Social capital and rural development: literature review and current state of the art

Social capital has been recently held up as a conceptual framework to build a bridge between the diverse disciplines involved in rural development. However, despite its potential and the impressively rapid take-up of the concept by the community of development professionals, it remains an elusive construct. No definition is yet generally accepted and many definitions are in use. Recently, social capital in the form of social networks has gained much attention in rural development theory and empirical research. But social networks or structural components of social capital are a largely missing dimension in income and poverty analysis. Moreover, most research on social capital assumes that it is a uniform entity. Therefore, the effects of different forms of social capital on household outcome are rarely investigated. The objective of this discussion paper is to make the concept of social capital more tangible for empirical research in the area of rural development and to bring more structure into the conceptual framework of social capital. On the basis of an extensive literature review, this work proposes a lean and clear definition of social capital: Social capital is conceived as networks plus resources, (e.g. credit, information). Moreover, social capital is assumed to be not a homogeneous entity. Hence, it is necessary to distinguish different forms of social capital. For analytical purposes, the separation into so-called bonding and bridging capital seems to be most appealing. These two forms of social capital can be operationalized as function of an agent's so-called weak ties (e.g. acquaintances) and so-called strong ties (e.g. close relatives). -- G E R M A N V E R S I O N: Sozialkapital hat innerhalb der letzten zwei Jahrzehnte als interdisziplinäres Konzept eine enorme Bedeutung sowohl in der Wissenschaft als auch in der praktischen ländlichen Entwicklung erlangt. Trotz eines ‚Booms’ an wissenschaftlichen und nicht wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten bleibt das Konzept wenig greifbar. Bisher konnte sich die wissenschaftliche Gemeinde auf keine allgemeingültige Definition einigen. Sehr unterschiedliche und zum Teil sehr umfassende Definitionen sind in Gebrauch. Neuere Arbeiten tendieren allerdings dazu, Sozialkapital enger zu definieren und Netzwerke in den Vordergrund zu stellen. Nichtsdestotrotz werden strukturelle Komponenten von Sozialkapital oder Netzwerken nur selten in Einkommens- und Armutsanalysen einbezogen. Es wird auch noch oft unterstellt, dass Sozialkapital eine homogene Ressource ist. Deshalb werden dessen unterschiedlichen Ausprägungen noch seltener untersucht. Das Hauptziel dieses Diskussionspapiers ist es, einen geeigneten Ansatz für die empirische Forschung im Bereich ländlicher Entwicklung, basierend auf dem Netzwerkansatz, herauszuarbeiten. Basierend auf einer intensiven Literaturrecherche empfiehlt das Papier eine klare und einfache Definition von Sozialkapital. Sozialkapital wird als Netzwerk plus Ressourcen definiert. Unterschiedliche Formen von Sozialkapital (‚Bonding’ und ‚Bridging’) werden über die Stärke der Beziehung der Netzwerkteilnehmer bestimmt.Social capital,individual social capital,measuring social capital,ego-network,social networks

Exploring the Knowledge Sharing Practices among Medical Doctors in Ibadan Metropolis, Nigeria

Medical doctors constitute a vital component of the health sector’s workforce. One major factor that aids their efficiency is knowledge of practice and what they do with it. Literature is replete with knowledge-sharing cases among other professionals but less visible concerning physicians, especially in Nigeria. This study investigates the knowledge-sharing practices among doctors in Ibadan, one of the country’s major cities. The descriptive survey research design was adopted, and data collected through interviews with sixteen doctors selected through convenience sampling. Findings show that the doctors shared knowledge regularly through social media, formal discussions, and informal deliberations. The findings also indicated that the doctors derive benefits from exchanging information, while the knowledgesharing process challenges stem from adverse social factors. This study is useful to medical practitioners, medical associations, and policymakers who need data for staff development and how that impacts the health sector

Globalization and Maritime Security Conference Report

Portions of this work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344, LLNL-AR-409177.LLNL-AR-409177DE-AC52-07NA2734

Human experience in the natural and built environment : implications for research policy and practice

22nd IAPS conference. Edited book of abstracts. 427 pp. University of Strathclyde, Sheffield and West of Scotland Publication. ISBN: 978-0-94-764988-3

Women and science in development: a longitudinal analysis of gender, networks, and information technology in Ghana, Kenya, and India

This dissertation examines the gendered nature of the scientific career for researchers in universities and national research institutes in Ghana, Kenya, and Kerala India. Employing panel data, I analyze three issues related to the diffusion of ICTs in the scientific communities of less developed areas: 1) access; 2) interaction; 3) and involvement. More specifically, I examine the way in which human capital, family structure, travel experiences, contextual factors, and technological antecedents interact with gender to influence access to and use of personal computers, email, and the Web. From there, I incorporate technological behavioral changes to predict interaction within professional networks. In the last step, I incorporate professional network measures to examine the gendered nature of research outcomes in the form of scientific productivity. The results suggest that over time ICTs have rapidly diffused within the three locations. At the same time, women continue to report less long-term access to email and the web. Furthermore, men and women are distinctly different in terms of intensity and extent of email and web use with women emerging as less technologically oriented. In spite of the differences on these measures, men are not earlier adopters of the technologies than women. It does not appear, however, that there is a consistent relationship between greater email use and integration within professional networks. Gender, on the other hand, emerges as one of the most consistent predictors of network outcomes, particularly in terms of absolute network size, geographic and gender diversity, and the proportion of male contacts reported. Finally, men and women are equally productive in domestic venues, but women are less productive in foreign venues. Furthermore, network structure is not as strongly related to productivity as are changes in technological use behavior. Respondents using email for a wider variety of reasons over time produce more in foreign and domestic venues, but intensity of email use is actually negatively related to productivity, suggesting that it is not technology use in general that matters when predicting outcomes, but the type of technology use. Network structure on the other hand, is only a significant predictor of domestic productivity

Eye quietness and quiet eye in expert and novice golf performance: an electrooculographic analysis

Quiet eye (QE) is the final ocular fixation on the target of an action (e.g., the ball in golf putting). Camerabased eye-tracking studies have consistently found longer QE durations in experts than novices; however, mechanisms underlying QE are not known. To offer a new perspective we examined the feasibility of measuring the QE using electrooculography (EOG) and developed an index to assess ocular activity across time: eye quietness (EQ). Ten expert and ten novice golfers putted 60 balls to a 2.4 m distant hole. Horizontal EOG (2ms resolution) was recorded from two electrodes placed on the outer sides of the eyes. QE duration was measured using a EOG voltage threshold and comprised the sum of the pre-movement and post-movement initiation components. EQ was computed as the standard deviation of the EOG in 0.5 s bins from –4 to +2 s, relative to backswing initiation: lower values indicate less movement of the eyes, hence greater quietness. Finally, we measured club-ball address and swing durations. T-tests showed that total QE did not differ between groups (p = .31); however, experts had marginally shorter pre-movement QE (p = .08) and longer post-movement QE (p < .001) than novices. A group × time ANOVA revealed that experts had less EQ before backswing initiation and greater EQ after backswing initiation (p = .002). QE durations were inversely correlated with EQ from –1.5 to 1 s (rs = –.48 - –.90, ps = .03 - .001). Experts had longer swing durations than novices (p = .01) and, importantly, swing durations correlated positively with post-movement QE (r = .52, p = .02) and negatively with EQ from 0.5 to 1s (r = –.63, p = .003). This study demonstrates the feasibility of measuring ocular activity using EOG and validates EQ as an index of ocular activity. Its findings challenge the dominant perspective on QE and provide new evidence that expert-novice differences in ocular activity may reflect differences in the kinematics of how experts and novices execute skills

Education Systems Around the World

This book, "Education Systems Around the World", is a collection of reviewed and relevant research chapters that offer a comprehensive overview of recent developments in the field of social sciences and humanities. The book comprises single chapters authored by various researchers and edited by an expert active in the field of social studies and humanities. All chapters are unique but are united under a common research study topic. This publication aims to provide a thorough overview of the latest research efforts by international authors on social studies and humanities, and open new possible research paths for further novel developments

Information Outlook, August 2001

Volume 5, Issue 8https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2001/1007/thumbnail.jp