Talk:The Social Capital Foundation/Draft

Questions

Dear Mr. Demol, I hate to ask a critical question in our very first communication, but I must: do you have a relationship to The Social Capital Foundation? May I ask what it is, if so?

It appears that the information in the article was taken from the organization's literature--is that true?

Finally, I notice that the article (or text from it) appeared in Wikipedia. If so, CZ:WP2CZ is relevant. --Larry Sanger 20:28, 19 June 2008 (CDT)

Hi, Mr Sanger, I am in relation with them but not actually involved. The information in the article is drawn part from the literature and publications of the organization and part from Wikipedia. For example I was informed of the findings of the conferences through publications and abstracts. Please consider that this is a draft article and that it will be reelaborated shortly. I hope this can meet your expectations. Please indicate what I can do to improve and which parts would need to be developed/transformed. Best wishes. Koen Demol 21:57, 19 June 2008 (CDT)

I don't have any specific suggestions right now, except that it be written with CZ:Article Mechanics and CZ:Neutrality Policy in mind. Thanks for the reply. --Larry Sanger 12:02, 20 June 2008 (CDT)

Adding internal links (i.e., CZ links)

Koen, welcome to Citizendium (CZ) from a fellow Citizen. I hope you enjoy participating here.

I must admit this article is completely outside my field of expertise (I am a retired chemical engineer). However, I have added a number of CZ links (internal links to other CZ articles) whether they are links to currently existing articles (which show up as blue) or links to currently non-existing articles that someone should write in the future (which show up as red). As an example to help you, I only added the CZ links to the first few paragraphs.

The red links to currently non-existent articles are just as important as the blue links because they serve as prompts for people to write those articles ... and that helps CZ grow.

If you disagree with any of the links I added, please feel free to delete them. I am just trying to help you as a newcomer.

Again, merely intended as help, I note that the Metadata sheet indicates that American English (AE) will be used. If that was your intent, then the word "programme" in the section on on Social Capital should really be changed to "program".

Once again, welcome to CZ and I hope that my comments will help you. Best regards, Milton Beychok 10:38, 21 June 2008 (CDT)

Thanks! Koen Demol 12:07, 21 June 2008 (CDT)

Categories and tags

I see that you were trying to list the categories and tags at the bottom of the Edit page of the Main page. That is all automatically done by the system based on the data entered into the Metadata page. You do not have to manually do it yourself. In fact, if you try to do it manually, things get messed up. I believe that I have straightened it out now and the proper categories and tags are currently shown at the bottom of the main page. Regards, Milton Beychok 17:50, 21 June 2008 (CDT)

OK, thanks. Koen Demol 16:21, 23 June 2008 (CDT)

Ready for Approval?

This article may be nearing completion, but there are still a number of things to be attended to. The second paragraph requires some attention to bring it into greater coherence with the Social capital entry. (Since both are unapproved, where the other article is wrong, attention should be on correcting that, but in most cases, this may be a matter of explaining further what is meant by the somewhat maverick SCF conceptions.) We need to make clearer that the SCF approach to "social capital" is quite distinct from other, more socio-economic approaches in which the term "capital" approaches some of its conventional economic meanings.

Attributing Jane Jacobs with a formative role in social capital is somewhat unusual. Is there a source, quotation or other evidence to support that? Also, the present sentence gives Bourdeau a greater role than most authorities on social capital tend to acknowledge. It isn't clear from this what his contributions were. Can those be documented or clarified? (E.g., what exactly, did Jacobs and Bourdeau say about social capital that earns them this listing, and why exactly was Bourdeau's "the first coherent exposition"? (I may not agree with parts of it, but Hanifan's 1916 statement is arguably altogether coherent.)

Finally, the statements about Patrick Hunout's importance in all this also require some further clarity. Perhaps the statement about him in the second paragraph should be included in the next instead, since he seems either to be the source of the SCF conception of social capital, or SCF is his ideological vehicle. Also, the last sentence in this paragraph ends with a phrase that isn't at all clear: "the erosion of the social link in the economically developed countries"? What does that mean? (In general, the notion of "the social link" in Hunout/SCF needs some further clarification.)

It would probably be fair to add that the SCF conception is a far more social psychological (or subjective and mentalistic) conception of social capital than most of the others discussed in paragraph 2 (or any of those discussed in the social capital entry). The statements rejecting a structuralist/network conception of social capital should make that clear.) Hunout appears to stand rather apart from those listed elsewhere in the social capital entry in suggesting the first assumption. (And, in doing so, he seems to preclude much possibility of any possible economic connotation or connection to the "capital" in social capital; such mentalistic (or subjective) conceptions were washed out of most of economics, and in particular, "utility" and capital in the neo-classical revolution of the 19th century.

In fact even though they use the term, Hunout and the SCF might fairly be characterized as more within the sociological communitarian tradition than any social capital theory per se. (Keeping in mind, our role is not to cast judgment on these matters, but to fairly and accurately characterize them.) This seems clear in the "triparte model of social change", for example, which appears not to rely on or relate to social capital at all.

Roger Lohmann 02:43, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear Roger,

Thank you for your remarks that were very useful to improve further the article.

I read the Social capital entry. The first paragraph is most strange, and is contradicted by the second. It would need to be corrected and I will perhaps rewrite it in a second stage, time permitting.

Going back to the TSCF article, I made a number of changes, some minor and others more substantial. I rewrote the first paragraph on the history of the concept. There are more precisions on Halifan and on Jacobs who indeed seems to have introduced the concept in an urban and neighbourliness context. Later in text I mentioned that the TSCF conception is a more social psychological or mentalistic conception of social capital than most of the others discussed in paragraph 2 or in the social capital entry. I made a slight rectification to indicate that this definition includes the mental disposition (upstream) and the "capital" aspect (downstream), but suggests that the latter cannot be fully understood without reference to the former.

As for the erosion of the social link I removed this sentence but it means that in the industrial countries the link or bond between people becomes increasingly weaker. The social link or bond has been defined by Hirschi (1969) this way: “elements of social bonding include attachment to families, commitment to social norms and institutions (school, employment), involvement in activities, and the belief that these things are important” (p.16).

Koen Demol 21:59, 26 October 2008 (UTC)