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Community Connections: Social Capital and Community Success 1
Author(s) -
Whitham Monica M.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
sociological forum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.937
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1573-7861
pISSN - 0884-8971
DOI - 10.1111/j.1573-7861.2012.01325.x
Subject(s) - social capital , sociology , interpersonal ties , construct (python library) , social engagement , social mobility , individual capital , community building , civic engagement , sense of community , community organization , social network (sociolinguistics) , public relations , capital (architecture) , social psychology , financial capital , economic growth , social science , political science , psychology , human capital , economics , geography , law , politics , computer science , social media , programming language , archaeology
This article examines the impact of two types of community social capital—ties between civic organizations formed through shared members and ties between residents formed through socializing in local gathering places—on residents’ subjective appraisals of community success. Community social capital studies tend to focus on the first of these types of ties, networks of civic engagement, while the second, gathering place networks, has received relatively little scholarly attention. Studying both allows me to assess the formal and informal arenas of community sociability, providing a more thorough understanding of social capital and community life. I assess the effects of community‐level social capital networks on the individual‐level experience of residing in the community using survey data on 9,962 residents from 99 small towns in Iowa. This rich data set allows me to avoid two shortcomings common in social capital research: I construct genuine network measures of social capital (rather than infer network structure from community attributes) and conduct multi‐level analyses (rather than rely on disaggregation). My findings indicate both types of social capital are positively and significantly associated with resident ratings of community success, suggesting community networks—in both the formal and informal sectors—have important consequences for small towns and their residents.