Social Capital

Closure as Social Capital

An integral part of social capital research is the theory that education, income, and wealth inequality between genders, as well as racial and ethnic groups, can be explained by differences in social relations patterns and practices. One such difference is in the degree of “closure” in networks of social relations; closure describes a group or network of individuals where all members know each other intimately; they spend a significant amount of time together, and therefore possess similar values and cultural characteristics.

A tightly knit set of social relations in a family and a community allows for the creation of rules or norms of reciprocity that translate into a stable environment for exchanging and developing resources within the group. Cheating one member of the group is usually seen as unacceptable behavior and punishable by all members. This line of research has concentrated on the positive effects of the traditional family, formed by a husband and wife, and parental involvement on educational outcomes for children. The involvement of both parents in children's education produces higher grades and higher probabilities of college enrollment, translating into better possibilities for social mobility and higher incomes.

Research related to closure also includes the positive effects of a tightly knit community united by culture, ethnicity, or religion, as all members of the group actively participate in regulating the behavior of children and support family efforts in that regard. Asian immigrants and Asian Americans (particularly of Chinese, Korean, and Filipino descent) have largely been identified as groups possessing cultural norms supporting educational and economic achievement. These groups also have sufficiently close social networks to enforce and perpetuate those norms.

Minority communities and ethnic enclaves are fertile ground for the development of closure-based social capital. Geographic proximity between individuals and families with similar backgrounds facilitates maintaining common beliefs. The relative uniformity of these beliefs, particularly those related to trust and reciprocity, creates a preference for intra-group exchanges, where the exchange of “favors” is a common occurrence. Finally, because of geographic and social proximity, the group possesses the capacity to punish members who do not behave in socially prescribed ways.

Because of their social capital, entrepreneurs in ethnic and immigrant communities are able to access cheaper (and sometimes free) resources such as capital, labor, production inputs, and information through their social relations. The support of their family and neighbors increases their chances of survival.

Research and theory in the area of political science has been concerned with a degradation or loss of closure-based social capital in the United States. According to scholars in this area, modern technologies and lifestyles have diminished the amount of interaction between members of a community and even a nation, dramatically reducing the amount of social capital available for all individuals. Without constant face-to-face interaction, the mechanisms to control the behavior of group members weakens. With less social capital, communities and nations have a reduced capacity for collective action and are unable to solve their own problems.

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