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Research papers on Social capital

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  1. Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital

    Robert D. Putnam · 1995 · Journal of democracy · 14,013 citations

    Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital Robert D. Putnam (bio) Many students of the new democracies that have emerged over the past decade and a half have emphasized the importance of a strong and active civil society to the consolidation of democracy. Especially with regard to the postcommunist countries, scholars and democratic activists alike have lamented the absence or obliteration of traditions of independent civic engagement and a widespread tendency toward passive reliance on the state. To those concerned with the weakness of civil societies in the developing or postcommunist world, the advanced Western democracies and above all the United States have typically been taken a

  2. Social Capital: Implications for Development Theory, Research, and Policy

    Michael Woolcock, Deepa Narayan · 2000 · The World Bank Research Observer · 4,277 citations

    In the 1990s the concept of social capital—defined here as the norms and networks that enable people to act collectively—enjoyed a remarkable rise to prominence across all the social science disciplines. The authors trace the evolution of social capital research as it pertains to economic development and identify four distinct approaches the research has taken: communitarian, networks, institutional, and synergy. The evidence suggests that of the four, the synergy view, with its emphasis on incorporating different levels and dimensions of social capital and its recognition of the positive and negative outcomes that social capital can generate, has the greatest empirical support and lends its

  3. Individual-Level Evidence for the Causes and Consequences of Social Capital

    John Brehm, Wendy M. Rahn · 1997 · American Journal of Political Science · 2,435 citations

    Theory: Social capital is the web of cooperative relationships between citizens that facilitates resolution of collection action problems (Coleman 1990; Putnam 1993). Although normally conceived as a property of communities, the reciprocal relationship between community involvement and trust in others is a demonstration of social capital in individual behavior and attitudes. Hypotheses: Variation in social capital can be explained by citizens' psychological involvement with their communities, cognitive abilities, economic resources, and general life satisfaction. This variation affects citizens' confidence in national institutions, beyond specific controls for measures of actual performance.

  4. The social context of well–being

    John F. Helliwell, Robert D. Putnam · 2004 · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2,332 citations

    Large samples of data from the World Values Survey, the US Benchmark Survey and a comparable Canadian survey are used to estimate equations designed to explore the social context of subjective evaluations of well-being, of happiness, and of health. Social capital, as measured by the strength of family, neighbourhood, religious and community ties, is found to support both physical health and subjective well-being. Our new evidence confirms that social capital is strongly linked to subjective well-being through many independent channels and in several different forms. Marriage and family, ties to friends and neighbours, workplace ties, civic engagement (both individually and collectively), tru

  5. Social capital I: measurement and associations with economic mobility

    Raj Chetty, Matthew O. Jackson, Theresa Kuchler, et al. · 2022 · Nature · 618 citations

    Abstract Social capital—the strength of an individual’s social network and community—has been identified as a potential determinant of outcomes ranging from education to health 1–8 . However, efforts to understand what types of social capital matter for these outcomes have been hindered by a lack of social network data. Here, in the first of a pair of papers 9 , we use data on 21 billion friendships from Facebook to study social capital. We measure and analyse three types of social capital by ZIP (postal) code in the United States: (1) connectedness between different types of people, such as those with low versus high socioeconomic status (SES); (2) social cohesion, such as the extent of cli

  6. Civil Society Reconsidered: The Durable Nature and Community Structure of Collective Civic Action

    Robert J. Sampson, Doug McAdam, Heather MacIndoe, et al. · 2005 · American Journal of Sociology · 466 citations

    This article develops a conceptual framework on civil society that shifts the dominant focus on individuals to collective action events— civic and protest alike—that bring people together in public to realize a common purpose. Analyzing over 4,000 events in the Chicago area from 1970 to 2000, the authors find that while civic engagement is durable overall, “sixties-style” protest declines, and hybrid events that combine public claims making with civic forms of behavior — what they call “blended social action”—increase. Furthermore, dense social ties, group memberships, and neighborly exchange do not predict community variations in collective action. The density of nonprofit organizations mat

  7. Inaccurate, Exceptional, One-Sided or Irrelevant? The Debate about the Alleged Decline of Social Capital and Civic Engagement in Western Societies

    Dietlind Stolle, Marc Hooghe · 2004 · British Journal of Political Science · 314 citations

    In his 1790 address to the Académie Française in Paris, Condorcet noted that every new generation has a tendency to accuse itself of being less civic-minded than previous cohorts. Two centuries later, this argument has once again regained front-page status. The debate is currently focused on the question of whether or not social capital and civic engagement are declining in Western societies. In his academic best-seller Bowling Alone , Robert Putnam argues that younger age cohorts, socialized in the prosperous economic conditions of the 1960s and onwards, are less inclined to engage in community life and in politics, and also less likely to trust their fellow citizens. By contrast, the ‘long

  8. Transforming Individual Civic Engagement into Community Collective Efficacy: The Role of Bonding Social Capital

    Charles R. Collins, J. Neal, Z. Neal · 2014 · American Journal of Community Psychology · 152 citations

    Collective efficacy is defined as residents' perceived collective capacity to take coordinated and interdependent action on issues that affect their lives. This study explored factors associated with neighborhood collective efficacy among residents. Utilizing a national sample of 4,120 urban households provided by Annie E. Casey Foundation's Making Connection Initiative, we investigated the mediating role of residents' perceptions of bonding social capital (i.e. reciprocity, trust, and shared norms) in the association between civic engagement and collective efficacy. Multiple regression analyses revealed that civic engagement and bonding social capital were both directly related to collectiv

  9. Social capital and health: civic engagement, community size, and recall of health messages.

    K. Viswanath, Whitney Randolph Steele, J. Finnegan · 2006 · American journal of public health · 147 citations

    OBJECTIVES: We explored the effects of community integration and pluralism on recall of cardiovascular disease health information messages. METHODS: With 1980-1983 data from the Minnesota Heart Health Program, we examined whether ties to community groups were associated with recall of health messages, and whether this relation was modified by size and degree of differentiation of the community. RESULTS: A higher level of civic engagement through ties to community groups was associated with better recall of health messages. Ties to community groups independently contributed to better message recall even after control for gender, education, and other variables. The moderating role of community

  10. Exploring Social Capital and Civic Engagement to Create a Framework for Community Building

    James B. Hyman · 2002 · Applied Developmental Science · 85 citations

    Abstract Community building is emerging as an increasingly important intervention strategy for neighborhood revitalization efforts across the country. This article proposes a framework that models 5 components that the author argues comprise the community building process: resident engagement, agenda building, community organizing, community action, and communications and message development. The article is intended to make community building more comprehensible as a field of work and study and more replicable as an intervention strategy.

  11. Connections and Disconnections Between Civic Engagement and Social Capital in Community-Based Nonprofits

    J. Schneider · 2007 · Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly · 64 citations

    Using case examples from Kenosha, Wisconsin, and metropolitan Washington, D.C., this article examines the relationship between social capital and civic engagement. Clarifying the differences and connections between the two concepts through comparing emergency-services organizations in the two communities, the article identifies three kinds of organizations where civic engagement and social capital function differently: citywide civic-engagement organizations, community-based civic institutions, and social-capital organizations. Analysis of the three organization types reveals that social capital and civic engagement are not always intertwined and that civic engagement through contributing to

  12. Community leadership development education: promoting civic engagement through human and social capital

    Godwin Apaliyah, K. Martin, S. Gasteyer, et al. · 2012 · Community Development · 58 citations

    Community leadership development education (CLDE) programs are designed to increase the capacity of individuals as leaders in their communities as well as increase the capacity of community leadership as a whole. These programs contribute to building a critical mass of individuals in the community by developing their leadership skills and knowledge to be effective leaders. However, there is little research that connects characteristics of individual leadership skills to increased capacity for community development. The article addresses this by looking at how CLDE programs contribute to building and enhancing the human capital and social capital of program participants and how these benefits

  14. Social Capital and Community Building: Part Two

    Allan Wallis · 1998 · National Civic Review · 18 citations

    AbstractPart One (NCR Vol. 87, No. 3) presented three perspectives on the idea of social capital: the points of view of academicians, advocates, and grantmakers. Part Two begins with a fourth perspective on social capital, that of practitioners working in communities. The article concludes by considering how empowerment evaluation can be used as a way of bringing these four perspectives together to advance formation of social capital in support of effective community building.

  15. Developing social capital: a role for music education and community music in fostering civic engagement and intercultural understanding

    Patrick M Jones · 2010 · International Journal of Community Music · 15 citations

    This article posits that musicking can uniquely foster the development of social capital, which leads to civic engagement and intercultural understanding. I review pertinent literature and build a case that music educators and community musicians have a unique role to play in its development. I also reveal a weakness in the theoretical framework of social capital and in the music research literature, and I advocate for developing a richer theoretical framework that analyses both the development of social capital and the unique civic roles, social skills, habits and dispositions developed in various musical practices.

  16. Industrial Pollution, Social Trust, and Civic Engagement: A Nationwide Study of the Socioenvironmental Nature of Social Capital

    Phylicia Xin Yi Lee Brown · 2022 · Sociological Perspectives · 10 citations

    I conduct a nationwide investigation of the relationship that toxic industrial pollution and the facilities that produce it have with trust and civic engagement within communities. Data on pollution exposure come from the Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators Geographic Microdata (RSEI-GM) and Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data sets for the years 1995 to 1999. Data on trust and civic engagement come from the 2000 restricted-access Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS). Statistical analyses provide strong support for Freudenburg and Jones’ conceptualization of corrosive communities and indicate that exposures to more toxic air pollution associate negatively with various measures

  18. Community gardens and the cultivation of social capital.

    Chiara D’Amore, Loni Cohen, Justin Chen, et al. · 2025 · Current opinion in psychology · 7 citations

    Community gardens are shared green spaces that provide more than produce-they foster psychological resilience, social connectedness, and civic engagement. This article synthesizes findings from 50 recent studies on community gardens, applying social capital theory to examine their multifaceted social benefits. Through the mechanisms of bonding, bridging, and linking social capital, community gardens enhance psychological well-being, promote inclusive social networks, and cultivate empathy and civic participation. Drawing on both empirical literature and the authors' community-based experiences, the article underscores the potential of community gardens to support individual wellness and comm

  22. Does More Social Capital Always Mean More Civic Engagement? The Role of Varying Levels of Bonding and Bridging Social Capital in the Development of Community and Political Civic Engagement amongPakistani University Students

    Faiqa Seemab, Mubbsher Abbas · 2024 · Kurdish Studies · 1 citations

    This study investigates whether higher levels of bonding social capital, bridging social capital, or a combination of both, are linked to increase the participation in both community and political civic engagement. The research used a quantitative design. Multistage sampling was used to select the sample of 788 students from three universities in Lahore, Pakistan. Analysis of covariance showed that both bonding and bridging social capital, independently and together, significantly predicted higher levels of community civic engagement. While both bonding and bridging social capital separately predicted increased political civic engagement, the combination of high levels of both types of socia

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