Social Capital

Nan Lin is Oscar L. Tang Family Professor of Sociology, Duke University. He has conducted research on social capital, social networks, stratification and mobility, and stress coping in the United States, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. He has written or edited seven books and published numerous book chapters and journal articles. He is also an Academician at Academia Sinica in Taiwan and holds honorary professorship in many universities in China. Professor Bonnie Erickson received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the University of British Columbia before moving to Harvard where she completed her Doctorate in Social Relations. She then spent three years as an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University before joining the faculty at University of Toronto in 1973. In addition to her work in the Department of Sociology, Erickson is currently cross-appointed to the Centre for Studies on Aging, the Centre for Urban and Community Studies, the Centre for Industrial Relations, and is on the Board of Directors of the Centre for Health Promotion. Erickson has published articles on a wide variety of topics, getting printed in publications including the Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, American Sociological Review, Social Networks, and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Social Capital... is an ambitious and important book that, like the concept it seeks to clarify, measure and utilize, merits careful attention by sociologists across the spectrum.

• 1. Theory, Measurement, and the Research Enterprise on Social Capital ; PART I: THE POSITION GENERATOR METHODOLOGY: ITS RELIABILITY, VALIDITY AND VARIATION ; 2. Position generator measures and their relationship to other Social Capital measures ; 3. Position Generator and Actual Networks in Everyday Life: An Evaluation with Contact Diary ; 4. Social, cultural, and economic capital and job attainment: The position generator as a measure of cultural and economic resources ; 5. The Formation of Social Capital among Chinese Urbanites: Theoretical Explanation and Empirical Evidence ; PART II: MOBILIZATION OF SOCIAL CAPITAL ; 6. The Invisible Hand of Social Capital: An Exploratory Study ; 7. Social Resources and their effect on occupational attainment through the life course ; 8. A Question of Access or Mobilization? Understanding Inefficacious Job Referral Networks among the Black Poor ; PART III: SOCIAL CAPITAL, CIVIL ENGAGEMENT, SOCIAL PARTICIPATION, AND TRUST ; 9. 9. Social Networks of Participants in Voluntary Associations ; 10. The Internet, Social Capital, Civic Engagement, and Gender in Japan ; 11. Social Capital of Personnel Managers: the Causes and Return of Position-Generated Networks and the Participation in Voluntary Associations ; 12. It's Not Only Who You Know, It's Also Where They Are: Using the Position 12. Generator to Investigate the Structure of Access to Embedded Resources ; 13. Gender, Network Capital, Social Capital and Political Capital: The Consequences of Personal Network Diversity for Environmentalists in British Columbia. ; 14. Civic Participation and Social Capital: A Social Network Analysis in Two American Counties ; PART IV: SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND INEQUALITY IN SOCIAL CAPITAL ; 15. Marriage, Gender, and Social Capital ; 16. Access to Social Capital and Status Attainment in the United States: Racial/Ethnic and Gender Differences ; 17. Access to social capital and the structure of inequality in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia ; 18. Assessing Social Capital and Attainment Dynamics - position-generator (pg)-applications in Hungary, 1987-2003 ; References ; Index