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Measuring social capital: An exploration in community–research partnership
Author(s) -
Chaskin Robert J.,
Goerge Robert M.,
Skyles Ada,
Guiltinan Shan
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/jcop.20111
Subject(s) - general partnership , social capital , public relations , community organization , work (physics) , community building , capacity building , business , knowledge management , sociology , political science , economic growth , engineering , economics , social science , mechanical engineering , finance , computer science
Large numbers of social policy initiatives and community organizations are currently engaged in “community building” efforts that seek, in part, to strengthen informal relationships and the organizational infrastructure of communities and to build the capacity of communities to manage and foster community change. One critical requirement for improving such practice is for communities to have greater access and capacity to use information for planning, advocacy, and assessment. There are, however, a number of challenges to this, especially as it concerns understanding complex, sometimes elusive, dimensions of community circumstances and dynamics—the level of community “social capital,” for example—that are of central interest to those involved in community‐building efforts. The authors describe what was learned through a community–research partnership that attempted to test practical options for community‐based organizations (CBOs) to measure aspects of community social capital for their own purposes and within the constraints of budget, time, and skills under which they work. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.