Social Capital Theory: Towards a Methodological Foundation

✍ Scribed by Julia Häuberer (auth.)

• Publisher: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 315
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The field of social capital still lacks a recognized general theory. Accordingly, various and sometimes inappropriate measurements are used for it. Julia Häuberer contributes to filling in this gap and provides progress towards the creation of a formalized social capital theory based on the founding concepts of social capital of Bourdieu (1983) and Coleman (1988), and current concepts of Putnam (2000), Burt (1992) and Lin (2001). The second part of the monograph focuses on the quality of measurements of the more general concept of social capital derived in the first part. Therefore, the telephone survey “Social Relationships among Czech Citizens” conducted as a test-retest experiment is analyzed.
This book is valuable reading for academics in Sociology and Political Science.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages 1-23
Introduction....Pages 25-32
Front Matter....Pages 33-33
The Founding Concepts of Social Capital - Bourdieu’s Theory of Capital and Coleman's Rational-Choice Approach to Social Capital....Pages 35-51
Introducing the Civic Perspective on Social Capital – Robert D. Putnam’s Concept of Social Capital....Pages 53-86
The Network Approach to Social Capital – The Concept of Ronald S. Burt....Pages 87-115
The Resource Perspective – Nan Lin's Concept of Social Capital....Pages 117-145
Formalizing and Visualizing the Current Social Capital Theory....Pages 147-151
Front Matter....Pages 153-153
How to Assess the Quality of Measurement Tools? - A General Introduction....Pages 155-169
The Quality Study....Pages 171-174
Preconditions of Social Capital – The Czech Context....Pages 175-181
Access to Social Capital I – The Quality of Network Size and Density Measures of Informal and Formal Networks....Pages 183-201
Access to Social Capital II - The Quality of Measures of Range and Openness/ Structural Holes of Informal and Formal Networks....Pages 203-221
The Quality of Measures of Accessed Social Capital – Is the Resource Generator Appropriate for the Czech Context?....Pages 223-248
Summary and Conclusions: What the Study Tells Us and Where it Directs Future Research....Pages 249-256
Back Matter....Pages 257-330

✦ Subjects

Sociology; Sociology