Associational Bonding and Associational Bridging: Facilitating Minority Involvement and Integration

• In Event: 549 - Section on International Migration Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 17. Ethnic Identities and Boundary Movements

Abstract

Using data from the Ethnic Minority British Election Study 2010, this paper suggests that we should modify some of our inherent preconceptions about the role of bridging and bonding social capital in the social and civic integration of the minority individual and allow for some gray areas in the overwhelmingly black and white characterization of bonding. Most policy reports fail to acknowledge the pervasive force of generational change. Moreover, neither associational bonding nor bridging exercise on the employment prospects of the individual any of the proverbial negative impact attributed to them. On the contrary, the two forms of social capital dimensions are positively associated with voting and employment. Research has tended to compartmentalize cohesion, to place it within the realm of generalized trust, and to overlook other important outcomes and forms of associations. Nevertheless, this analysis has shown that when it comes to trusting, for most minority individuals, organizational bonding or bridging matter little. It is an organizational bonding among white British that can bring the crystallization of feelings of discontent. A possible policy recommendation can be drawn – to encourage organizational and community-wide involvement rather than criticize intra-ethnic allegiances. Bridging and bonding have complimentary not contradictory effects.

Author

• Neli Demireva, Nuffield College