Keywords

6.1 Introduction

Summarising his empirical findings 21 years after publication of his seminal work (Getting a Job from 1974), Granovetter (1995: 151) confirmed that the results of these studies show no consistent correlation between using social networks and the quality of jobs obtained, as measured by higher wages or higher prestige. He consequently underlined that ‘It is not adequate to look only at the nature of the tie between job finder and her contact … the various characteristics of the entire network affect outcomes’. In other words, it is not enough to take into account merely the networks of relations between individuals; more important is the volume of capital (economic, cultural and symbolic) which these social networks possess. Further empirical development in this field, relying on Bourdieu’s theoretical approach, also maintained that social networks by themselves are not the same as ‘social resources’ (Lin, 2001, see below for more on this). Lin later equated ‘social resources’ with ‘social capital’ and, in agreement with Bourdieu, argued that we should not only take into account ‘the networks of relations’ but also ‘the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of’ these social networks (Bourdieu, 2001: 102).

Corresponding to Bourdieu’s conceptualisation, this chapter defines social capital as the ‘totality of resources…activated through a more or less extended, more or less mobilizable network of relations’ (Bourdieu, 2005: 194). This, in turn, includes membership in a group, ‘which provides each of its members with the backing of the collectively-owned capital, a “credential” which entitles them to credit, in the various senses of the word’ (Bourdieu, 2001: 102). For Bourdieu, social capital is one of three forms of capital (economic, cultural and social) which, taken together, ‘explain the structure and dynamic of differentiated societies’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992: 119). Access to social capital gives people connections to individuals in their network who, because of their possession of greater amounts of economic and cultural capital, might help them with advice, further connections, information, loans and so on. In this view, the profitability of accumulating and maintaining social capital increases in proportion to the amount of the economic and cultural capital in one’s network (Bourdieu, 1998). Accordingly, for Bourdieu (2001: 103), ‘the volume of the social capital possessed by a given agent…depends on the size of the network of connections he can effectively mobilize and on the volume of the capital (economic, cultural or symbolic) possessed in his own right by each of those to whom he is connected’. In this way, when a member of the group obtains a better position in the hierarchical social space, the social capital of all the others in the group improves and, as the saying goes, ‘their stocks go up’ (1998: 286). For Bourdieu, social capital, like other forms of capital, is synonymous with power. Thus, the social background or initial position of an individual (gender, class and ethnic background, etc.) – in short, his/her history – plays a crucial role in providing access to social capital (just as in the case of economic and cultural capital); the higher the position of the individual in the social hierarchy, the more social capital that individual possesses.

Studying migration through a social capital approach goes beyond an individualistic perspective on migration in which the focus is explicitly on the individual immigrant’s assimilation into the new society. Multilevel processes of developing relationships in different contexts, including people in the migrant community, members of the majority group, family and friends in the country of origin or co-nationals settled in third countries, are among the subjects of those studies that make use of the notion of the concept of social capital in migration processes (Zhou, 2013).

I have studied migration and migrants in Sweden since 2000, focusing particularly on social capital. During this period, I have used Swedish register data (the full population database compiled by Statistics Sweden) and also a large body of quantitative (survey) and qualitative data from studies conducted over these years. Focusing mainly on immigrants from the Global South, I have compared their positions with those of the majority population and other immigrants. These works include both newcomers and those who have lived in Sweden for a longer period of time – the first generation and the children of immigrants – and cover fields such as the labour and marriage markets as well as education, extra-curricular activities and identity formation.

The aforementioned conceptual framework of social capital has been confronted with empirical findings from several studies in which I have been involved, a short summary of which is presented here. The findings offer insights into how social capital operates for various groups of immigrants, during different phases of their life and across fields such as education and the labour market. Taking the specific context of Sweden and the position of immigrants in this country, this chapter contrasts and synthesises these results with other research in this field.

The remainder of this chapter is organised as follows: in the next section I argue how migration affects the social relations and ties that the individual held earlier. The following section’s claim is that, like individuals from the majority population, it is not the immigrants’ social networks per se but the resources embedded in them which define the migrants’ social capital. The next section is about heterogeneity between the different groups of immigrants. Resources in immigrant communities as sources of social capital is the subject of the following section. The subsequent two sections are about the ‘contra stratification’ aspect of social capital for immigrants and the ‘contextuality’ of social capital, before the final part summarises the arguments and limitations of this chapter.

6.2 Access to Social Capital Among Individuals with a Migration Background

As I have argued elsewhere (Behtoui, 2017), a comprehensive study on individuals with a migrant background, their incorporation and outcomes in the new country of residence requires the implementation of a multilevel approach:

  1. 1.

    At the individual level, the most frequently highlighted factors in these studies are the individual characteristics of immigrants and their own resources (e.g. education) related to their socio-economic background.

  2. 2.

    Macro-level factors or the context of migration involves the socio-historical environments into which immigrants and their children arrive and settle. Empirical indicators at this level, as Portes (1995) maintains, can be found in various aspects of the reception of immigrants – e.g. what is the government’s policy toward this group of immigrants and what is the reaction of civil society, the media and public opinion to them. As Portes and Rumbaut (2001: 47) put it, the darker an immigrant’s skin, ‘the more difficult it is to make his or her personal qualifications count’. Thus, the macro-level factors interact with and affect the individual ones.

  3. 3.

    Between the macro and the micro levels, writes Field (2005: 328), ‘there is a tangled web of social relationships, which are focused around the family, neighbourhood and voluntary organisations’. Social capital, as the main concept at the meso level, is to be regarded as the aggregate of resources that are beyond the individual ones. These are accessible and arise from individuals’ social relations and participation in formal and informal settings – i.e. their connections with others through social networks and membership in different kinds of organisation.

    The general consequence of displacement, by and large, is the loss of an individual’s previous social ties. To build up other networks in the new place of residence is a demanding and time-consuming process. In the case of migrants, Zhou (2013: 253) writes that ‘former social relations in families, friendship, or kinship groups, and other social networks are often disrupted through the migration process’ and that the majority of newcomers encounter problems in making contacts with majority population due to their lesser familiarity with the language, traditions and customs of the new society of residence. This process tends to be more challenging if the immigrant belongs to a stigmatised group and is, accordingly, unpopular among the population of their new country residence.

However, as Anthias (2007) reminds us, immigrants’ social ties are not restricted to their relations with others in the new country of residence. Multi-stranded social relations and interactions link together immigrants across the borders of national states. Migrants are also members of a larger whole that extends beyond geographical boundaries. Transnational ties, as Faist (2000: 189) defines them, are ‘ties of persons, networks and organizations across the borders across multiple nation-states, ranging from little to highly institutionalized forms’. These transnational ties continue to operate even ‘after the migration process as well as being used for new goals’ (Anthias, 2007: 795).

As Erickson (2004: 40) puts it, newcomer non-white stigmatised immigrant groups, ‘face a double handicap in forming social capital’ in their new country of residence. They are living, in many cases, in deprived neighbourhoods and are concentrated in inferior parts of the labour market, consequently ‘prejudiced people do not find them attractive as potential acquaintances’. Evidence from the Swedish labour market confirms this suggestion and shows that newcomer immigrants from the Global South tend to be embedded in social networks that constrain their ability to gain social resources (Behtoui, 2007). According to the results of this study (Behtoui, 2007), the inferior position of this category of immigrants in the Swedish labour market is in part due to this deficit in social capital (fewer resources in their local social capital). Such a capital deficit offers fewer opportunities to mobilise better social resources and improve immigrants’ labour-market outcomes.

The process of incorporation and the construction of new social networks can become more demanding if a community of fellow nationals does not exist in the new settlement area since, in general, the first encounters with the new homeland happen through contacts with other immigrants of the same background. If there are many others from the same group in the new place of residence, then newcomers are primarily involved in tight interpersonal links with them at first hand. They are the people who may offer them help to start a new life in the new country. These fellow nationals can be concentrated on the margins of the society or be well-integrated in the mainstream society, with a well-organised community. Contacts with others in migrant communities and those from the majority population are crucial for the process of incorporation under the new circumstances. These connections provide newcomers with information, support, resources and a sense of familiarity in an otherwise unknown setting. Studying the social capital of migrants is accordingly about their relations with other people in the new country of residence together with the revitalisation of transnational ties, as well as about how these connections affect the immigrant’s life.

As Miles (1993) puts it, the imagined ‘problematic’ immigrants in today’s North-West European societies do not include all immigrants but certain groups of them. To make the outcomes of the process of stigmatisation against immigrants from the Global South for their access to social capital more transparent, we can use Loury’s (2009: 95) distinction between two kinds of discrimination. First, discrimination in contract, which denotes the unequal treatment of individuals in these groups by the majority population on the basis of their ‘race/ethnicity’ in formal transactions (for example, on the labour market). Second, discrimination in contact, which means the unequal treatment of immigrants and their descendants on the basis of their ‘race/ethnicity’ in the context of more-informal private spheres of life (for example, friendship or partnership). Discrimination in contact, according to Loury, has extremely destructive consequences for racially/ethnically stigmatised groups. Stigmatisation negatively affects their access to networks with valuable resources (social capital) and thereby hampers their ‘individual social mobility and intergenerational status transmission’ (2009: 99). This is because ‘opportunity travels along the synapses of these social networks’ (2009: 102). Behtoui (2010), as an example of discrimination in contact, examines the probability of out-marriage to natives for immigrants from the Global South. Findings show that these immigrants and their offspring have a significantly lower probability of having a native partner because of their image as ‘outsiders’.

Other characteristics of a migrant group which have an effect on their access to social capital are the resources that this group brings with them and the time of their arrival. Lee and Zhou (2015) and Behtoui (2022) explain the successful mobility outcomes of Asians in the United States and Iranians in Sweden partly as a consequence of the educational selectivity (above-average educational attainment) of individuals in these groups and partly by their access to more resourceful networks (social capital). They have the background preconditions for having feasible and frequent interactions with people from the majority population with similar resources and lifestyles, which provides them with access to more social capital (See also Erel and Ryan 2019). Interactions between immigrants from these groups and those from the majority population occur according to the ‘homophily principle’, which means that individuals in a social network tend to resemble each other in several ways (Lin, 2001).

Steinberg (1989: 103) wrote about Jewish success in the United states as a matter of the time of their arrival: ‘[T]here was a fortuitous match between the experience and skills of Jewish immigrants, on the one hand, and the manpower needs and opportunity structures, on the other’. These Jewish immigrants were individuals with a higher level of literacy, better industrial skills and greater familiarity with urban living, commerce, craft and manufacturing. These conditions make it possible to construct a well-organised and network-dense community (a source of social capital), which followed their business success and better academic achievements of their children (Steinberg, 1989).

6.3 Beyond Social Ties: Social Capital

As Louise Ryan (Chap. 2 in this volume) argues: ‘For too long, migration studies have tended to use “network” as a metaphor without paying due attention to the structure, density, content, multiplexity and dynamism of social networks’. Ryan points out, in fact, the shortages of the previous stage of research in this field, with its focus on networks (also cf. Brinbaum, Chap. 5). This remark is in line with Bourdieu’s (2005: 198) idea that ‘social network analysis’ overlooks the fact that the very potency of a person’s networks depends, above all, on the position that an individual included in his or her networks occupies in the social hierarchy and the individual’s ‘access to different kinds of capital’. Moreover, we should consider the structural constraints, noted by Lin et al. (2001), on network development among people in subordinate positions. The composition of an individual’s network is largely shaped by the ‘homophily principle’, which means that interactions usually occur among actors with similar resources and lifestyles. As a result, women, stigmatised minority groups or those who belong to the lower classes are embedded in social networks with less-valuable resources (Lin & Erickson, 2008).

Access to more social capital denotes being connected to well-placed, influential and high-status people in a society, states Lin et al. (2001). These influential individuals in a person’s social network have control over greater resources, can provide better information because of their advantageous view of the structure and can have better social credentials when, for example, they recommend an applicant for a position. Moreover, being integrated in better-placed social groups’ networks elevates a person’s ‘acceptability’, since (s)he learns these groups’ speech style, manners, aesthetic preferences and ‘taste’. Hence, Bourdieu (2001: 109) suggests that ‘Manners (bearing, pronunciation, etc.) may be included in social capital insofar as, through the mode of acquisition they point to, they indicate membership of a more or less prestigious group’.

On this point, as the results of my study on finding a job on the Swedish labour market (Behtoui, 2015) demonstrate, the use of social networks (informal methods) varies according to the educational level of the job applicants. Those with the lowest and highest educational qualifications tend to find jobs more often via their social networks. However, there is no significant association between the use of social ties (informal methods) and the attainment of a higher salary or job status; that is, using social networks to find a job is not the same as having access to more social resources. In other words, using social ties per se provides no relative advantage in the competition for better jobs. On the other hand, resources in one’s social networks (social capital) are associated with better labour-market outcomes, whether or not a person reported getting his or her current job with someone’s help (Behtoui, 2015). Furthermore, the migrant background of an individual (alongside his/her class background and gender) plays an important role in providing access to social capital. Thus, social networks with various resources provide different outcomes. For example, as Behtoui (2008) demonstrates, contrary to natives, finding jobs through social networks generates lower wage returns than formal job-search methods when it comes to immigrants from the Global South, since they find their jobs via their (often) segregated social networks. Thus, ‘Finding jobs through contacts may be one’s best option, yet the jobs found may still be of poor quality by general standards if this is all the group can provide. You cannot get blood from a stone’ (Granovetter, 1995: 151).

6.4 The Homogenised Construction of the Migratory Status

Is it accurate to write about the social capital of immigrants in general terms? Among studies on the access to or mobilisation of social capital, we are sometimes confronted with statements about the gaps between the majority population and immigrants, as two separate and homogeneous categories in these regards (See e.g. Yong et al., 2019; Behtoui et al., 2019). However, the paths to the accumulation of social capital are shaped by the complex ways in which individuals’ migration backgrounds interact with the logic of other types of categorisation and positioning of these people – for instance, their class background or sexual orientation. These intersectional relationships, in turn, affect immigrants’ access to social capital in the new country of residence.

Intersectional theories of inequality challenge the mono-dimensional view of identity – i.e. those paradigms that separate discourses on race, class, gender, sexual orientation and immigration status – by showing how they intersect. Along with this perspective, there is no such a category as ‘immigrants’ as a concrete, homogeneous and separate social category (Rattansi & Phoenix, 2005). People who have been labelled as immigrants are always simultaneously positioned in many different categories and in relation to a whole range of social divisions such as class, gender, age etc.

As the findings in Behtoui (2007) demonstrate, access to social capital is different for individuals with a native background and immigrants from the Global North and South; however, for each category, access to social capital is positively associated with their educational background, their labour-market experiences, whether or not they have a partner and if they are active members of voluntary associations.

Consequently, as Rattansi and Phoenix (2005) remind us, individuals have a range of identities (class, gender, ethnicity, etc.). All these categorisations/classifications shape a person’s life chances through locating him or her within certain networks of power relations with various resources. Put another way, estimating immigrants’ access to and mobilisation of social capital, one should consider that these socially constructed categories are multiple, potentially contradictory and situationally variable, which generates enormous heterogeneity between different groups of immigrants.

6.5 Resources in the Migrant Community as a Source of Social Capital

As Portes (1998: 7) has maintained, ‘bounded solidarity’ is an essential source of social capital. It happens when members of a group – ‘by being thrown together in a common situation’ – learn to identify with their own group and support each other. Such identification and solidarity (the emergent product of a common fate) has been a strong motivational force, for example, for an industrial worker to take part in sympathy strikes or protest marches in support of other workers, for members of an ethnic minority group to fight together for their rights or for religious groups to provide support and help for others in their religious community (Portes, 1998). The same mechanism is involved when, in a tight immigrant community network, parents, teachers, social workers and other adults in positions of authority seek to support, control, maintain discipline and promote educational mobility among children (Zhou & Kim, 2006). Portes (2010) writes about the pool of resources in a ‘diasporic’ community (a co-national social network) as follows. Each migrant group develops specific types of strategies to cope with problems in the new society of residence. The web of connections between them as part of their regular interaction – based on a common language or history and/or shared fate – generates loyalties and mutual obligations among them. These relationships may lead to the establishment of formal organisations or the development of informal social networks which then transmit and perpetuate of social capital further. Two crucial factors are involved in determining the level of social capital available to an immigrant community. First, the reception of immigrants – that is, the government’s policy towards them (rapid legal entry to the new country, a long waiting period before the issuing of residence permits or undocumented status and the requirements for becoming a citizen). Second, the various types of resource which are available, accessible and meaningful when constructing a network-dense community for each particular immigrant group (the amount and quality of the financial, educational and other cultural capital of fellow community members). Social capital generated in immigrants’ communities may increase opportunities for members with fewer resources and for newcomers through increasing their likelihood of finding a job consistent with their education and skills as well as providing entrepreneurial assistance or training. In addition, a tightly connected community can reinforce parental educational aspirations for their children (Portes, 2010).

Note that a geographically concentrated and united immigrant enclave is not a necessary precondition for the generation of social capital by an immigrant community. In a European context, it is seldom the case that an immigrant group is geographically concentrated, thus there are no equivalents to a ‘China Town’ or ‘Little Italy’. Nevertheless, we can observe that solidarities appear through networks even if not concentrated in an enclave.

As findings in my recent study demonstrate (Behtoui, 2022), individuals with an immigrant background from the Global South (Africa, Asia and Latin America) in Sweden are under-represented in the high-ranking strata of the three spheres of political, academic and economic life. However, after individuals with a native background (born in Sweden with two Swedish-born parents), those who were born in or who had (two) parents from Finland (from the Global North) and Iran (from the Global South) had the highest number of representatives in these fields. Moreover, the ratio of the Iranian group among the elites in these three spheres is equal to or even higher than that among the population as a whole (which is lower for those from Finland). This in spite of the fact that immigrants from Iran have lived a significantly shorter time in Sweden and had no previous knowledge of the Swedish language or contact with Swedes. There is, in addition, a high degree of social acceptability of immigrants from Nordic countries (including Finland) in Sweden, whereas there is a more exclusionary attitude towards immigrants from ‘Middle-Eastern’ countries, including Iran. What can explain the post-migration career achievements of the Iranian group? First, the more positive selectivity of individuals in this group regarding their access to educational, cultural and political capital. For instance, about 53 per cent of people in this group have post-secondary or tertiary education, compared to 44 per cent in the total population of Sweden. Second, the contextual factors – when there was an increasing demand for candidates with an immigrant background on the political market, people in this group could provide an appropriate supply of resourceful candidates; and when the deregulation and privatisation of Swedish welfare services (such as public health care and schools) opened up new potential money-making markets and individuals in this group had (in addition to the appropriate education and work experience), the knowledge and the skills needed to run a private enterprise in these sectors. Third, Iranian community organisations as sources of social capital. The social, cultural and political associations of this group flourish nearly a decade after the arrival of the first groups of Iranian immigrants and offer, for example, the teaching of the Persian language, the celebration of Iranian national festivals and the organisation of cultural activities. Descendants of these immigrants have continued the maintenance and further development of these associations in a more sophisticated way. Even though members of the Iranian community in Sweden are highly differentiated, in terms of both ethnicity (e.g. Kurds), religion (e.g. Armenian Christians and Bahai’s) and political affiliation (e.g. leftist, Mujahedin and Monarchists), nonetheless their common fate, life history and like-mindedness intensified the solidarity between each specific group’s members in each of these sub-groups. Consequently, although individuals with an Iranian background are not living in enclaves, are not geographically concentrated and are divided into various subgroups, the common background and loyalty between the various subgroups in this community have worked for the creation of tightly interpersonal links (informal social networks) and the construction of formal organisations.Footnote 1

Another feature of the immigrant community as a source of social capital is the transnational nature of these collectives. Contemporary international migration studies highlight the concept of transnationalism or, to be precise, the various networks and links (cultural, economic and familial) that connect individuals to several locations (Faist, 2013). In the contemporary world, immigrants are transnationally located and engaged in multiple settings. Immigrant families are spread out over several countries and continents, with the continuous exchange of resources across borders. Through new media developments, immigrants and their descendants exploit the electronically freed-up resources of global diasporic networks in order to contact their family members, friends and acquaintances. In this way transnationalism (social interconnectedness that crosses national boundaries and produces extended social networks) should be seen as a resource in immigrants’ communities (see also Keskiner and Waldring, Chap. 3 in this book).

As Nygård and Behtoui (2020) state, the difference in access to social capital between young people with a migrant and those with a native background is partly due to a higher presence of transnational ties among the former’s family members. These transnational contacts operate instrumentally in promoting aspirations among the descendants of immigrants and providing them with useful advice, support and information about their education choices.

6.6 The ‘Counter Stratification’ Effect of Social Capital

Although the stratification effect of social capital is the predominant pattern, some groups or individuals from the unprivileged stratum of society (the working class) and other low-status groups (e.g. LGBTQ people, women or ethnic minorities) have been able to gain access to resources beyond their own immediate social networks. The mechanisms that are involved in this process are as follows.

First there is the counter stratification of association activities initiated by subordinate groups. This happens when marginalised or stigmatised groups join together, organise themselves, construct a common identity and pool collective resources (Portes, 1998). When subordinate groups begin to organise themselves and become agents in the field of civic associations, they can (through, among other things, social-capital building) challenge the basic premises of the current balance of power. As Young (2000) states, when disadvantaged groups of people find each other and create associations, then they can improve their lives through resisting domination, telling their own stories, putting across their arguments and other expressive interventions to present their own perspective to the dominant public. These self-organising activities can (i) articulate group consciousness and struggle against the dominant stigmatising discourses of class, gender and race/ethnicity, (ii) express new experiences and social perspectives and (iii) provide mutual practical aid, social solidarity and cultural support. The history of the Swedish labour and feminist movement is a wonderful narrative of the creation of structures of opportunities to enhance the social and political rights of these groups.

Ålund and Schierup (1991) have critically reviewed immigrant organisations in Sweden during their golden age (1970–1990) which, according to them, were structured and monitored ‘from above’ by the welfare bureaucracy, corresponding to the ‘national or ethnic identities’ of different immigrant groups such as Finns, Yugoslavs or Turks. Mulinari and Neergaard (2004), described another form of immigrant-worker organisation in Sweden during 1990s. The FAI network (a group of immigrant union activists) demanded an equal participation and representation of immigrants in the Swedish trade-union confederation. Ålund and Rosales (2017) depict current youth-led networks, associations and organisations in Sweden. Young people with an immigrant background and from the most socio-economically deprived metropolitan neighbourhoods, are the main actors and activists of these new forms of organisation.

Second is the counter-stratification effect of the already-existing mainstream civil society organisation. These organisations can sometimes be a support to people from subordinate groups. One example is the religious, political or non-profit organisations that help children in marginalised neighbourhoods with their homework or offer other types of financial or emotional support. With this type of intervention, the individual who receives support may achieve upward social mobility in the hierarchical status system of the society. Note that the counter-stratification effect of social capital in this case is limited only to certain individuals and has no effect on the de-stigmatisation of the marginalised group as a collective.

As I have written elsewhere (Behtoui, 2019), through relationships with adult leaders and other participants, young people who are involved in extra-curricular activities (e.g., athletic, cultural and religious organisations) gain access to social networks which afford them valuable resources and important and useful advice, support and information about their educational choices and career prospects. In Sweden, these activities are traditionally initiated and organised by adults who are active members of civil-society organisations and deep-rooted in the local environment. Some of the adults who are leaders of these activities act as mentors for the young people (particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds) and play an important role in their educational success. The empirical results of this study show that (after control for class background) the rate of participation of young people with an immigrant background in athletic and cultural extra-curricular activities is the same as that of the offspring of natives in Sweden. Nevertheless, they are relatively more involved in the activities of religious organisations and youth recreation centres (fritidsgård), even after controlling for class background. The results demonstrate that participation in organised extra-curricular programmes (athletic, cultural and religious) was associated with positive educational outcomes. Participation in less-structured activities (youth recreation centres) was associated with negative effects. However, the worst results were shown by the group of those with ‘no extracurricular activity at all’. Those who do not participate in any kind of extra-curricular activity had lowest final grades and educational expectations, compared with those who had structured or less-structured activities. Furthermore, when the benefits of participation in athletic and cultural activities have similar effects and were equally important for young individuals from different class backgrounds, the benefits of involvement in religious organisations (more accessible for those with an immigrant background) were more positive for pupils from the lower strata of the social hierarchy.

Finally, the findings show that the class background and family resources of young people are crucial factors explaining the disparity in youngsters’ opportunities to participate in organised leisure activities. Young people from more-privileged social-class backgrounds (with and without a migrant origin) were much more likely to attend these programmes. After controlling for respondents’ class background, the results demonstrated that cultural and athletic programmes are more available to students attending schools with the best academic results – often located in affluent areas – than those who attend under-achieving schools in cities and towns. The only exceptions were the higher rate of participation in activities put on by religious organisations in marginalised areas of big cities and the youth recreation centres existing in the less-privileged neighbourhoods of small towns, which are likely to be more available to young people with a migrant background living in these districts.

Third we have the interventions of committed institutional agents. According to Stanton-Salazar (2011), committed teachers, social workers, youth workers and job-centre personnel are among those institutional agents who can provide assistance for individuals within the lower strata of society (e.g., youth from working-class and ethnic-minority communities). They can embed these people in the networks that connect them to the services and resources oriented toward their empowerment. The ‘redistribution’ of resources through institutional agents has a possible counter-stratification effect for low-status individuals in need (including those with a migrant background) and can alter the lots of these people. Stanton-Salazar (2011) labels this type of social capital as ‘empowerment social capital’ and defines it as ‘those resources and forms of institutional support which are embedded in “connections” or relationships with high-status, resourceful, institutional agents oriented to go counter to the system’ (2011: 1086, emphasises in the original). Counter-stratification social capital operates principally as a buffer against the full burden of, for example, class or racial oppression, maintains Stanton-Salazar.

One empirical example in the Swedish context is my finding (Behtoui, 2008) on getting a job. At the time, Sweden had a nationwide system of public employment agencies,Footnote 2 with at least one office in each municipality. The results of that study demonstrate that, firstly, immigrants from the Global South are less likely to be able to find their jobs through informal methods (social networks). However, they tend to secure employment through formal methods, like public employment offices, to a significantly greater extent than natives. Secondly, the results show that, after controlling for education, labour-market experiences, union membership and family situation, the wage gap between natives and immigrants from the Global South – who obtained their jobs through formal methods like public employment offices – was significantly narrower compared with those who used informal job-finding methods.

Interpreting empirical results like those mentioned above, Granovetter (1995: 163) wrote that newcomers like young people or immigrants with ‘no network of contacts from previous jobs’ in a specific labour market gain more benefit from formal matching like public employment services. Job-centre personnel (who have well-established ‘network relations with firms, unions and schools that would repay further study’) can act for these groups with poor contact networks as their quasi-network and be a link between them and employers or further-education/training officials.

Another empirical example of the role of committed institutional agents is our recent finding in the field of education (Behtoui & Strömberg, 2020). The results of our ethnographic studies indicated that there is a significant association between school-based social capital and school composition (the class and migrant background of students in a school). In a school with students from a higher socio-economic background, we observed more-qualified and motivated teachers, intensive parental involvement and, consequently, less conflict and a more friendly relationship among students while, in a school located in a disadvantaged area, the social relations exhibited quite a reverse character.

At the same time, we find a third category. In a school with children from lower social-class backgrounds placed in an immigrant-dense area, highly committed school staff (young teachers mainly with an immigrant background) have been able to create an emotional closeness and level of trust between staff, pupils and parents. School-based social capital, in this third category, brought a sense of solidarity and created a pro-educational climate. School-based social capital in this context operated in line with the contra-stratification effect of social capital.

6.7 Contextuality of Social Capital

Coleman (1990: 302) underlines the variability, contextuality, conditionality and limited fungibility of social capital when he writes: ‘A given form of social capital that is valuable in facilitating certain actions may be useless or even harmful for others’. Lin and Erickson (2008: 13) emphasise, in the same way, that ‘the value of potential resources depends on the social context and is quite variable from one social setting to another’. According to them, this demands that researchers know in advance about the specific type of social capital for the field they are studying and ask about the relevance and worth of the kinds of social relations and resources produced there, in that specific context, for that specific group. Zhou (2013: 253) accentuates the same point for immigrants’ networks and writes, ‘social relations that can produce social capital with desirable outcomes for one ethnic group or in one situation may not translate to another ethnic group or situation’ (see also Ryan’s Chap. 2 in this volume).

Such a contextualised understanding of the social capital concept warns us to consider each specific group and context when we define and measure the impact of the resources embedded in social relations as a source of social capital. Two examples from empirical studies in Sweden can illustrate the weight of the contextuality and conditionality of social capital.

As mentioned above, our empirical findings indicate that the higher educational aspirations of the children of immigrants in Sweden (compared to their peers with Swedish-born parents) are the result partly because of their tendency to have access to more social capital (Behtoui, 2017). The latter is explained, firstly, because of the heterogeneity (regarding class boundaries) of the social networks of immigrant families compared with others, when the parents of young people with low-status jobs socialise with others in the same group with a higher status, probably due to the former’s downward social mobility in spite of their previous qualifications or thanks to the tight social ties in their communities. Secondly, it is a result of the transnational ties of immigrant parents. These ties, in any case, are sources of information, aspiration and support for the educational progress of the next generation. However, the social capital generated by these ties, beneficial for the educational field, is not necessarily helpful in other contexts. For instance, this type of social capital does not have the same impact during the transition from education to work for the descendants of immigrants compared to the children of natives. As the findings in Behtoui and Olsson (2014) demonstrate, this would be the case even if early-age young immigrants from Bosnia-Herzegovina were significantly more educated than the children of natives but their educational capital did not generate a higher annual income when they entered the labour market.

Another example arose when we examined the workplace inequality between native- and foreign-born employees in Swedish elderly-care work. The ‘position generator method’ (Lin et al., 2001) used to assess employees’ access to social capital appeared not to be a suitable measurement for highlighting the gap in occupational status and salaries between these groups (by this method, researchers provide identical lists of well-known occupations and respondents answered whether anyone among their family members, friends or acquaintances held this occupation). So why was the measurement created by the ‘position generator method’ not an appropriate device in this case for explaining the salary gaps between these two groups? The reason was that social capital, as a form of power, does not operate autonomously and independent from each field’s particular rules of the game. The resources to which immigrant workers had access through their contacts outside their workplace did not have the same value as their specific contacts at their workplace.

Hence, we constructed another measurement to assess the access of a firm’s personnel to specific ‘workplace social capital’ (WPSC). This measurement, as a variant of the ‘name generator’ method, determined social capital generated through the respondents’ close ties in their workplace. We asked each employee to think about ‘the people who are important for her/him at work’ – i.e., those whom our respondents ‘feel the greatest confidence in at the workplace and can rely on their advice when a problem arises there’ (Behtoui et al., 2020). We asked them, firstly, how many such persons there are at their workplace and, secondly, to specify the gender, country of birth, highest educational level and job of their two closest contacts at work. The number of all contacts plus the prestige scores of the occupational status of these two contacts constitute the main basis for measuring the WPSC of the employees.

Our results revealed: (a) that those with more workplace social capital (WPSC) had higher positions and a bigger salary, after control for all other control variables (e.g. education, labour-market experiences etc.), (b) that workers from the Global South had less access to WPSC compared to natives and (c) that their lower positions and lower wages could be explained partly because of their lower access to WPSC and fewer benefits from it. As stated by workers from the Global South in our qualitative data in the same study, they had experienced ‘contact discrimination’, that is, they did not have the same friendship relations and closeness with their native-born co-workers and bosses (consequently they had networks with fewer resources), since they are regarded as ‘the others’.

To sum up, social capital is not a universal and fungible asset – like financial capital – that one can easily convert to different currencies in various contexts and uses. The degree to which social capital is useful and recognised is related to a specific group in a specific field, a resource to be accumulated or deployed in a particular context.

6.8 Summary and Discussion

To build up new networks and reactivate existing transnational ties in the new country of residence is a challenging and time-consuming process for new immigrants, particularly for those who are subject to racial/ethnical discrimination. For this reason, as mentioned above, finding jobs through social networks generates lower wage returns than formal job-search methods when stigmatised immigrant groups find their jobs via their segregated social networks.

Further, I argue that we should avoid lumping all immigrants together and defining them all as a single group. The socio-historical environments into which a group arrives and settles in, the differences between the various immigrant groups’ resources (their education, familiarity with urban living, etc.), their time of arrival, their legal status and the extent to which their communities are well-organised all require consideration of the heterogeneity between the different groups of immigrants and their access to social capital.

In addition, based on the argument that ‘bounded solidarity’ is an essential source of social capital, so immigrant communities were described as a source of social capital. The web of connections between individuals in an immigrant group – based on a common language or history and/or shared fate – generate loyalties and mutual obligations between them and may lead to the establishment of formal organisations or the development of informal social networks which then transmit and perpetuate further these connections. The level of resources in an immigrant community depends, firstly, on the government’s policy towards them (rapid legal entry to the new country and a long time before residency permits are issued – or undocumented status – and the requirements for becoming a citizen are fulfilled). Secondly, the level depends on the amount and quality of the financial, educational and other cultural capital of fellow community members.

As emphasised, although the stratification effect of social capital is the predominant pattern, some groups or individuals from the unprivileged strata of society (among them, stigmatised immigrants with lower class positions) have been able to gain access to resources beyond their own immediate social networks. Social capital, in these cases, either generated by civil society organisations or assistance provided by institutional agents, operates in line with the contra-stratification effect of social capital.

A final point made was about the contextuality of social capital, in which the emphasis was on our being very aware of the specific type of social capital for each field. We should determine whether the kinds of social relations and resources that are produced in a specific context are relevant and of value to the immigrant group that we are studying. This, since social relations that can produce social capital with desirable consequences for one group of immigrants have not always had the same effect for another group in other situation.

Studying social capital, as the arguments in this chapter demonstrate, moves us beyond models in this field that focus only on the individual resources of immigrants in order to explain the variability of outcomes and achievements. Analysing migrants existence and outcomes in their new society through a social-capital approach can transform our understanding of an immigrant as an isolated island into a multilevel process of developing relations with a variety of groups, organisations and institutions. This includes fellow migrants, members of the host society, family and friends in the country of origin or other associates/friends/acquaintances settled in third countries (transnational ties). Migrant communities and mainstream civil-society organisations as well as governmental and public organisations, interact and affect the process of construction of the social ties of these individuals. The main question in such studies concerns who individuals with an immigrant background are connected with and which resources are available in their networks.

An important limitation of this chapter is that it has concentrated only on the positive consequences and constructive and goal-oriented outcomes of social capital as the product of social relations and networks/organisational memberships. However, as previous research has demonstrated, social relations between individuals may produce non-desirable outcomes (sometimes labelled as ‘negative social capital’ or the ‘dark side of social capital’). Moreover, the positive consequences of social capital for immigrants in some significant fields (as in the functioning of small-scale enterprises) was not included.