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Social determinants of health influence child health behavior, development, and outcomes. This paper frames social capital, or the benefits that a child receives from social relationships, as a positive social determinant of health that helps children exposed to adversity achieve healthy outcomes across the life course. Children are uniquely dependent on their relationships with surrounding adults for material and nonmaterial resources. We identify and define three relevant aspects of social capital: 1) social support , which is embedded in a 2) social network , which is a structure through which 3) social cohesion can be observed. Social support is direct assistance available through social relationships and can be received indirectly through a caregiver or directly by a child. A child's social network describes the people in a child's life and the relationships between them. Social cohesion represents the strength of a group to which a child belongs (eg, family, community). Pediatric primary care practices play an important role in fostering social relationships between families, the health care system, and the community. Further research is needed to develop definitional and measurement rigor for social capital, to evaluate interventions (eg, peer health educators) that may improve health outcomes through social capital, and to broaden our understanding of how social relationships influence health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attention has been turned recently to the role that social capital may play in the promotion of immigration integration and social cohesion. The paper addresses an aspect of social capital that has been neglected: the application of social capital and its related concepts to minority ethnic families in impoverished neighbourhoods. This paper discusses the ways in which contextual elements in a neighbourhood may facilitate or impair the building of social capital for minority ethnic immigrant families. Research from focus group interviews conducted among Hispanic families in predominantly Hispanic neighbourhoods in Los Angeles show how residents face multiple challenges in social capital building due to physical, psychological, socio-cultural and economic constraints on their everyday family and community life. Contrary to popular conceptions that promote social capital building as the solution to social fractures caused by immigration and ethnic diversity, findings illustrate how communicative conditions experienced by minority Hispanic ethnic families may affect the constitution of their bonding, bridging and linking social capital processes. The potential impact of social capital on social cohesion will vary depending on the ways in which its effects are enhanced or diminished by the context of local neighbourhoods and the communication environ in which families are embedded. Cet article étudie la manière dont les éléments contextuels dans un quartier peuvent faciliter ou empêcher la construction du capital social pour les familles immigrées des minorités ethniques. La recherche sur la base d'entretiens avec des groupes ciblés (focus groups) menés auprès de familles hispaniques dans des quartiers à prédominance hispanique à Los Angeles montre comment les résidents doivent faire face à de multiples défis dans la construction du capital social en raison de contraintes physiques, psychologiques, socio-culturelles et économiques sur leur vie quotidienne familiale et communautaire. Contrairement à l'idée courante qui veut promouvoir la construction du capital social comme solution aux fractures sociales dues à l'immigration et la diversité ethnique, les résultats montrent que les conditions de communication vécues par les familles minoritaires hispaniques peuvent influer sur la constitution de leur capital social (création de liens affectifs, de passerelles et d'alliances). L'impact potentiel du capital social sur la cohésion sociale varie selon la manière dont ses effets sont augmentés ou diminués par le contexte local des quartiers et l'environnement de communication auquel les familles sont intégrées. contexte de communication, immigration, integration, minorités, communautés, capital social, familles hispaniques, cohésion sociale [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among various social factors associated with health behavior and disease, social cohesion has not captured the imagination of public health researchers as much as social capital as evidenced by the subsuming of social cohesion into social capital and the numerous studies analyzing social capital and the comparatively fewer articles analyzing social cohesion and health. In this paper we provide a brief overview of the evolution of the conceptualization of social capital and social cohesion and we use philosopher Erich Fromm’s distinction between “having” and “being” to understand the current research focus on capital over cohesion. We argue that social capital is related to having while social cohesion is related to being and that an emphasis on social capital leads to individualizing tendencies that are antithetical to cohesion. We provide examples drawn from the literature where this conflation of social capital and cohesion results in non-concordant definitions and subsequent operationalization of these constructs. Beyond semantics, the practical implication of focusing on “having” vs. “being” include an emphasis on understanding how to normalize groups and populations rather than providing those groups space for empowerment and agency leading to health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a large scale cross-sectional study examining subjective perceptions of community social life held by a randomly selected sample of residents (n = 428) in all small rural settings (n = 89) of the region of North Aegean Sea. The notion of social capital was used as a conceptual tool in order to explore different aspects of the relational life of contemporary rural communities. This study has two aims: First to provide an account of rural residents' perceptions of village life in terms of interpersonal support, mutual aid, trust, social cohesion and community competence, and second to examine the suitability of the social capital notion within the specific cultural context. A combination of data collection procedures and a range of sources were employed, such as key informants, rural residents and researchers' field observations. The findings indicate that small farming communities of high devotion with deep roots and strong sense of belonging face severe demographic imbalance and experience low civic power given the limited links with external agents. The mainstream notion of social capital as an unconditionally beneficial factor is thus questioned. The findings call for revisiting its relevance across communities with varying capacities and needs. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social capital has become a key concept in Government policy-making and academic circles. Particular forms of social capital theorising have become dominant and influential, invoking certain conceptions of the nature of family life. Inherently, ideas about ‘the family’ not only draw on gender divisions in fundamental ways, but also on particular forms of intergenerational relationships and power relations. This paper explores the place, and understandings, of family in social capital theorising from a feminist perspective, including the way that debates in the social capital field interlock with those in the family field. These encompass: posing both ‘the family’ and social capital as fundamental and strong bases for social cohesion, but also as easily eroded and in need of protection and encouragement; the relationship between ‘the private’ and ‘the social’; notions of bonding and bridging, and horizontal and vertical, forms of social capital as these relate to ideas about contemporary diversity in family forms and the nature of intimate relationships; and analytic approaches to understanding both the natures of social capital and family life in terms of an economic or moral rationality. It argues for greater reflexivity in the use of social capital as a concept, revealing rather than replicating troubling presences and absences around gender and generation as fundamental axes of family life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract : Social capital has been defined by Robert Putnam in his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community as "features of social organizations, such as networks, norms and trust, that facilitate action and co-operation for mutual benefit." Cultural capital, as defined by Pierre Bourdieu, has most often been associated with personal interest in and experience with prestigious cultural resources. According to this definition of cultural capital, familiarity with traditional high-culture forms is a defining characteristic of individuals occupying high status positions within a society. In recent years, cultural policy makers have begun to express a stronger interest in the linkages between these forms of capital. This paper focuses on linkages between personal investments in culture and the propensity to volunteer, using data from the Canadian General Social Survey. It concludes that there are collective benefits from investments in cultural capital and that these benefits make a significant contribution to social cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reconsiders James S. Coleman's concept of social capital. The concept has gained wide use and acceptance in sociology since its first publication, but, Coleman's own writings on the subject remain to date its most extensive analytic treatment. We make two contributions to social capital theory. First, we recast social capital theory to focus on benefits rather than forms. We identify three benefits that forms of social capital may confer: information, influence mid control, and social solidarity. In the context of a focus on benefits, we consider how a specific form of social capital may vary in the degree to which its benefits generalize to different kinds of goals, and how forms that are valuable for some purposes may be a liability for other purposes. Second, we emphasize social capital's origin in aspects of social structure that actors may appropriate to use in their interests. We suggest how changes in the social structure of which social capital is an aspect may affect tile emergence and persistence of forms of social capital and may condition the value of given forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]