Measurement of individual social capital pages
Welcome to these webpages devoted to the measurement
of individual social capital, aimed at providing resources for future
research. Feel free to download the listed studies and measurement
instruments. If you have worked with one of the discussed instruments, or
have made innovations, I would be happy to hear from you and/or include
references to your work. If you plan to construct instruments yourself for
future studies, please use the questionnaires listed for inspiration (also
see the specific Position Generator and Resource Generator pages). Alternatively, send me a
note if you get stuck or have comments. I am always interested in research
problems wherein you would like to integrate measures of individual
level social capital.
All references on these pages are simultaneously listed - see the link in the main menu on the left.
"Measurement of individual Social Capital"
ISBN 9073838428
The last twenty years have seen the idea of social capital blossoming as a
popular and promising new look at phenomena in the social sciences.
Essentially a theory that explains how and why relational networks are
important for the production of outcomes at the individual and
collective level, social capital may form a powerful additional perspective
for the investigation of inequality questions. Nevertheless, several
unresolved issues and ambiguities regarding the application of social
capital theory still remain. One of these is its measurement.
"Measurement of individual social capital" studies the operationalisation and measurement of
social capital at the level of individuals, defined as the collection of
resources owned by members of an individual's personal social network,
which may become available for use as a result of investments in personal
relationships. After introducing an extensive conceptualisation in the
first part of the book, several ideas for the construction of single and
multiple sets of indicators are discussed, based on theoretical arguments
as well as explorative empirical investigations.
The second, empirical part of this study explores the structure of social
capital using several currently available measurement instruments: the Name
Generator/interpreter combination, the Position Generator, and the newly
constructed Resource Generator instrument. Investigations using the
1999-2000 Survey on the Social Networks of the Dutch show that social
capital comprises five main dimensions, and that each measurement
instrument emphasises different dimensions of social capital. On
the basis of these results a measurement strategy is proposed for the use
of both existing data and future social capital data collection.
Digital copies of "Measurement of individual social capital" can be ordered by contacting me personally.