Program Outline of 'Someone to Watch Over Me'

Social capital is the is the social connections that allow for social interactions in which an individual has opportunities to build bonds, help others out, and affect change for the better. When the social engagement is reciprocated, it can produce benefits for the multiple individuals engaged in the activity and so further the circumstance of the society.

Social capital is defined as the capacity of social institutions, such as families, churches, schools, or other community organizations to make an investment of attention and advice, support and concerned interest in other community members according to reformer L.J. Hanifan. As a dependent of the community social capital is applied to my everyday life. It helps me to obtain resources for my education such as scholarships, teaches me how to work together with my peers, becoming a positive role model to youth, and build trusting relationships with others in the community. Social capital is seen as a support group from leaders in the community.

I would say that Relay For Life is a good example of a social capital institution. Every person that is involved with Relay share's the common goal of raising awareness and money for a common cause. By being a part of an organization where you are surrounded by people with a common interest, not only can you benefit but the other people involved can benefit from it. I think that this is a great way to be engaged in civic life and to be involved with not only other people who participate in Relay, but also with other members of the community who benefit from all of the time and effort put into raising money for the American Cancer Society.

Change should be seen as a challenge and embraced with enthusiasm (Marquis & Huston, 2012). In my professional and personal life, I view and respond to change as a way to make improvements to existing regulations and circumstances. I embark upon the quest with determination to succeed at whatever task is presented to me. Life without change can become unchallenging and stagnant (Marquis & Huston, 2012). As society and technology advance, you must incorporate the necessary transformations that arise with it.

In our first unit of sociology, I felt I could relate with the term social network, " The term social network refers to the people who are linked to one another(Henslin,116.)"Social networks include everyone you know. I can relate to social networking because I 'm on a social salsa team. When I joined my dance team , we all had the same passion, the love of dance. After a few years of performing and hanging with the same clique all the time for they have the same interests as me. After a while we all seemed to cluster together and they are now more than just a clique to me they are my fiends.

Brian V. Carolan. (2014). 1: The Social Network Perspective and Educational Research Introduction. In Social Network Analysis and Education: Theory, Methods & Applications. (pp. 3-23). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: http://dx.doi.org.library.gcu.edu:2048/10.4135/9781452270104.n1

The theory of planned change is based on the mechanistic understanding of systems in which there are parts that can be fixed or replaced, much like a machine, for example, a dishwasher that can be disassembled and repaired. A complex adaptive system possess the ability to adapt to a changing environment, a dishwasher does not.

When discussing why societies are better with deep social capital, Putnam writes “dense networks of interaction probably broaden the participants' sense of self, developing the "I" into the "we” (Putnam, 1995, pp. 2-3). To me, this means that when people are not concerned with only themselves but also with others, things like peace building and community involvement occur. In terms of peace building, if social capital was dense and I had a high social capital level, when something intrigued me and drove me to advocate for peace such as ending violence, it wouldn’t be a fight that I was starting alone but instead the “we” would help fight this battle. For me, this means that if I really want to make a difference in this world, I need to be more involved and increase my social capital. By doing so, I can impact others to do the same and the chances of building peace as a community would be greater. Furthermore, the piece in the article where he ties the whole concept of social capital and its decline to bowling really hit home for me. When it is put in perspective in such a way that Putnam did to describe how even bowling has decreased in profits because people prefer now to bowl alone rather than a s a group or in a league, it really forced one to reflect upon their own involvement. (Putnam, 2010). If as a society and even myself we continue to not fully engage with others but rather masked by technology and our own life circumstances, peace will never be built. As someone who believes in social justice, I know that peace is something I want to help build and thus need to change my social capital

Alejandro Portes discuss the controversy surrounding the actual meaning and effects of social capital. Confusion arises due its applications to manifold topics as well as its uses on different group of people. He provided the concept by Pierre Bourdieu and James Coleman which centered on the benefits of social capital on an individual or a small group. He argued that Coleman focused on the advantages yielded to individual and then expand them to the whole community with subtlety. This transition is not well-defined and thus put social capital at risk of becoming synonymous with all positive things in

The change models discussed in class provide a pattern for change and presents a picture of what will occur

Theory is a journey to uncover the past and improve the future. By uncovering and analyzing a discipline’s theoretical journey, insight and self-awareness are gained. According to Meleis (2012), “Theories are reservoirs in which related knowledge is articulated and organized into meaningful wholes” (p.33). By implementing and analyzing theories, empowerment and guidance for the future is obtained.

This model is built on the belief that applying change can be associated with entailing and creating a perception that a change is needed, which is then proceeded by moving towards the change and seeding the required norms to the change to ensure that the new behaviour is enforced and solidified (Mindtools.com, 2015).

The model represents a very simple and practical model for understanding the change process. For Lewin, the process of change entails creating the perception that a change is needed, then moving toward the new, desired level of behavior and finally, solidifying that new behavior as the norm. The model is still widely used and serves as the basis for many modern change models.

Activity 3 looked at McWhinney’s Model of Change (1997), how it could be utilised to solve complex problems and how it can be related to the model.

Social capital has had both positive and negative impact on the society. The birth virtual communities enabled by social media has had a mass appeal through social networks on the internet, which in turn has brought about effective social action and well-being of social groups from small voluntary organizations to larger societies.