Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-123).

The aim of this dissertation is to present work on a number of salient characteristics of elite relations in Sweden, studied from a social network analytic perspective. Elite integration, the distribution of elite power, and the significance of elites’ informal relations represent the three main themes explored in the original studies that comprise the thesis. Studies 1-3 concern elite relations at the local, i.e. municipal level of political decision-making, while research on parliamentary political elites is reported in Study 4. Studies 1-3 draw upon original complete network data collected through personal interviews with 248 local elites (politicians, corporate leaders, civil servants, etc.) active in four mid-sized Swedish municipalities. The question of local elite integration is investigated in Study 1, while the question of women elites’ potential access to structural power is studied in Study 2. These studies conclude that local elites are well integrated around structural cores of politicians and civil servants, and that women elites are on average not structurally disadvantaged due to their sex. Research concerning the role local elites’ involvement in associations like Rotary clubs is reported in Study 3. The results suggest that membership in such semi-exclusive voluntary settings may have an optimizing impact upon the elites’ personal networks, as far as their individual level social capital is concerned. In the final study (Study 4) focus is shifted to national political elites when a social network analytic perspective is utilized to study social cohesion within multiparty opposition coalitions recently formed in the Swedish Riksdag. The study concludes that the right wing-liberal Alliance coalition formed prior to the 2006 general elections was socially better integrated and more cohesive than the socialist-environmentalist coalition formed during the subsequent parliamentary cycle. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Submitted. Paper 2: Submitted. Paper 4: Submitted.</p>

Social capital has been positively associated with adult health and well-being, yet our knowledge about the meaning of social capital for women, especially from developing countries such as Indonesia, is limited. The Indonesian context is particularly suitable for this study since the country is a heterogeneous society in terms of ethnicity, language, and race, and it has rich tradition of social capital. The focus on women is also relevant since the programs and activities of many government and nongovernment organizations target women to improve health and well-being of the family and the community. Because women are the target of these efforts, understanding women's social capital (participation in these organizations) is relevant particularly how participation impacts women's health and well-being. Further, this study investigates whether other dimensions of social capital (social trust and social support) has impact on women's health and well-being. This study utilizes the recent data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS, Wave 4). The findings indicate education has a positive significant effect on health, mental health and well-being outcomes. Higher years of education predict both the odds of being in a good health and having lower mental health problems. Education also predicts higher odds of having adequate standard of living, sufficient food consumption and healthcare, and feeling happy. Among social capital variables, social trust in the general community (feeling safe walking alone at night) has a significant positive effect on good health and lower mental health problems. Participation in Rotating Saving and Credit Association (ROSCA) also has a significant effect on improved women's welfare including having adequate standard of living, enough food consumption, and sufficient healthcare. Living in Java was a determinant factor for having good health, but not the other outcomes. Implications for social work practice and policy development are offered. / text

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Social capital and self-concept were measured in a sample of 86 primarily African American female adolescents before and after participating in the Cool Girls, Inc. program, and in 89 comparison girls. Two dimensions of social capital (the diversity of girls’ social networks and the number of life domains in which girls were able to access help) were examined. It was hypothesized that participation in Cool Girls would be associated with increases in social capital and that this would mediate the relationship between participation in Cool Girls and increases in self-concept. Cool Girls participants experienced increases in social capital. Cool Girls and comparisons both experienced gains in most domains of self-concept, except for behavioral conduct, that were related to increases in number of help domains. Furthermore, there was a significant indirect effect of participation on social acceptance, global self-worth, and body image mediated through number of help domains. Implications are discussed.

In recent years young entrepreneurs have attracted considerable attention from policy makers and the media, and there is evidence that increasingly many young people aspire to start their own business. However, there has been little research into how young entrepreneurs actually build their businesses, and the limited existing research about young entrepreneurs has tended to focus on participants who have struggled to achieve business survival and growth. By contrast, this thesis investigates how young entrepreneurs are able to build high performing businesses. All participants have built a business with a turnover between £1 million and £90 million or otherwise raised at least £1 million in external investment. It takes a qualitative approach, based primarily on semi-structured interviewing, to understanding the knowledge and skills 21 young entrepreneurs used to build their businesses. It uses a human capital theory framework to analyse how the young entrepreneurs developed relevant knowledge and skills prior to start-up in order to build a business. It then considers what additional human and social capital the young entrepreneurs acquired during the venture creation process itself. The findings identify three different pathways, each of which typifies the human capital used by particular young entrepreneurs, according to their educational background and the precise age at which they started their business. The study also establishes the necessary human capital which all of the young entrepreneurs developed prior to start-up or during the early stages of starting their ventures, which was important to their success in growing a business. The study finally contributes to the debate about whether general human capital or venture-specific human capital is most important to entrepreneurs, finding that for young entrepreneurs developing pre-start-up general human capital is particularly significant.

The rapidly changing Canadian mosaic compels the educational system to devise new and unique means to address the needs of a heterogeneous student and teacher populace emerging from varied cultural, linguistic, social and pedagogical contexts. Considerable work recommends the creation of an inclusive environment for immigrant students; sparse discourse considers the needs of immigrant teachers in a mainstream K-12 setting. The majority of discussions and discourses on immigrant teacher acculturation study the needs and challenges this diverse group of teachers has to contend with inside the environs of a Canadian classroom. This study extends these initial discourses to include the macrocosmic challenges faced by immigrant teachers by analyzing the lived experiences of immigrant teachers who have successfully established their place in the Manitoba educational system. Using a critical lens, the study endeavors to analyze the role of social capital in the integration experiences of immigrant educators in Manitoba.

Background. Access to health care in northern and rural communities has been an ongoing challenge. Training undergraduate medical students in regional sites is one strategy to enhance physician recruitment and retention in rural regions. With this goal in mind, in 2004, the Northern Medical Program was created to bring undergraduate medical education to Prince George. The NMP is also hypothesized to have wider impacts on the community. This study aimed to describe perceptions of the broader impacts of the NMP. Methods. In this qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with community leaders in various sectors of Prince George. The interviewer probed about perceived current and anticipated future impacts of the program, both positive and negative. A descriptive content analysis was performed. A conceptual framework of hypothesized impacts was created based on the literature and a model of neighbourhood social capital by Carpiano (2006). Findings. Comments were overwhelmingly positive. Impacts were described on education, health services, economy, politics, and media. Some reported negative impacts included tension between the NMP and other departments at UNBC, and a strain on health system resource capacity. Participants also reported that the NMP has impacted social capital in the region. Social capital, defined as the resources belonging to a network of individuals, was a pervasive theme. Impacts on social cohesion, various forms of social capital, access to social capital and outcomes of social capital are described. Conclusions. The full impact of the NMP will likely not be felt for at least a decade, as the program is still relatively new to Prince George. Findings suggest that an undergraduate medical education program can have pervasive impacts in an underserved community. Evaluation of the impact of such programs should be broad in scope. Findings also suggest that impacts of the program on other community sectors and on social capital may in fact lead to greater human capital gains than originally anticipated. A comprehensive communication strategy should be developed and maintained to ensure continued stakeholder support for the program. Next steps include identifying key quantifiable indicators of community impact to track changes in the community over time.

Since early 2010, Facebook.com, the world’s most popular social network site (SNS), has come under a storm of media criticism over the commercial use of its users’ personal information. Yet even as more became known about the fact that Facebook sells publicly shared information to companies for advertising purposes, two years later the SNS amassed one billion members in October 2012. Based on in-depth interviews 30 Millennials (18 to 32-year olds) and 10 Boomers (48 to 58-year olds) that are daily users of Facebook, this dissertation provides a qualitative analysis of attitudes toward privacy and personal information disclosure on Facebook. What steps—if any—are being taken by users to regulate their personal information disclosure? How do users feel about the website selling their personal information to advertisers? What are the benefits of using Facebook and do they outweigh the risks of having one’s information used for commercial purposes? Or is it even seen as a risk at all? What are the sociological implications of users’ answers to these questions? I challenge prevailing conclusions that the intensity of Facebook use is associated with higher levels of social capital and that Facebook is especially useful for maintaining and building bridging ties to one’s acquaintances. On the contrary, among Millennials in my study, the website is used for maintaining bonding ties between close friends and family members, not bridging ties between acquaintances; that the maintaining of bridging social capital is by comparison merely a passive benefit. As well, while the Boomers in my study use Facebook to maintain bridging ties, maintaining social capital is not a consideration. In arriving at this conclusion, I thematically broke out the benefits of using Facebook as Facebook is my life online, Facebook is my primary connection to others, and Facebook is a convenient communication and information tool. As well, the perceived risks of using Facebook involve a lack of privacy and, to a lesser extent, issues of control. For the Millennials and Boomers in my study, the practical benefits of using Facebook outweigh the perceived risks, and the perception of control on the user’s part is a key factor in rationalizing their ongoing use of the website. As a practical application of my findings, I propose how the marketing research industry might apply these findings toward learning more about consumers.

This thesis is an exploration of strain, its sources, its manifestation, and how individuals cope with it. The particular scenario under investigation is that of Christian university students in a secular academic environment. Using Agnew’s general strain theory, Goffman’s theory of discreditable stigma, subcultural theory, and recent advances in the study of social capital, the strain experienced by Christian students in a secular university atmosphere was explored. Ethnographic content analysis of on-campus Christian groups, participant observation and semi-structured interviews of 43 Christian university students were used to investigate four postulates: 1. Christian students experience strain as a result of their religiosity on a secular campus; 2. This strain manifests as a discreditable stigma; 3. This strain results in Christian students becoming members of on-campus Christian groups (seeking a subculture); and 4. Memberships in Christian groups provide access to support through social capital. There was evidence to support postulates 1, 2, and 4, while postulate 3 was not supported by the data collected. Strain theory proved to be a useful concept for understanding how Christian students interacted with their secular environment. The data suggest that the university atmosphere was challenging to their beliefs both inside and outside the classroom. Christian students also indicated that they often censored themselves in front of their colleagues and peers and did not feel comfortable disclosing their Christian beliefs to new friends. The reason given for this was more time was needed in order to quell certain negative assumptions and stereotypes that non-Christians may have about Christians. This description is suggestive of Goffman’s concept of discreditable stigma, in that stigmatized persons attempt to “pass” so that their stigma (Christianity in this case) will not prejudice current and future encounters. Students did not join Christian groups as a way to cope with the strain they felt within academia, as many students joined these groups upon entry into university (rather than joining after encountering strain). It was found that students experienced benefits from membership within Christian groups, demonstrating the utility of social capital (i.e., network of support) as a conceptual framework. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-19 14:43:51.989