Social Isolation and Its Impact on Social Capital Essay

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Social capital, i.e. the implied profit arising from the cooperation between individuals or groups, is a vital issue often studied by American sociologists. One of the most memorable researches on the topic was that of Robert Putnam, who warned America that its social capital was deteriorating, thus causing the reduction of civic engagement and social connectedness. However, Bruce Rankin and James Quane discovered that the residents of poorer neighborhoods had higher level of community participation than those of less poor neighborhoods, even though the impoverished people had fewer opportunities to involve in community work. Apparently Putnam ignored racial and class features of the population, as well as the meaning of interpersonal relations in a community, and the research of Rankin and Quane demonstrates these flaws of his work.

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So what exactly is social capital and why is this concept so important? Social capital is quite a popular term used both in sociology and in ordinary speech, but, despite that fact, there is no agreement on the definition of this term. As Kenneth Newton explains, the definition of social capital can be understood through norms and values, networks, or consequences (Newton 576). The first approach presents social capital as a complicated paradox, which consists of the norms and values of individuals. The essential values are those related to trust and interaction. In this way, social capital allows people cooperate efficiently and trust each other. Another approach is focused on networks of groups and individuals. This version emphasizes the ability to use such networks for achieving the goals in social and political spheres. Finally, the approach through consequences suggests defining social capital through the results that it brings (goods, facilities, and services) (Newton 575-577). It is the last approach that Coleman and Putnam agree on (Coleman 98, Newton 577).

Social capital is tied up with such issues as civic engagement and social connectedness. Only the presence of strong social capital (strong connections, same values) allows people to participate in politics collectively (civic engagement). Social capital depends on the characteristics of social connectedness, which is the measure of various qualities of people’s interactions.

Human capital is a different form of capital; it is a set of resources possessed by an individual, such as skills, knowledge, education. As Coleman put it, “For human capital… the person who invests the time and resources in building up this capital reaps its benefits in the form of a higher-paying job, more satisfying or higher-status work, or even the pleasure of greater understanding of the surrounding world” (Coleman 116).

Another important term connected with social capital is social trust, which can be defined as the expectation that all the members of a certain community would behave according to the norms of that community. Social isolation is, as it is believed by some scholars, an undesirable output of the deterioration of social capital. Social isolation is defined as the absence or the lack of contact between persons or groups.

In his 1988 article Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital James Coleman makes an introduction into the theory of social capital, describes its forms (obligations and expectations, information channels, and social norms) and the social conditions that form it. The author uses this theoretical information to analyze the relationship between the lack of social capital and high school dropouts before graduation. According to Coleman, social capital “is productive, making possible the achievement of certain ends that in its absence would not be possible” (Coleman 98). Social capital can be created by the relations between individuals, as well as between corporations (Coleman 98). The researcher concludes that the presence of social capital both inside and outside the family and in the adult community that surrounds the school lowers the probability of dropping out of school.

The famous article by Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital (1995), later developed into a book, which has been widely recognized, is considered a significant contribution to sociology (Fischer 155). Having studied the membership in America’s traditional civic organizations, such as the League of Women Voters, the Red Cross, Boy Scouts, Putnam noticed a considerable decrease in the number of members from the 1970s to 1990s (Putnam 70-72). Americans, Putnam informs, are gradually moving away from volunteering, meeting attendance, and other forms of political participation (Putnam 67-72). As the author believes, these facts mark the decline of America’s social capital, i.e. the reduction of civic participation and social connectedness. Among the possible reasons, Putnam states, are the growth of the number of female workers, the mobility of individuals, demographic transformations, and, however surprising it may sound, television, as it tends to occupy more and more of our leisure time (Putnam 74-75).

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The same central idea is presented in McPherson and others’ work Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades: the amount of connections between Americans is diminishing, and it leads to the decline of social capital. Using the materials of the General Society Survey, the authors analyze America’s core discussion network, i.e. the circle of individuals to whom a person applies while having a need to discuss something important. The authors note a serious falloff in the size of core discussion network between 1985 and 2004 (McPherson et al. 353). McPherson and others conclude that “Whatever the reason, it appears that Americans are connected far less tightly now than they were 19 years ago” (McPheterson and al. 373).

However, there is also a surprising finding of Rankin and Quane, whose study of African American Chicago poor neighborhoods was published in 2000. The primary task of the authors was to refute the idea that some link exists between neighborhood poverty and social isolation. According to Rankin and Quane, the supporters of the “link” conception rely on the analysis of social network composition, which allows to claim that the residents of poorer neighborhoods have fewer friends, who enjoy stable employment and college education. Hence, residence in such neighborhoods will lower one’s chance to get stable employment (Rankin and Quane 157). In contrast, Rankin and Quane’s finding demonstrate a different result: the ties between the members of poor neighborhoods appeared to be quite strong. Apparently the members of a neighborhood have sound reasons, for which they unite, such as the struggle with disorder, attempts to establish safety, and the intention of poorer families to reach out richer ones (Rankin and Quane 157-158).

It can be therefore claimed that Rankin and Quane’s research fills in the gap left by Putnam and his followers. Firstly, Putnam did not include specific racial categories or the categories related to social class into his research. His article somehow assumes that Americans are a nation with a unified structure, equal income, and identical tradition of interacting and forming a communion. Conversely, Rankin and Quane recognize the difference between the experiences of various groups of American people. For instance, they state that the communities of African Americans “have been shaped by unique historical and contemporary macrostructural forces” and they “are more likely to reside in disadvantaged neighborhoods than are any other racial or ethnic group” (Rankin and Quane 146). Rankin and Quane also mention specific social factors that affect impoverished people and encourage them to participate in community organizing: their struggle against deterioration, their attempts to establish safety (from gangs), the tendency of poorer families seek help from more advantageous ones.

Next, Putnam focuses on national organizations, bowling clubs, etc., but does not take into consideration the fact that social capital can be formed by the connections inside of a community. But the communities studied by Rankin and Quane do not lack social capital; some of them even have “effective police, decent schools, strong community organizations, and dense and cohesive social networks of people that embrace the basic norms and values of the broader society” (Rankin and Quane 159). So, the research of Rankin and Quane demonstrate the limits of Putnam’s studies of social isolation.

In conclusion, the deterioration of social capital does entail the diminution of civic engagement and social connectedness, which makes Putnam partially right, but since he does not recognize specific class and racial features and underestimates the value of the relations inside of a community, it needs to be acknowledged that Rankin and Quane’s study show the limits of his research on social isolation.

Works Cited

Coleman, James S. “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital.” American Journal of Sociology 94.1 (1988): S95-S120. Print.

Fischer, Claude S. “Bowling Alone: What’s the Score?” Social Networks 27 (2005): 155-167. Print.

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McPherson, Miller, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and Matthew E. Brashears. “Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades.” American Sociological Review 71.3 (2006): 353-375. Print.

Newton, Kenneth. “Social Capital and Democracy.” American Behavioral Scientist 40.5 (1997): 575-586. Print.

Putnam, Robert D. “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital.” Journal of Democracy 6.1 (1995): 65-78. Print.

Rankin, Bruce H. and James M. Quane. “Neighborhood Poverty and the Social Isolation of Inner City African American Families.” Social Forces 79.1 (2000): 139-164. Print.

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