The role of group learning in building social capital

Abstract

Social capital assists in building economically and socially viable and sustainable learning communities, where communities can be geographic communities, professional or common interest communities, and groups of businesses such as Executive Link™, the subject of this article. This article investigates the elements of social capital and develops a set of indicators that show social capital is being built. The indicators can be applied wherever groups or organisations with a shared purpose engage in productive interactions which benefit not only the individual member groups, but the ‘learning community’ as a whole. Executive Link ™ consists of farm businesses which meet for non-formal training. It appears to have features of a learning community, including a shared purpose, and learning interactions across the boundaries of individual member businesses. This article identifies networks, commitments and shared values as the elements of social capital which contribute to the quality of learning interactions. Indicators of social capital building are suggested to be development of a shared language, shared experiences, building trust, self-development and fostering an identification with the community