Social Capital Constructs Research Articles

Measurement of Social Participation and its Place in Social Capital Theory

The concept of social capital has become very popular but its definition and measurement are still rather unclear. We frame our study in one of its components, social participation. In this article we develop an optimal measure for social participation based on the questions asked in the first round of the European Social Survey. Our analyses suggest that a distinction has to be made between informal and formal participation because they relate very differently to other variables such as age, education, political action and happiness. We also found that these two types of participation had hardly any relationship with other important components of the social capital construct, such as social trust and political trust. The latter result does not devalue the validity of the developed indices for informal and formal participation but suggests that participation and trust should be considered formative indicators of social capital.

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Children's Placement Preferences Longitudinally

ABSTRACTPerceptions of permanency from the child's perspective can aid in giving voices to children impacted by foster care, thus promoting their personal sense of empowerment. This research represents a longitudinal assessment of how children living in foster care perceive permanency; specifically, their placement preferences while living in temporary foster care. Analyses were conducted on a subset of 2,671 children from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW). Utilizing attachment and social capital constructs, children's preferences were predicted using Generalized Ordered Logistic regression analyses. Results demonstrated differences in children's perceptions and preferences for permanency at three waves of data collection.

Testing the association between the incidence of schizophrenia and social capital in an urban area

Social capital has been considered aetiologically important in schizophrenia but the empirical evidence to support this hypothesis is absent. We tested whether social capital, measured at the neighbourhood level, was associated with the incidence of schizophrenia (ICD-10 F20). MethodWe administered a cross-sectional questionnaire on social capital to 5% of the adult population in 33 neighbourhoods (wards) in South London (n=16 459). The questionnaire contained items relating to two social capital constructs: social cohesion and trust (SC&T) and social disorganization (SocD). Schizophrenia incidence rates, estimated using data from the Aetiology and Ethnicity in Schizophrenia and Other Psychoses (AESOP) study, provided the outcome. We used multi-level Poisson regression to test our hypothesis while controlling for individual- and neighbourhood-level characteristics. We identified 148 cases during 565 576 person-years at-risk. Twenty-six per cent of the variation in incidence rates was attributable to neighbourhood-level characteristics. Response from the social capital survey was 25.7%. The association between SC&T and schizophrenia was U-shaped. Compared with neighbourhoods with medial levels of SC&T, incidence rates were significantly higher in neighbourhoods with low [incidence rates ratio (IRR) 2.0, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.2-3.3] and high (IRR 2.5, 95% CI 1.3-4.8) levels of SC&T, independent of age, sex, ethnicity, ethnic density, ethnic fragmentation and socio-economic deprivation. ConclusionNeighbourhood variation in SC&T was non-linearly associated with the incidence of schizophrenia within an urban area. Neighbourhoods with low SC&T may fail to mediate social stress whereas high SC&T neighbourhoods may have greater informal social control or may increase the risk of schizophrenia for residents excluded from accessing available social capital.

”WHAT WOULD DURKHEIM DO?” A COMMENT ON KUSHNER AND STERK

Kushner and Sterk1 presented an interesting assessment of whether Durkheim’s Suicide2 should be cited as evidence that low social cohesion yields greater morbidity and mortality—in other words, that lack of “social capital” is detrimental to population health. The authors highlight several crucial issues: enthusiasm for social capital should not overshadow the need for material provisions, public health applications of social capital have been “promiscuous,” and social capital is no panacea for societal ills. However, their article raises 2 fundamental issues that present challenges to some of their own conclusions and highlight some of the problems with the use of the social capital construct within public health. First, in their critique of Durkheim’s typology, the authors quickly dismiss Durkheim’s concern for altruistic and fatalistic suicide resulting from excessive integration. Although downplayed by Durkheim, these components are still pivotal to his thinking on social solidarity. Consequently, Kushner and Sterk ignore Durkheim’s concern for balance, in which levels of social integration achieve an “organic equilibrium” of cohesion and individuality to prevent social pathology.3 The high suicide rates among women and military personnel that Kushner and Sterk cite as evidence of excessive integration leading to suicide actually support Durkheim’s argument that both too little and too much integration can be detrimental.2(p217) Second, Kushner and Sterk’s article contributes to a tendency within public health to conflate social cohesion and social capital. In their discussion of social capital, the authors, like many in public health, emphasize network ties, norms of reciprocity, and trust—all of which are consistent with Putnam’s conception of social capital4 (the most popular conception of social capital in the field of public health5) and a social cohesion framework6—but ignore the fourth element of social capital: other forms of capital (economic, human, cultural, etc.) within the network itself. Other social capital theorists (e.g., Bourdieu, Coleman) accommodate the need to consider other forms of capital to fully understand how social capital operates within societies.7–9 Although Kushner and Sterk acknowledge that social capital cannot be a substitute for material resources, they nonetheless reinforce the conflation of social capital with social cohesion. Although Durkheim’s scholarship is flawed (e.g., his conception of gender leans toward biological determinism), his discussion of social solidarity is a stimulating starting point for the study of positive and negative aspects of social cohesion and social capital and their relevance to population health. Certainly, the concept of social capital has Durkheimian—and (often ignored) Marxist9—roots, but would Durkheim view social capital as many within public health do? We are not certain he would.

Social capital and mental health: An interdisciplinary review of primary evidence

An interdisciplinary interrogation of primary evidence linking social capital and mental health sought to establish: (1) ‘quality of evidence’ (assessed in terms of study design, methods used to address stated questions, rigor of data analysis, and logic and clarity of interpretation of results), and (2) applicability of the evidence to public health policy and practice with respect to mental health. It is found that social capital, a complex and compound construct, can be both an asset and a liability with respect to mental health of those in receipt of and those providing services and other interventions. The most meaningful assessment of social capital or components thereof may examine individual access to rather than possession of social capital, a property of groups, and therefore an ecological variable. Theoretical advances in research on social capital serve to identify mainly two types of social capital: bonding (between individuals in a group) and bridging (between groups). Each type of social capital has cognitive and/or structural component(s) and may operate at micro and/or macro level(s). Effective mental health policy and service provision may build or strengthen bridging social capital and benefit from both bonding and bridging social capital where either or both exist. Established indicators of social capital are amenable to quantitative and qualitative assessment, preferably in tandem. However studies that employ combined research design are rare or non-existent. Interdisciplinary multi-method investigations and analyses are called for in order to unravel mechanisms whereby social capital and mental health might be meaningfully associated.

The pet connection: Pets as a conduit for social capital?

There is growing interest across a range of disciplines in the relationship between pets and health, with a range of therapeutic, physiological, psychological and psychosocial benefits now documented. While much of the literature has focused on the individual benefits of pet ownership, this study considered the potential health benefits that might accrue to the broader community, as encapsulated in the construct of social capital. A random survey of 339 adult residents from Perth, Western Australia were selected from three suburbs and interviewed by telephone. Pet ownership was found to be positively associated with some forms of social contact and interaction, and with perceptions of neighbourhood friendliness. After adjustment for demographic variables, pet owners scored higher on social capital and civic engagement scales. The results suggest that pet ownership provides potential opportunities for interactions between neighbours and that further research in this area is warranted. Social capital is another potential mechanism by which pets exert an influence on human health.

Effects of child abuse and neglect: does social capital really matter?

To explore whether social capital and social support moderate the relationship between child maltreatment and emotional and behavioral outcomes such as depression-anxiety and aggression in 6-year-old children. Data from Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect were used. Data were collected through interviews and questionnaires at the child's birth and at the age of 6 years. General community. Two hundred fifteen maternal caregivers of children at high risk for child abuse and neglect were included in this study. Depression-anxiety and aggression were measured through the Child Behavior Checklist. Among 5 potential effect modifiers (3 social capital constructs and 2 measures of social support), only 1 (instrumental support) significantly modified the relationship between maltreatment and child aggression. Social capital did not modify the relationship between child maltreatment and either aggression or depression-anxiety. This might be related to the fact that many previous studies looked at social capital ecologically, whereas this study uses individuals as the unit of analysis. The results of this study might also indicate that previous studies of social capital and health outcomes might actually be using social capital as a proxy for social support.

Socioeconomic Contributions of Adult Learning to Community: A Social Capital Perspective

As an explanatory concept that relates skills and knowledge to economic outcomes, “human capital” has dominated for decades. Skills and knowledge are certainly central attributes of a learning society. Given the limitations of economy as a proxy for social well-being, however, two outstanding questions about the impact of adult learning on community linger: What are the multiple impacts of adult learning on community? How do these occur? To address these questions adequately, the theoretical construct of social capital is proving useful. This article examines the impacts of such a nebulous entity as adult learning on diverse socioeconomic domains, and it looks at how these impacts occur. Outcomes of learning are discussed against the eight Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development indicators of social well-being. Social capital—its networks, trust, and shared values—emerges as the missing link in explaining the integrated role of knowledge and identity resources in generating adult learning benefits.

Social Capital, Crime, and Human Nature

In the present article, a reinterpretation of the concept of social capital is forwarded that incorporates the principles of evolutionary psychology. The authors propose that social capital, from the evolutionary psychological perspective, is any social relationship that, directly or indirectly, helps an individual maximize reproductive success through promoting survival, the acquisition of resources, mating, or the promotion of offspring to sexual maturity. The evolutionary psychology–informed construct of social capital is applied to several theoretical domains in the field of criminology to demonstrate how this perspective can bridge theories on the proximate causes of crime with the “ultimate” causes of human nature and human behavior.

Social Capital and Homicide

Despite recent theoretical attention to and its impact on a range of public problems, including crime, few studies have evaluated the relationship between crime rates and levels of social capital across populations. That research gap is due, in part, to the absence of macro-level empirical indicators of social capital. In this article, we measure social capital as a latent construct with aggregated voting and organizational membership data, and survey data on social trust, and examine its relationship with homicide rates for a nationally representative sample of geographic areas. Structural equation models show that the construct of social capital has a significant direct effect on homicide rates, net of other structural covariates, and controlling for the reciprocal influence of homicide on social capital. Although social capital mediates little of the effect on homicide of levels of economic deprivation, it explains more than two-thirds of the effect of Southern regional location. The results indicate that depleted social capital contributes to high levels of homicide, and provide a promising basis for future research on the mechanisms linking social capital to crime at the macro level.

Social capital, disorganized communities, and the third way: understanding the retreat from structural inequalities in epidemiology and public health.

The construct of social capital has recently captured the interest of researchers in social epidemiology and public health. The authors review current hypotheses on the social capital and health link, and examine the empirical evidence and its implications for health policy. The construct of social capital employed in the public health literature lacks depth compared with its uses in social science. It presents itself as an alternative to materialist structural inequalities (class, gender, and race) and invokes a romanticized view of communities without social conflict that favors an idealist psychology over a psychology connected to material resources and social structure. The evidence on social capital as a determinant of better health is scant or ambiguous. Even if confirmed, such hypotheses call for attention to social determinants beyond the proximal realm of individualized sociopsychological infrastructure. Social capital is used in public health as an alternative to both state-centered economic redistribution and party politics, and represents a potential privatization of both economics and politics. Such uses of social capital mirror recent "third way" policies in Germany, the United Kingdom, and United States. If third way policies lose support in Europe, the prominence of social capital there might be short lived. In the United States, where the working class is less likely to influence social policy, interest in social capital could be longer lived or could drift into academic limbo like other psychosocial constructs once heralded as the next big idea.

Demonstrated Benefits from Social Capital: The Productivity of Farmer Organizations in Gal Oya, Sri Lanka

An analytical construct of social capital is presented, followed by a case study from Sri Lanka. There, farmer organizations were established in the Gal Oya irrigation scheme in the early 1980s with a combination of roles, rules, norms and values that supported mutually beneficial collective action. This produced measurable improvements in system performance and efficiency. In the 1997 dry season, after farmers were told there was not enough water in the reservoir to grow a rice crop, they achieved through their organizations a better-than-average harvest from 65,000 acres by efficient and equitable distribution. Ethnic cooperation was demonstrated by upstream Sinhalese farmers sharing water with downstream Tamil farmers.

Social capital and the third way in public health

The construct of social capital has recently captured the interest of researchers in social epidemiology and public health. We review current hypotheses on the social capital and health link, and examine the empirical evidence available as well as its implications for health policy. With regard to theory, we contend that the construct as currently employed in the public health literature, lacks depth compared to its uses in social science. In addition, social capital presents itself as an alternative to materialist structural inequalities (class, gender and race) by bringing to the forefront of social epidemiology an appealing common sense idealist social psychology to which everyone can relate (e.g., good relations with your community are good for your health). The use of social capital invokes a romanticized view of communities without social conflict (e.g., Neo - Tocquevillian nineteenth century associationalism) and favours an idealist psychology over a psychology connected to both material resources and social structure. We argue that the evidence on social capital as a determinant of better health is still scant or ambiguous - depending on the definition that is used. Even if confirmed, social capital hypotheses call for social determinants beyond the proximal realm of social psychology. We also maintain that social capital is used in public health as an alternative to both state-centred economic redistribution (e.g., living wage, full employment, and universal health insurance) and party politics (e.g., gaining control of the executive branch of the government). Social capital represents a ' privatization ' of both economics and politics. Such uses of social capital mirror recent Third Way policies in Germany, UK and US. If Third Way policies end up losing support in Europe, its prominence there might be short lived. In the USA, where the working class is less likely to influence social policy, interest in social capital could be longer lived or, alternatively, could drift in the academic limbo like other psychosocial constructs which at one point were heralded as the next ' big idea '.

Measuring Social Capital at the Individual Level: Personal Social Capital, Values and Psychological Distress.

It is proposed that social capital, a societal‐level construct, can be measured at the individual level. This ‘personal social capital’ is a psychological construct defined as a logically linked sequence of social behaviours: community participation, social support and trust in others. Individuals who have more personal social capital will participate in their communities more and have more social support, greater trust in others and less psychological distress than those with less. It was also predicted that social values would influence levels of personal social capital, indirectly influencing distress. Structural equations modelling revealed that, within the construct of personal social capital, the strongest predictor of distress was community trust. Harmony values also directly predicted distress, while security values had an indirect effect via reduced community participation, social support and community trust.

Social capital: a guide to its measurement

The primary aims of this paper are to review the concept of social capital and related constructs and to provide a brief guide to their operationalization and measurement. We focus on four existing constructs: collective efficacy, psychological sense of community, neighborhood cohesion and community competence. Each of these constructs taps into slightly different, yet overlapping, aspects of social capital. The existence of several instruments to measure each of these constructs calls for further study into their use as measures of social capital. Despite differences in the approach to measurement, there is general agreement that community characteristics, such as social capital, should be distinguished from individual characteristics and measured at the community level.