Downsides of social capital Portes, Alejandro
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
12/2014, Letnik:
111, Številka:
52
Journal Article
The sociological study of economic activity has witnessed a significant resurgence. Recent texts have chronicled economic sociology's nineteenth-century origins while pointing to the importance of ...context and power in economic life, yet the field lacks a clear understanding of the role that concepts at different levels of abstraction play in its organization. Economic Sociology fills this critical gap by surveying the current state of the field while advancing a framework for further theoretical development.
Institutions count Portes, Alejandro; Smith, Lori D
2012., 20121006, 2012, 2012-09-12, 20120101
eBook
What leads to national progress? The growing consensus in the social sciences is that neither capital flows, nor the savings rate, nor diffuse values are the key, but that it lies in the quality of a ...nation's institutions. This book is the first comparative study of how real institutions affect national development. It seeks to examine and deepen this insight through a systematic study of institutions in five Latin American countries and how they differ within and across nations. Postal systems, stock exchanges, public health services and others were included in the sample, all studied with the same methodology. The country chapters present detailed results of this empirical exercise for each individual country. The introductory chapters present the theoretical framework and research methodology for the full study. The summary results of this ambitious study presented in the concluding chapter draw comparisons across countries and discuss what these results mean for national development in Latin America.
Conclusions to books or journal issues commonly seek to summarize the preceding articles or chapters and offer some general guidelines about the relevant subject matter. This is a demanding but ...feasible task when the preceding material consists of empirical studies that lend themselves to an effort of synthesis. When the contents of the book or journal are, as in this case, themselves summaries of the literature and general reflections on the character of the field, the synthetic enterprises become far more demanding. It is difficult to agree with the conclusions and prescriptions of some authors without disagreeing with those of others. It is also unfair to take advantage of having the last word to comment critically on the arguments or recommendations advanced in the preceding articles. The editors of this issue have ably summarized in their introduction the principal arguments presented in each article. It would be an unnecessary duplication to do so here. Instead, I propose to do the opposite of what is generally expected in a conclusion. That is, instead of presenting theoretical reflections on empirical materials, I intend to supplement the abundant theoretical arguments contained in this issue with a summary presentation of actual results. The latter come from the recently completed surveys of the Comparative Immigrant Entrepreneurship Project (CIEP). Before doing so, however, it would be useful to summarize some of the empirical and conceptual points on which the until-recently contentious literature on transnationalism has reached a measure of consensus. They represent indicators of progress, insofar as the weight of evidence and subsequent reflection on it have gradually led scholars from very different perspectives to agree on the tenability of certain arguments and the weakness of others.
This paper reviews the origins and definitions of social capital in the writings of Bourdieu, Loury, and Coleman, among other authors. It distinguishes four sources of social capital and examines ...their dynamics. Applications of the concept in the sociological literature emphasize its role in social control, in family support, and in benefits mediated by extrafamilial networks. I provide examples of each of these positive functions. Negative consequences of the same processes also deserve attention for a balanced picture of the forces at play. I review four such consequences and illustrate them with relevant examples. Recent writings on social capital have extended the concept from an individual asset to a feature of communities and even nations. The final sections describe this conceptual stretch and examine its limitations. I argue that, as shorthand for the positive consequences of sociability, social capital has a definite place in sociological theory. However, excessive extensions of the concept may jeopardize its heuristic value.
This introduction explores reasons for the continuing debate on the subject of transnationalism and persistent scepticism about the significance of the topic. The basis for such disagreements has to ...do less with the actual existence of the phenomenon than with methodological shortcomings that led to its overestimation in the early literature and the conceptual failure to distinguish between cross‐border activities conducted by major institutions and by private actors in civil society. I explore these various problems seeking to clarify the actual scope of the phenomenon of transnationalism and its novel character. Despite recent findings that point to limited numerical involvement of immigrant groups in transnational activities, the latter remain significant because of their prospective growth and their impact on both immigrant adaptation in receiving countries and the development prospects of sending nations and communities. The evidence presented in the following articles document in detail these various aspects and indicates the multiple forms adopted by this phenomenon among immigrant groups in Europe and the United States.
This book identifies the constellation of factors that allow certain urban places to become "emerging global cities"-centers of commerce, finance, art, and culture for entire regions. It traces the ...transformations of Dubai, Miami, and Singapore, identifying key features common to these cities.
Much like the United States, the countries of Western Europe have experienced massive immigration in the last three decades. Spain, in particular, has been transformed from an immigrant-exporting ...country to one receiving hundreds of thousands of new immigrants. Today, almost 13 percent of the country’s population is foreign-born. Spanish Legacies, written by internationally known experts on immigration, explores how the children of immigrants—the second generation—are coping with the challenges of adaptation to Spanish society, comparing their experiences with those of their peers in the United States. Using a rich data set based on both survey and ethnographic material, Spanish Legacies describes the experiences of growing up by the large population of second-generation youths in Spain and the principal outcomes of the process—from national self-identification and experiences of discrimination to educational attainment and labor-market entry. The study is based on a sample of almost 7,000 second-generation students who were interviewed in Madrid and Barcelona in 2008 and then followed and re-interviewed four years later. A survey of immigrant parents, a replacement sample for lost respondents in the second survey, and a survey of native-parentage students complement this rich data set. Outcomes of the adaptation process in Spain are systematically presented in five chapters, introduced by real-life histories of selected respondents drawn by the study’s ethnographic module. Systematic comparisons with results from the United States show a number of surprising similarities in the adaptation of children of immigrants in both countries, as well as differences marked by contrasting experiences of discrimination, self-identities, and ambition.
Immigrant America Portes, Alejandro; Rumbaut, Rubén G
2014., 20140908, 2014, 2014-08-30
eBook
This revised, updated, and expanded fourth edition of Immigrant America: A Portrait provides readers with a comprehensive and current overview of immigration to the United States in a single volume. ...Updated with the latest available data, Immigrant America explores the economic, political, spatial, and linguistic aspects of immigration; the role of religion in the acculturation and social integration of foreign minorities; and the adaptation process for the second generation. This revised edition includes new chapters on theories of migration and on the history of U.S.-bound migration from the late nineteenth century to the present, offering an updated and expanded concluding chapter on immigration and public policy.
This paper summarises a research programme on the new immigrant second generation initiated in the early 1990s and completed in 2006. The four field waves of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal ...Study (CILS) are described and the main theoretical models emerging from it are presented and graphically summarised. After considering critical views of this theory, we present the most recent results from this longitudinal research programme in the form of quantitative models predicting downward assimilation in early adulthood and qualitative interviews identifying ways for the disadvantaged children of immigrants to escape it. Quantitative results strongly support the predicted effects of exogenous variables identified by segmented assimilation theory and identify the intervening factors during adolescence that mediate their influence on adult outcomes. Qualitative evidence gathered during the last stage of the study points to three factors that can lead to exceptional educational achievement among disadvantaged youths, and which indicate the positive influence of selective acculturation. Finally, the implications of these findings for theory and policy are discussed.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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