Social Capital

Defining Social Capital

Social capital includes the relationships and connections individuals make among family members, friends, and community. These connections and relationships help them negotiate life by providing access (or limitations) to information, jobs, or education. Social capital also serves as a resource to help people manage their day-to-day lives, providing them with both necessities and luxuries, including assistance with child care, transportation, or meals when they are sick.

Social capital comprises the mutual trust, expectations, obligations, and influences that individuals, family, and communities share. It develops certain norms and functions, support systems, and information channels. At the individual and family levels, social capital provides formal and informal support and information channels that include exchanges of social, emotional, and economic support. Examples of developing social capital might include simple acts such as lending your lawn motor to the family down the street, telling a friend about a job opening, or helping a family after the birth of a child or the death of a loved one.

Understanding Social Capital: Putman, Bourdieu, and Coleman

While many have attempted to conceptualize and define social capital, three individuals had the most direct influence on its study, framing, and operationalizing: Pierre Bourdieu, James Coleman, and Robert Putnam. They hold distinct yet related perspectives of social capital that extend the concept from individuals to families to communities.