Social Capital As A Theoretical Foundation

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.

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.

Professor Robert D. Putman spent time studying and writing about the decline in America’s social capital and civic engagement. The observations talked about in Putman’s “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital,” have shown a decrease in community involvement and social interaction. In the twentieth century there has been noticeable declines in community involvement. Putman offers the argument that traditional interactions possibly have just been replaced by more modern versions of engagement. Whatever the case, he presents that this is leading to a fall in social capital, which provide certain issues for society. When there is an abundance of social capital in society, there is better education, better economic standing, reduced

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

Social capital is a concept identified by Robert D. Putnam that is “shorthand for social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trust to which those networks give rise” (Sander and Putnam 2010, p. 9). He developed this idea within the context of a disintegrating American public life. At the end of the twentieth century, Americans were no longer coming together for recreational and civic activities, rather they were isolating themselves. This trend led to distrust among communities and disengagement from civic life. Not participating in mundane, nonpolitical activities, people were also no longer taking part in the political sphere: there were empty social clubs and empty voting booths (Sander and Putnam 2010, p. 9). Loss of social capital was the loss of both community and any hope of political revitalization.

When reading Putnam’s ideas in Bowling alone, social capital is best defined as a theory that means social networks have value. Putnam has made it clear that six times in the 20th century social capital was independently invented, all which called attention to the way that people where living, and how their social ties were productive. This can be closely related to Tonnies idea of gemeinschaft because this was all tied to the community and they morals of it. Toennies referred to gemeinschaft as the roots in the rural, kinship-based life of the past, which goes along with Putnam’s book which is referring to the baby boomers. Who coming from a time where everyone new everyone, and the “kin” or extended family such as aunt’s uncle’s cousins,

The section on social capital will be coded on the relationships within the community and with the community organizations and services available. The trust or mistrust of members/services will used to measure relationship strengths. The overall views of individuals on community interactions will be coded on whether they consider themselves part of the community, part of the issue, or in need of assistance. The views on whether the individual feels they are part of the community and their engagement will measure social capital within that

Whole Foods builds both human and social capital. Human capital is built initially upon hire. The company sets out to hire good people and train them well so they are capable of becoming high performers (Kreitner and Kinicki, 1998, p. 30).Educating the new hire not only on the specific job description, but on the mission of the company will secure the “buy in” to the vision of the company.

Tonnies discusses the concepts of Community and Society in great detail, from the differences between the two to the wills that fuel them. Perhaps the main argument in the book is the differences between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, or Community and Society. Tonnies defines Gemeinschaft as a more intimate grouping of people who rely on each other and have shared goals that places emphasis on the cohesive unit. On the other hand, Gesellschaft is the impersonal grouping mainly found in city and urban areas. Societies are made up of people more interested in personal goals and the places an emphasis on individualism. I agree to an extent that communities are more personal and intimate and can foster stronger relationships within it. Communities require people to be more dependent on each other than cities and metropolitan areas and as a result the chances for tighter bonds are higher. However, present day Society and Community are vastly different than the time it was written. With technology and travel, communities can grow all over as well as virtually and can be present in a society location.

​Both civil society and social capital have been conceptualized numerously though there appears to be a lack of settled definitions of these key concepts. An online survey that polled one hundred scholars in the European Union has, for example, reported diverse and even opposing responses on what the definition of civil society should be and whether or not some groups qualify as such (Kohler-Koch and Quittkat 2009). While such diversity is not that uncommon in social science, it should be noted that a few common aspects have emerged despite scholars varied presentation of these concepts.

The case above is deeply associated with Chinese culture in which many people believe that gaining social capital and expanding social network are more important than gaining human capital. Many Westerners believe that getting the access to the resources through social capital is often considered unfair to the others who do not possess the equal social capital. A superior social capital gives people the privilege which affects others’ interests at the same

There has been considerable and growing interest in social capital theory in current years, evidenced by its relevance to various disciplines and numerous subject areas. This interest stems from the appeal of the concept as it integrates sociology and economics, and combines a number of ideas including civic tradition, civicness, civic involvement and social cohesion. Existing studies have suggested that social capital has considerable benefits for a range of economic and sociological outcomes. These purported benefits, and the concept behind social capital, are not new but rooted in the work of early economic and sociologic thinkers.

A nation can be described as an “imagined political community” Anderson suggest. “It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.” (Anderson 256) He states that a community is imagined because people in the community don’t know each other, but they already have a predefined image of each-others, just by their geographic politic preference, and on screen media. In a conventional view, community is usually defined as a group of people bound by ideology and interest. But in Anderson’s view, community is a group of people bound by physical proximity. He described the community is imagined by

It is a given fact that in today’s globalized world, only a few takes charge of economic and political powers who maintains the capacity for covert control. This situation cripples the approaches on how to effectively carry out participatory mechanisms in the social development realm. I am missing a chapter that somehow clarifies the spaces for negotiation of power relations in a way that it can entertain opportunities to expand participation and create an avenue of support from the majority of the people. These types of spaces for negotiation is memorably referred to by Habermas as the public sphere. While these spaces can be venues to somehow make the partnerships “less politicized”, these opportunities are still limited by the conditions of the times, depending on access and roles of various stakeholders. For instance, the local actors are technically allowed to participate in dialogues and meetings but they can be disadvantaged when it comes to exercising reason. This example begets a realization that there is still a need to gauge and be critical on who chooses what needs to be discussed, or who or what steers and stirs discussion. It could also be the question of who or what interest is

Community development (CD) has been playing an important role within the society as it is a critical practice that identifies and attempts to address unequal relations of power (Forde & Lynch, 2015). In CD, social capital is an important term as it refers to the networks and norms that enable collective action. In general, social capital is the level of trust between members within the community. Social workers need to understand and empower the social capital to strengthen the community through collective action based on the existing resources.