Social Capital Essay ⋆ Education Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Social capital is the investment in social relationships with the expectation of returns. It is similar to other forms of capital, such as physical and human capital, apart from social capital’s location in social relationships as opposed to material goods or individuals. Sociologists Pierre Bourdieu and James Coleman originally conceptualized social capital in the 1980s. Bourdieu defined social capital as the cumulation of actual and potential resources located within a network of relationships between actors with shared attributes. Coleman developed a similar conceptualization and stated that social capital exists within a social structure of relationships and is available to actors with the intention of achieving specific aims. Bourdieu’s and Coleman’s pioneering effort led contemporary contributors, such as political scientist Robert Putnam and sociologist Alejandro Portes, to further advance and expand social capital’s conceptualization and application. This entry describes the workings of social capital in more detail and discusses its links to education.

A single actor, or a group of actors, creates and accumulates social capital by developing and maintaining social relationships with actors from a social structure that possesses common ascriptive and nonascriptive attributes. These actors intentionally develop and maintain social relationships in order to exchange resources with other actors. The development and maintenance of social relationships through the exchange of resources is the investment property of social capital. The returns property of social capital is not the result of merely the indiscriminate accumulation or liquidation of resources. Actors invest in social relationships in order to achieve specific individual or group objectives and interests. The achievement of objectives and interests is the returns property of social capital.

Resources, according to Bourdieu, are material or symbolic in nature, such as textbooks, instructional materials and strategies, and social status and acceptance. Furthermore, resources may also be collective behavior expressed by all actors within the social structure. Putnam, for instance, considers civic engagement, political participation, solidarity, and cooperation as resources that, although not necessarily exchanged between actors, are exchanged collectively.

The exchange of resources is the mechanism that develops and maintains the social relationship between actors within the social structure. Norms, trust, expectations, commitments, and sanctions are embedded in the social relationship and act as the parameters of the exchange of resources. The act of exchange within the social relationship can occur asymmetrically, reciprocally, indirectly, or collectively with no defined timetable to repay the incurred debts unless specifically defined by the relationship or the social structure. An asymmetrical exchange is when an actor provides resources to another actor without immediate repayment. An asymmetrical exchange becomes a reciprocal exchange as soon as the actor fulfills the commitment by repaying the incurred debt. This, of course, reinforces the social relationship, maintains norms and trust, and creates expectations and commitments for the future exchange of resources without inviting unwanted sanctions.

An indirect exchange is an asymmetrical or reciprocal exchange that includes an intermediary to facilitate exchange between two or more actors. It has the same characteristics as both asymmetrical and reciprocal exchanges, but an indirect exchange adds complexities to the social relationship because of the possibility that the actor receiving the resource becomes indebted to the intermediary as well as indirectly indebted to the actor supplying the resources. The justification for an indirect exchange stems from the disconnection between the receiver and the supplier that is due to either uncommon or conflicting attributes, location within the social structure, or the absence of a social relationship.

Collective exchange, which is rather dissimilar from the other modes, is not actual exchange in the sense that a resource is passing from one actor to another. It is the unified, symmetrical, and collective exchange of behavior and action to profit society in general. Both single actors and groups participate in this mode of exchange; however, collective exchange generally occurs at the societal level, where a greater diversity of actors with different ascriptive and nonascriptive attributes can participate without exclusion.

Social capital can exist at different levels of social relationships. A social relationship between two actors is a dyadic tie. The collection of an actor’s complete set of dyadic ties is a direct network, and an egocentric network is the combination of several actors’ direct networks. The social structure or sociocentric network is the aggregation of all social relationships found in all the dyadic ties and direct and egocentric networks. Although actors can accumulate social capital at the level of the dyadic tie, it is in the best interest of actors to expand their network beyond a single dyadic tie by developing, maintaining, and including more social relationships. According to Bourdieu, the quantity and quality of social capital accumulated by an actor or group depends on the size of the network of social relationships and the quality of actual and potential resources possessed by each actor or group within the network.

Links To Education

The conceptualization by Bourdieu and Coleman also acted as social capital’s initial contribution to the field of education. Their conceptualization, although created under distinct theoretical perspectives, occurred in the context of education achievement and attainment inequalities in both France and the United States. Bourdieu, coming from a social reproduction perspective, suggested that social capital is the means for the socially and economically elite to maintain and replicate their achievement and attainment hegemony over the marginalized masses. On the other hand, Coleman perceived social capital as having the opposite effect based on a functionalist viewpoint. According to Coleman, parents of school-age children have the ability to facilitate the education achievement and attainment of their children (i.e., future social and economic mobility) by way of accumulating and using social capital despite low levels of personal financial and human capital.

Social capital’s contemporary contribution and application to education are visible within a variety of educational settings and between an assortment of actors within the educational process. In a recent review of the literature, Sandra Dika and Kusum Singh cited several studies that emphasized different dimensions of social capital in the context of education. For instance, studies explored the accumulation and use of social capital by several types of actors, such as students, parents, teachers, and school administrators, to facilitate the realization of science and mathematics achievement, social mobility, college enrollment, positive student behavior, the reduction of student dropout, and instructional change and accessibility to instructional resources. The review by Dika and Singh, and the recent growth and frequency of additional studies examining social capital and education, illustrate the emergent interest in and significance of social capital’s contribution and application to education as well as its explanation of social and cultural phenomena within the educational process.

Bibliography:

Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Coleman, J. S. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94(Suppl.), S95–S120.
Dika, S. L., & Singh, K. (2002). Applications of social capital in educational literature: A critical synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 71(1), 31–60.
Lin, N. (1999). Building a network theory of social capital. Connections, 22(1), 28–51.
Portes, A. (1998). Social capital: Its origins and applications in modern sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 1–24.
Putnam, R. D. (1993). The prosperous community: Social capital and public life. American Prospect, 24, 34–48.
Woolcock, M. (1998). Social capital and economic development: Toward a theoretical synthesis and policy framework. Theory and Society, 27(2), 151–208.

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