Bridging capital and social cohesion in an English village

1. Bridging capital and social cohesion in an English village Roy Greenhalgh 12th November, 2008

2. Context • A small English village of 900 inhabitants. • Has a primary school, Anglican church, independent chapel, pub, community run shop and post office and village hall, and village field. • Has a growing retired population with few young families and transitory professionals. Turnover of houses approx 5 to 7% p.a. • Has full range of semi-skilled workers (quarry and farming) through to senior management in multimillion private sector and security sector. • Mix of housing with 80% private, estate and housing association

3. Purpose of the study • A gradual change in age of population leads to change in interest in joining/membership of voluntary local associations; • Despite a low rate of influx of young families, involvement in voluntary village associations proves difficult; • Village has a thriving, successful community owned and run village shop/post office. • Surfaced question is:- • Can small communities or informal groups with high social cohesion positively affect others with low social cohesion? If so, how?

4. Study design • A case study • group numbers < 35 per group, therefore traditional quantitative approach inappropriate; • Traditional sampling approaches inappropriate .. scale too small; • Diffusion is an individual process; • Need to maintain all the characteristics of each individual; • A suitable philosophical approach is primarily “relational”; • Analytical method is to use Network Analysis. Yin, R. K. (2003). Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Thousand Oaks, Ca, Sage. Scott, J. (1991). Social Network Analysis: A Handbook. London, Sage. Brown, S. L. (2007). "The adoption and implementation of a service innovation in a social work setting - a case study of family group conferencing in the UK." Social Policy and Society6(3): 321-332.

5. The broad issues • “Social cohesion is a state of affairs .... amongst members of society as characterised by a set of attitudes and norms that include trust, a sense of belonging and willingness to participate and help as well as their behavioural manifestations” (p.290); • Bridging capital is outward looking, requiring a wide network of less dense relationships with far fewer multiplex strands ; • Bridging and bonding capital’s strength can be measured in terms of weak to strong ties (Granovetter); • Theorised that an increase in cohesion is brought about by an increase in deployment of bridging capital. Chan, J., H.-P. To, et al. (2006). "Reconsidering Social Cohesion : Developing a definition and analytical framework for empirical research " Social Indicators Research75: 273–302. Granovetter, M. (1973). "The Strength of Weak Ties." American Journal of Sociology78(6): 1360-1380.

6. Method • Relational – “qualitative plus” • Qualitative – questionnaires with supplementary semi-structured interviews to verify and extend known knowledge. • 3 organisations • Village shop – 31 members; • WI committee – 6 members; • Parish Council – 6 members . Cross, R. and A. Parker (2004). The Hidden Power of Social Networks. Boston, Mass, Harvard Business School Press. Borgatti, S. (2007). "structure of SNA questionnaires." from http://www.insna.org/. Wasserman, S. and K. Faust (1994). Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

7. Method (2) • Indicators • A measure of :- • the network in which subjects lived; • the reciprocity between subjects; • the trust between subjects; • the manner in which social norms operated between subjects; • how social agency appeared to work. Leonard, R. and J. Onyx (2003). "Networking Through Loose and Strong Ties: An Australian Qualitative Study." Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations14(2). Yin, R. K. (2003). Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Thousand Oaks, Ca, Sage.

8. The Questionnaires

9. Response matrix

10. The distribution of ties at level “I know very well” between helpers and supervisors Density = 0.18, SD =0.38 At level 2,3 & 4, Density = 0.94 With SD = 0.244.

11. Frequency of working together, 1, 2 or monthly

12. Distribution of shop helpers/supervisors who are members of and office holders in other village organizations

13. Findings - shop workers • Cohesion amongst the shop workers is high (d=0.94); • Correlation between “How often do you work with these helpers?” with a subset (reply value of 2) of “How well do you know these helpers?” (r=0.34, sig <0.001) indicates a situation where staff can continue to get to know each other; • High network connectivity facilitates easy flow of resources throughout the network; • Ratio of strong ties to all ties (0.18:0.94) is healthy and shows there is no potential “lock-out” of new members; • There is a wide spread of involvement in other village organisations. Wellman, B. (1979). "The Community Question: The Intimate Networks of East Yorkers." American Journal of Sociology 84(5 ): 1201-1231.

14. Involvement of supervisors and helpers in other village organisations

15. Findings – WI committee • Network values for the committee show high cohesion (d=0.99) and in-out degree at 1.0 for all officers; • High trust and high reciprocity exist, with good “obligation debtedness”; • High involvement in other village organisations, with equally high officer membership; • Local branch have regular group and national meetings with opportunities to bridge to out-of-village WI organisations; • Some committee members do “bridge” to non-WI organisations in and out of village. Coleman, J. S. (1988). "Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital." American Journal of Sociology94: 95-120.

16. Conclusions • Successful bridging has been an individual social activity; • Bridging is risky; • Most bridgers are professional class in-comers; • Initial moves were to develop vulnerable weak-weak ties; • Some weak-weak ties have changed into stronger ties; • It is the learned professional skills that have been the basis for bridging skills.

17. References (1) • (2003). "Ethical Guidelines." Retrieved 21 Sept. , 2007, from www.the-sra.org.uk. • Beauvais, C. and J. Jenson (2002). Social Cohesion: Updating the State of the Research. Ottawa, Canadian Policy Research Networks. • Beauvais, C. and J. Jenson (May 2002). Social Cohesion: Updating the State of the Research. Ottawa, Canadian Policy Research Networks. • Borgatti, S. (2007, 24 September 2007). "A question re your paper "Towards ethical guidelines for network research".” • Borgatti, S. (2007). "structure of SNA questionnaires." from http://www.insna.org/. • Borgatti, S. P., M. G. Everett, et al. (2002). UCInet for Windows: Software for Social Network Analysis. Vsn 6. Harvard, MA:, Analytic Technologies. • Bryman, A. and D. Cramer (1994). Quantitative Data Analysis for Social Scientists. London, Routledge. • Chan, J., H.-P. To, et al. (2006). "Reconsidering Social Cohesion : Developing a definition and analytical framework for empirical research " Social Indicators Research75: 273–302. • Churchill, E. F. and C. A. Halverson (2005). "Social Networks and Social Networking." IEEE Internet Computing September - October: 14-19. • Coleman, J. S. (1988). "Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital." American Journal of Sociology94: 95-120. • Cross, R. and A. Parker (2004). The Hidden Power of Social Networks. Boston, Mass, Harvard Business School Press. • Fent, T., P. Groeber, et al. (2007). "Coexistence of Social Norms based on In- and Out-group Interactions." ACS - Advances in Complex Systems10(2 ): 271-286.

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