Abstract
This chapter surveys James Coleman’s writings about social capital, situating them within the wider project he pursued in Foundations of Social Theory: to develop social science theory resting on rational choice postulates that takes into account the social settings that shape individual actions, which in turn combine to produce macro-level phenomena. After examining Coleman’s definition of the concept, the chapter recounts forms that social capital takes, including trust, information flow, norms, and formal organizations. It then considers conditions that affect the production of social capital, and how he employed the social capital concept in his educational research.
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Notes
- 1.
In Coleman (1994a, 170) he limits social capital to “any aspect of informal social organization that constitutes a productive resource.”
- 2.
See Adler and Kwon (2002, 20) for numerous other definitions. Putnam (2000, 19 f.) calls attention to repeated inventions of social capital, stating that “Coleman put the term firmly and finally on the intellectual agenda.” Trigilia (2001, 428) makes a similar observation; see also Lin (2001, Chap. 2).
- 3.
Putnam (2000) regards voluntary associations as important indicators of social capital that can contribute to civic engagement. Individual-group (two-mode) networks offer a suitable approach to representing affiliations with organizations as network-based social capital (e.g., Burchard and Cornwell 2018).
- 4.
Interestingly, sellers prefer to avoid transacting with prior contacts under these same conditions.
- 5.
The finding that closure can promote some kinds of knowledge transfer resonates with Centola’s (2018) distinction between simple and complex contagion processes. In simple ones, something spreads after a single contact between a source and a prospective recipient; in complex diffusion, transmission requires wide bridges that provide reinforcement via multiple channels.
- 6.
The two sets can be identical, in which case a norm is said to be conjoint; otherwise it is disjoint.
- 7.
Apart from bilateral exchanges, one form these might take is that of an action rights bank that allows potential targets to purchase a limited supply of rights to take counter-normative actions. Proposals for carbon credit exchanges to limit greenhouse gas pollution are one example; see Coleman (1987, 140).
- 8.
If a norm has been internalized, targets self-administer sanctions. Socialization—or instilling an internal sanctioning system—is also costly; see Coleman (1987).
- 9.
See Swedberg (1996) for more about Coleman’s thinking about organizations and their redesign.
- 10.
Kadushin (1983, 196) suggests that many if not most network effects are contingent rather than direct.
- 11.
See, however, Lin (2000) on race and gender inequality in individual social capital.
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I appreciate helpful comments from Derick Baum, Maleah Fekete, Mary Ellen Marsden, and editor Andrea Maurer.
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Marsden, P.V. (2021). James Coleman, Social Capital, and Economic Sociology. In: Maurer, A. (eds) Handbook of Economic Sociology for the 21st Century. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61619-9_3
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