated people have more social network and they maintain the social norms. On the contrary, they have low trust on their neighbors and are less cooperative to them too. It is also revealed, Social Networks Index is more superior over other elements of Social Capital i.e. 0.749 (social network) > 0.671 (social norms) > 0.658 (civic participation) > 0.584 (social Cooperation) > 0.425 (social trust). In conclusion, individual’s years of schooling influenced their social capital but variety of relation exists there because of the influence of others variable. Key words: Years of schooling; Social capital; Social networks; Social norms; Civic participation; Cooperation; Social trust