The value of social capital in R&E
New Zealand has been advised to take a cross-sectoral and cross-disciplinary approach to using social capital in research.
Tom Healy, a senior statistician with Ireland's Department of Education and Science, was in New Zealand recently on a Linkages-funded fellowship, during which he gave several presentations on social capital, including the public policy and research implications of its use in New Zealand.
Tom has worked for the OECD on the "Well-being of Nations" project and then the National Economic and Social Forum in Ireland, both of which used the concept of social capital.
"Social capital refers to the capacity of people to work together for the common benefit of all, through mutual help, engagement and trust," Tom says.
It refers to relationships that are based on "reciprocity, voluntary engagement and self-regulation". Examples include networks based on volunteer workers, networks of informal social support among family members, and networks of mutual support or information-sharing among staff of a government department. "Trust, shared values and shared identity are the hallmarks of social capital," Tom says.
Social capital comes in different forms, described as "bonding", "bridging" and "linking". Bonding refers to social ties, obligations and trust among people who are alike by virtue of, for example, their gender, ethnicity or social background.
Bridging social capital is where people are "not alike". "For example, where you have people such as Maori and Pakeha working together, and where trust and engagement is built up," Tom says.
The third form, "linking", refers to social ties among individuals or groups at different levels of social status or power. "This is about a vertical dimension of social capital, connecting people in power with those who are not in power," Tom says.
Measuring social capital can be difficult. "But there is a rising body of evidence that indicates that various types of social networks have an impact on health, education, economic productivity, crime and the quality of public governance."
Tom says that as a policy and research tool, social capital would be useful in New Zealand for throwing light on the cross-cutting issues facing the country in the next decades.
"These include ethnicity and cross-community relations, increased socio-economic inequality, the rise of the market in areas of personal and community care, and increased diversity and immigration. "Social capital is not the silver bullet to solve each and every social problem. But properly used and understood, it invites us to approach problems from the standpoint of community effects and shared norms and not just individuals or institutions operating in isolation."
Tom suggests New Zealand could develop a coordinated and inclusive research effort that brings together teams of researchers from across institutions and disciplines."In relation to research on social capital, it is desirable to engage a much wider range of research disciplines and methodologies even if many of these may not be described or classified as 'social capital research'," he says.
"For example, research on family inter-connectedness provides a very fruitful area for analysis of norms and networks and their impact on family well-being and wider social concerns. Rather than conceiving of a completely separate and self-contained programme of research on 'social capital', it might be useful to think of a whole series of inter-linked research activities that draw on social capital concepts and findings. In this way, 'social capital' as a concept and research tool could be mainstreamed into some existing lines of research from studies of poverty to migration, gender, and so on," Tom says.
