Comparative Study of Social Networks and Social Resources

• In Event: 294 - Regular Session. Social Capital and the Community

Abstract

There is a growing interest in sociology for considering “lives in contexts”, i.e. the way we are influenced by the personal communities we are living in. The life-course paradigm (Levy et al, 2005) and other theoretical and methodological schools in social sciences have discovered the importance of “social embeddedness”, i.e. the web of social relations and the support and resources individuals can access through them (Bourdieu 1983; Lin 1982). From this perspective “social resources” or “social capital” should be considered as supplementing economic and cultural capital.
Recent studies about social changes have insisted on the rise of individualism and, at the same time, the reduction of various forms of welfare provision in many countries. In such a context it is even more important to have access to resources through one’s personal relations. The crucial question is, of course, if these resources can (partly) take over functions previously provided by the welfare state and what happens to people who have only limited or no networks?
Such a general question is particularly well suited to be investigated in a comparative perspective even if framing it in different countries is a particular challenge for comparison. The aim of this contribution is to discuss some way to implement a social network approach in a comparative survey like the ISSP that have decided to field this topic in the 2017 edition.

Authors

• Dominique Joye, University of Lausanne

• Marlène Sapin, University of Lausanne and FORS

• Christof Wolf, Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences