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The mainstream rise of "bundle" clothing consumption in Malaysia mirrors the global trend of thrift shopping. Theories about this phenomenon range from the birth of recessionistas, to environmental conservation and identity construction. In this paper, I examine the trend of "selam bundle", or diving into clothingbundles in thrift shops, where people deliberately purchase material goods to communicate their fashion tastes to the public. Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and field are also used to elucidate this phenomenon. I theorise that the act of thrift shopping, or "selam bundle" here is not caused entirely due to a lack of funds based on social class, as individuals from various levels of income participate in this activity. Instead, I view "selam bundle" as an act of increasing one's "street cred" or social capital, where the more unique the find, the more "street cred" one achieves. This is also an activity that is common among the hipster subculture. Observations about thrift shopping or "selam bundle" were made using a mixed-method approach, combining visits to thrift stores, watching YouTube videos of thrift bloggers, reading their blogs, obtaining newspaper interviews and feature stories about thrift shoppers and thrift shops, and obtaining data from social media, as well as data from a large-scale survey titled Platform Integrasi:Pendekatan 'Top-Down' dan 'Bottom-Up' Dalam Mendepani Cabaran Kesepaduan Sosial (Integration Platforms: 'Top-Down' and 'Bottom-Up' Approaches to Facing Challenges in Social Cohesion). As this is a shopping act that transcends the usual social categories of social class, I theorise that "selam bundle" can be seen as a potential platform of social integration, driven by the grassroots or everyday-defined approach to constructing identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The biggest obstacle to encourage knowledge sharing activities in the Community of Practice is the willingness of individual to share their knowledge with one another. By integrating the Social Capital Theory and the Knowledge- Based Theory of the Firm, this paper examines the relationship between social capital and knowledge sharing, and it's impact on individual performance. Data were collected from the Innovative and Creative Circle members in Kuantan Municipal Council and the Royal Malaysian Customs Department. A total of 219 samples were analysed using PLS-SEM. The results showed that closeness, trust, shared language and shared vision promote individuals' knowledge sharing behavior, and have positive relationships with individual's work performance. As such, to improve knowledge sharing activities in the Community of Practice, the need to understand and focus the underlying aspects related to the social capital is imperative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality of life is an issue that is often debated among social researchers because it can affect an individual's life. The Department of Statistics Malaysia verified 2.7 million categorized as B40 income group, with 63% living in urban areas while 37% lived in rural areas in 2016. This situation will have a worse impact on the quality of life for the B40 group if no efforts are engaged to overcome this situation. To overcome this problem, the community is encouraged to use social capital as a tool to improve the quality of life. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the influence of social capital on the quality of life for the low-income group B40. This study involved 100 respondents from the low income group in Kota Bharu. This study uses quantitative methods. Data was collected using a questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS software. The findings of this study show that the influence of the social capital dimension on the respondents' quality of life is 21.7 percent. Therefore, stakeholders can use the outcomes of this study as a foundation for enacting or improving better policies, procedures and programs for the community. In addition, this study has also introduced six dimensions of social capital which are networks, beliefs, norms, social rules, ability and religious needs. All of these dimensions are believed to have an impact on related studies in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The determinants of educational attainment among children have become one of the main research agenda among scholars, educationists and economists alike. In most studies, the focus is on the relationship between educational attainment and factors such as the quality of teachers, schools, educational technologies, curriculum design, the fi nancial and human capital aspect of the families and the ability of children themselves. Recently, the focus has been expanded to explore the relationship between social capital and educational attainment. As an addition to the existing literature, this paper attempts to investigate the impact of social capital on educational attainment using a regression analysis based on a sample of 2500 households, gathered from a rural community in Terengganu, Malaysia. Six domains of social capital are used to arrive at the index of social capital. The argument advanced in this paper is that social capital, which could be viewed as the outcome of networking, cooperation and trust at the household level, is expected to have a positive impact on a child’s educational attainment. Towards this end, we regress children’s education attainment on social capital along with other relevant independent variables, i.e. family, children, school and neighbourhood characteristics. Interestingly, the result of our study reveals that the level of social capital that a family has, is found to be signifi cant and has the expected positive sign. This finding implies that social capital at the household level appear to be a critical factor in determining a child’s educational attainment. Thus, our finding lends support to the idea that social capital is a good predictor of children’s is educational attainment. Keywords: Social capital, educational attainment, rural community.

Community-based art was associated with a practice of "art for society". This form of art practice is used as a tool in the development of social capital of society through the art process that leads to deepened the social network and the relationship of community involved. This research is focusing on the potential of the Lendu International Art Camp (LIAC)#3 in developing and also building the relationship and social cohesion among the community through art activities conducted. The research involved purposive sampling and was descriptively analyzed. The result shows that the highest mean score was "Bonding New Relationship" which involved three categories of participants; students (4.56), agencies (4.54) and visitors (4.45), while the highest mean score among the villagers was "Bridging Relationship Between Citizen" with the score of (4.46). The implication of this research suggests that the orientation activities on the elements of cooperation, tolerance, consensus and accountability in activities based on local culture value are able to attract the process of public participation, thereby building on the growth of social cohesion. In a process of approach, the lost of artistic aesthetic value in developing any activities to attract participations has affected the impact of developing social ties within the communities involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mah Meri tribe is one of the subgroups from Senoi ethnic of indigenous people or commonly called as Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia. A group of Mah Meri women weaver from Carey Island - the Tompoq Topoh, was established since 2005. These women have been empowered in over a decade to provide for their families. Employing a qualitative approach, this study explored some of the elements of social capital that have been discussed by Pierre Bourdieu, James Coleman and Robert Putnam. The study results shows that three significant elements in social capital such as leadership, sense of belonging and social networks, emerged as contributors in the economic empowerment amongst the Mah Meri women weavers of Tompoq Topoh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social capital is one of the important elements to reduce the incidence of poverty because of its ability to influence an individual's or household's income of a country. Nevertheless, past studies that examine social capital issue are rather lacking especially in Malaysia. This study aims to identify the level and determinants of social capital index in Malaysia based on 2,443 heads of households' data collected in 2012 in five states in Peninsular Malaysia; Kedah, Selangor, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Johor and Terengganu. The analysis involves two steps; computing social capital index and estimating regression models to identify the determinants of social capital index. The study finds that 72.9% of heads of households are having moderate and high social capital index of 0.5 and above. The percentage of heads of households with higher social capital index is higher in Selangor compared to other states. Further, the study demonstrates that the significant determinants of social capital index are marital status, location, states, and household income. The findings from the study imply that Malaysia must implement programmes that can raise an individual's or household's income in order to increase their level of social capital index, which subsequently will improve Malaysia's level of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social mobility is a process of change or movement involving an individual or a group of people from one position to another, involving either mobility between generations or within generation. This article argues that no one single factor can fully explain social mobility because it requires a multicausal or multifactor approach. For upward social mobility, an individual requires a combination of contributory factors namely education, as well as economic and sociocultural factors, with the actor acting together in unison with the family, community and the state. The study on the coastal community in Kuala Terengganu involves a survey of 300 respondents as well as interviews and observation. Based on an analysis of four generations of the fisherfolk (the respondent, his father and grandfather, as well as the respondent's children), the study shows that a major transformation has taken place in this coastal community. By using the mobility measurements developed for the study, four patterns of social mobility have been identified. This study is a contribution to the corpus of knowledge on the sociology of development, in particular, on social change and mobility among the coastal community. The results of the study have reaffirmed the importance of having a correct approach towards the problems of the coastal community so that the government and other stakeholders may formulate and implement appropriate programmes to stimulate and manage change and development in this marginalised community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]