Relevance Of Social Capital Research Articles

Vietnamese migrants’ engagement in disaster risk reduction: The relevance of social capital

Researchers commonly employ the concept of social capital to examine how people engage with disaster risk reduction. This approach has generated useful knowledge to improve the effectiveness of disaster risk reduction for the general population. However, disaster risk reduction knowledge and practices designed for the general population might not speak to Vietnamese migrants because they do not reflect Vietnamese cultural practices and norms. This paper contributes to the literature by presenting findings from a narrative inquiry into Vietnamese migrants’ experiences of disaster risk reduction in the Wellington Region, Aotearoa New Zealand. The participants’ narratives suggest that Vietnamese migrants employ bonding and bridging social capital to gain knowledge about natural hazards and disaster risk reduction. Their disaster risk reduction reflects certain socio-cultural norms and values as well as family and gender dynamics among Vietnamese migrants. The findings also indicate that, for Vietnamese migrants who do not have well-established social networks, social capital-based disaster risk reduction might be less effective.

Disentangling the complexities of modelling when high social capital contributes to indicating good health

The association between social capital and health is under continuous research. Based both on theoretical frameworks and previous empirical studies, the magnitude and sign of this association are ambiguous. Our main goal is to empirically investigate under which conditions is social capital relevant to obtain good or very good self-rated health, while acknowledging that different paths can lead to this outcome. The data used in this study come from the European Social Survey 2018 (47,423 observations for 29 European countries) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis was adopted.Our results show that neither the presence of social capital (as measured in this study – ‘Generalised trust’ and/or ‘Informal social connections’), nor its absence, is a necessary condition for good or very good self-rated health. While not being necessary, there are contexts where social capital is relevant for health and, whenever it is present, it positively contributes to good or very good self-rated health. However, our results further suggest that social capital alone is not sufficient to be healthy. The relevance of social capital is contingent on the presence, or absence, of other conditions. What works for some individuals does not work for others. And for any given individual, rarely there is only one way to be healthy. Additionally, our findings suggest that the impact of belonging to a minority ethnic group on health might be stronger than what has been hitherto recognised.

The relevance of social capital in efforts to develop entrepreneurship education

Universities in Indonesia create millions of graduates, but the labor market does not absorb most graduates, so they become unemployed. One of the ways to overcome unemployment is through entrepreneurship education to encourage them to become entrepreneurs to create their jobs. The success of entrepreneurship is determined by utilizing capital, one of which is social capital. This study aimed to find out how the relevance of social capital in developing entrepreneurship education. This was qualitative study, and data was gathered through in-depth interviews, observation, and documentation. Data analysis went through the stages of reduction, presentation, and conclusion drawing and was finally verified. The results of the research explained that the elements of social capital, including networks, norms, and trust was built through entrepreneurship education.

Relevance of social capital in women’s business performance in Bangladesh

Social capital has been projected as a key resource in entrepreneurial success. While the association between successful business activity by rural women and their ability in building social capital is often seen as a pathway of poverty reduction, a thorough understanding of the relevance of social capital in women’s business performance could have crucial insights into ways for alleviating rural poverty in developing countries. Nonetheless, the relevance of social capital in women’s business performance has hardly studied in the specific context of Bangladesh. The present review is undertaken to fill this information gap. Social capital has positive impact on gaining legitimacy, building mutual trust and co-operation in women’s business. Besides, women enterprises with enhanced social capital are found to possess better access to other forms of capital. The review shows the importance of external actors such as microfinance institutions in developing social capital of women enterprises in Bangladesh. Alongside microfinance, regulative factors such as different rules and regulations of the government can positively facilitate women entrepreneurship development in rural Bangladesh.J. Bangladesh Agril. Univ. 15(1): 87-94, January 2017

The primaries of the centre left: only a temporary success?

The article describes the primaries held by the Italian centre left in 2012 to choose its candidate for the premiership. After a short history of previous primaries and ‘pseudo’-primaries (national contests to choose the party secretary) held by the centre left (or by its main party), the article deals with the internal debate about whether or not to hold primaries and about the rules that would govern them. The article proposes looking at this debate in a ‘realistic’ way, as a struggle between political actors fighting to conquer or maintain power. The third section analyses the results. The data presented show a large increase in turnout in the North and in the ‘Red Belt’ and a decrease in the South. The article sketches some hypotheses to explain these variations, discussing in particular the relevance of social capital. The conclusions consider the contest as a temporary success for the centre left: it attracted great media attention and had a conditioning effect on voter intentions, but did not lead to the definitive institutionalisation of primaries.

Economic Progress, Social Regress?

A central issue in the debate regarding the relevance of social capital is whether the decline in social embeddedness that has attended modernization over the last 40 years in the United States is as harmful as Putnam, among others, claim it to be. Critics of Putnam's thesis argue that various arms-length institutions fulfil the roles performed by social capital thereby mitigating the negative impact of its recent decline. We develop a framework that provides insight into when such institutions may be adequate and when they might not. We find that if market (economic) and non-market (social) interactions differ in their payoffs but are interlinked through the modernization of the economy, the optimal level of modernization in market interactions will be higher than that in non-market interactions. Further, market supporting institutions are likely to increase the divergence between economic and social interactions since analogs for market institutions that constrain opportunistic behavior are usually nonexistent in social contexts. In this sense, economic progress may be accompanied by social regress.

Semiosis as an educational instrument: The irrelevance of mediation and the relevance of social capital

This paper explores semiosis as an instrument to be used in the classroom in the development of democratic education and a democratic society. In doing so we show the important links between Peirce's later semiotic theory and Dewey's theory of education. The argument is made that later Peirce's works on semiotics should be understood within its Pragmatic context. Semiotics' major contribution to the human condition is as a process and not as a definition. Therefore, even though Peirce wrote far less about the more process-oriented semiosis, this is the aspect of Peirce's theory that is most complementary to Dewey, especially his concept of inquiry, and has the most to offer education. What should be emphasized most are the democratic processes leading to meaningful object-sign-interpretant relationships - active inquiry engendering solutions to relevant community problems. We see two important aspects in using semiosis as a progressive instrument in the classroom. The first is the need to dispense with a concept of mediation that can be isolated from the process of semiosis as a whole. Considering mediation as an isolated phenomenon serves no useful purpose and might actually be deleterious to the community as a whole. The second aspect, dependent on the first, is the recognition that social capital plays in the process of semiosis. Trust between participants is the key ingredient in communication.