The educational system in Sweden is expanding and while some see higher education as a remedy for unemployment, others argue that credentialing of the society with diplomas will harm the competition on the labour market and the value of higher education. However, the effects of educational expansion are noticeable not only at the macro, but also at the micro level. Studies have shown that Sweden is internationally on the bottom of the list when it comes to gross returns of higher education. During the 1990s the educational expansion led to the impairment of university and college degrees to uplift individuals to high income positions. Studies have also shown that fluctuations in training premia are inconsistent with the supply of higher educated labour force. The focus of this quantitative dissertation is on the period between 2000 and 2010. By measuring the success on the labour market in terms of monthly salary the aim is to find out how the educational expansion affected Swedish labour market after the 1990s. By using SPSS, a multiple linear regression analysis is applied on data that is extracted from Levnadsnivåundersökningen (LNU) 2000 and 2010. The results suggest that even though the effects of higher education are not dramatically different between these years, it explained more of the total variance in monthly salary in 2000. Furthermore, social background and social networks had stronger effects on the success on the labour market in 2010. This implies that meritocratic principles were utilized more during the early twenty first century and that social status continues to determine salaries in a modern capitalist society.

The purpose of this study is to explore Black women’s experience of becoming and being entrepreneurs and accumulating wealth. Through interview questions that examine social capital, this study allows eight Black women to recall their ever-changing and evolving experience of entrepreneurship and economic mobility. This qualitative study goes beyond empirical data of the wealth gap and the numerical trends of Black women entrepreneurs. The study allowed for Black women to share their experience with wealth accumulation and the social factors, such as networks and relationships that attributed to starting and sustaining a business. Findings and implications will be discussed.

HOPE VI, instituted in 1993 and subsequent related policies, resulted in the demolition of traditional public housing and the relocation of former residents. For former residents living on low incomes, combining housing subsidy and other social services is important to survival. One crucial type of social services support provides food supplements. Research indicates that among low-income families, many do not receive necessary food social services. For example, among eligibles, food stamp utilization is at 50 to 60%, and for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infants and Children (WIC) rates vary from 38 to 73%. Research indicates that 35% of food insecure older adults are ineligible for the Elder Nutrition Program, and approximately 60% of eligibles are wait-listed upon application. Social services utilization patterns among eligibles are affected by neighborhood contexts. Relocation due to public housing transformation policies has been shown to change neighborhood context. This in turn has affected former public housing resident’s cultural capital and social capital. But how this affects food social services utilization has not been studied. I use Klinenberg’s (2002) activist client thesis as a framework to investigate the effect of cultural capital and social capital for housing subsidy recipients (relocated public housing residents) in Atlanta on their utilization of food social services using secondary longitudinal data from the Georgia State University Urban Health Initiative analyzed using ordered logistic regression. Most specifically, my research investigated how varying neighborhood contexts affect food social services utilization for former public housing residents in Atlanta. This research informs public policy on the provision of housing subsidy and the provision of food social services.

This thesis examines the roles of migrant networks in the migration and subsequent economic integration of Senegalese men and women in France, Italy and Spain. It challenges the assumption that networks are invariably sources of assistance in the migration process and examines the factors responsible for variations in their influence. In doing so, it uses quantitative methods and analyzes recently collected longitudinal data within the framework of the Migration between Africa and Europe (MAFE) project. Migrant networks -– members of the respondent’s personal circle that have international migration experience – are conceptualized as a form of individual-level social capital that may or may not shape specific outcomes. The thesis contributes to the literature by adopting a longitudinal view of the migration process and considering both migration behaviour and migrants’ labour market trajectories at destination. In doing so, it bridges two areas of research that have mostly developed separately. Second, the intersections between migrant networks and gender, insufficiently studied so far, are here examined in detail. Furthermore, the role of networks in different forms of female mobility – often confounded in previous work - are here analysed separately. Last but not least, the thesis makes a methodological contribution by operationalizing migrant networks in a more dynamic way than previous work. Findings suggest that migrant social capital has a large influence on migration behaviour, while playing a lower and more ambivalent role in migrants’ labour market outcomes at destination. Furthermore, several dimensions are found to shape the extent and channels of networks’ influence. First, men and women do not rely on the same ties in their migration process. Also, women migrating independently of a partner make a different (and greater) use of their migrant connections than those joining their spouse abroad. Migrant social capital is found to work along gender lines: only access to male migrant networks increases the migration likelihood or the job prospects at destination for prospective male migrants. On the other hand, female networks play a crucial role in independent women’s migration process. However, while they greatly increase women’s likelihood of moving to Europe on their own, they also lead them to lower-status jobs. Last, the context of destination was found to shape the operation of migrant networks. In France, where a socio-economically diverse Senegalese community has long been established, pre-migration ties at destination lead to better economic opportunities. In contrast, migrant networks in Italy or Spain appear to channel male migrants into street-selling activities. Thus, bonding social capital in the form of migrant networks appears to reproduce the ethnic niches developed at destination and the gender-segmented nature of the labour market.

The purpose of this case study was to explore how a group of principals from diverse backgrounds and different locations create and perpetuate a virtual community of practice. This investigation is a case study of Connected Principals, a group that has come together to create a regular blog on significant issues within education and the principalship. In addition, this group regularly disseminates pertinent information on Twitter via a hash tag. The study includes a content analysis of the blogs posted by Connected Principals as well as social network analysis of the group’s Twitter network and of the key players within the Twitter network. In addition, the investigation includes interviews with six of the key blog and Twitter contributors in order to triangulate the information gleaned from the other analyses. The results of the study provide a thorough description of Connected Principals. While the study set out with the framework of a community of practice, the findings led to the idea that what was actually created by this group is an affinity space. In addition, the results give indication that the members of the group generate social capital within their field. Overall, the study contributes to the literature by providing an in-depth look at a relatively new field in education.

The purpose of this study is to explore the important factors that affect graduate employment such as human capital, social capital and university career services. It focuses on the graduate labour market in the UK and uses mixed methods. While quantitative data derive from a survey, qualitative data come from interviews and secondary sources in a case study. The survey includes 947 university graduates and qualitative data consist of 8 interviews, internal and external reports. The findings show that the level of human capital and social capital affect the way graduates find a job and the use of social capital in job searches varies by ethnicity, age and academic level. However, gender and academic discipline do not affect the use of social capital in the UK graduate labour market. Moreover, the study shows that university career services can play an important role in job searches. Overall, however, direct application and online career services are two most widely used methods to find a job. The originality of the research is twofold. Firstly, it illustrates the relationship between two important components in graduates’ job search processes: human capital and social capital. Secondly, it examines the role of an institution: university career services and displays the importance of institutional approaches in building a bridge between students and employers.

This thesis discusses the process of space polarization, in the concrete the issues of human and social capital in inner peripheries in Czechia. The first part of the thesis deals with selected theoretical and methodological concepts of research of space polarization and human and social capital. Following empirical part concerns with the analysis of human and social capital in the larger territory of inner periphery located in borderland of the Central and Western Czechia. This analysis was based on quantitative evaluation. On the basis of the results of this analysis the analysis of human and social capital was accomplished in the territory of Manětín region. This analysis was on the contrary based on qualitative evaluation. In conclusion there is an effort to consider the quality and potential of human and social capital for the development of Manětín region. Key words: inner periphery - spatial polarization - human capital - social capital - potential of development - Manětín region

Purpose - Healthcare (HC) is a globally expensive investment, suffering from service quality, due to medical errors caused by physicians’ poor decisions making (DM). Current published literature: (1) encourages clinical DM research to reduce diagnostic errors and (2) stresses on the dearth of means for practitioners’ knowledge shared DM; this research focuses on knowledge sharing for improving medical DM quality through physicians’ social capital (SC) in a virtual community of practice (VCoP). Physicians join a virtual community (VC) to share clinical practice knowledge to aid medical DM. This study aims to assess the effect of physicians’ SC on medical DM and assess the mediating role of knowledge sharing quality, between physicians’ SC and medical DM quality since research lacks to investigate the impact of knowledge management (KM) tools in a HC context. VCoP is a KM tool and medical DM quality is a HC topic of this study. Design/methodology/approach – This positivist, quantitative research utilizes non-experimental survey to empirically assess its conceptual framework. After attaining an ethical approval, from Brunel Business School Research Ethics Committee, online survey was pre-tested and pilot tested for clarity and validity. 10 non-physician Ph.D. academics voluntarily participated during the survey’s pre-test phase. The survey was amendment for its pilot study phase; conducted in “plastic surgery yahoo group” VC. 31 physician VC members voluntarily participated. Again, the survey was amended and distributed for main data collection from 204 voluntary SurveyMonkey’s VC’s physician members. Findings – Data was analysed using SPSS 20 and LISREL 8.80 by means of confirmatory factor analysis and Structural Equation Modeling. Empirical findings supported this study’s four main hypotheses as well as supported this study’s initially proposed conceptual framework. Originality/value – This study customized the Honeycomb framework to establish a definition of professional physicians; HC VCs followed by identifying 51 VCs from social networking platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. This study also fulfilled its aim and hence proposed a structurally fit conceptual framework.

This qualitative study examines the participation of post-Katrina residents in neighborhoods of New Orleans’ Upper 9 th Ward. I examine respondent self-concepts and attachment to the community to gain understanding of how individuals participate in voluntary helping behavior in their locality. Interview data, brief economic and cultural examination of the area, and my observations as a resident of the Upper 9 th Ward inform analysis. The experiences of respondents suggest that there is a tension between an individual’s need to seek selfverificationand their understanding of themselves and others within their own neighborhood. Respondents’ understanding of the impact of their own actions and those of their neighbors reinstates theories of displaced attachment to local context in regards to local community involvement. Findings incite further research as to the division of individuals from their locality within the modern urban context.

As externships evolved from their vocational education roots into the university setting, both the course purposes and the expectations of student changed toward deeper learning. While the students’ responsibility for gaining knowledge has increased, teaching methods designed by educators to prepare students for more critically evaluated outcomes has not evolved at the same pace. Educators still grapple over how educational design can combine the structured teacher-centered learning strategy used in university classrooms with the learner-centered approach students typically utilize in for-profit culinary workplaces. This dissertation is about culinary externships in the urban environment. The study examined the roles, reasoning, and behavior of culinary externship stakeholders: student externs, externship sites via their externship supervisors, and educators who facilitate externships under the academic rules and guidelines of both culinary bachelor programs and the rigor demanded by higher education. Further, the study explored what factors encouraged and empowered students to acquire durable knowledge from their externship experiences and the forms of social capital they use to invest in their experience, as well as the conditions that failed to secure durable knowledge from the externship. The findings indicate that each stakeholder approaches an externship from their own working perspectives. Further, the ability of students to socialize, utilize agency to achieve their personal ends, bear the sole weight of evaluation, and acquire practical work experience prior to the externship yielded the best outcomes. Additional questions are posed and answered within the study.