What is Social Capital?
Social capital can be delineated as networks in tandem with shared norms, values and knowledge that aid collaboration within or among groups. It alludes to the resources accessible in and via individual and business networks. These resources comprise of conceptions, data, information, business prospects, power, capital and emotional support (OECD, 2016). Kritsotakis and Gamarnikow (2004) explain that social capital can be delineated as the summation of five characteristics. First is the existence of community networks, which encompasses human interrelation within a community through societies, groups and other networks. Secondly, there is civic engagement that includes the participation of individuals in the communal practices and the utilization of the aforementioned networks. A third feature is civic identity and it includes the feeling of equivalent participation within a community. The fourth feature is reciprocity as mutual assistance amongst members in a community, and lastly having trust and not dread (Kritsotakis and Gamarnikow, 2004).
Why it's important for Community Development and Health Education?
According to Jordan et al. (2010) social capital has real and substantial impact in all walks of life. It has been argued that social capital instigates and fosters collaboration, team work, and coordination, which as a result has a wide range of micro and macro level results that are useful and valuable. Social capital plays an important role in community development. It functions as an important, fundamental...
Social capital is deemed to be a component in helping community activities. Having social capital within a community facilitates its development in the sense that it gives rise to coordination of people, organizations and community institutions as they work in tandem toward a mutual objective in a community. Social capital helps decision-making for the reason that members of communities do not necessitate any renegotiation every instance they get into a joint activity, as a result of projected or anticipated behavior (Tirmizi, 2005). In addition, social capital decreases ambiguity and obscurity between members of a group or community Social capital offers individual members or groups or communities with resources to disseminate the risk linked to development actions. Social capital also aids community development as it expedites coordination as a result of improved communication between group members or communities, therefore decreasing inefficiencies. What is more, social capital makes it permissible to have better sharing of physical and human capital between groups or communities, which in sequence aids productivity and decreases operation expenses (Tirmizi, 2005).
Social capital is also important for health education. Collective social capital links to the community development approach of health education. In particular, health education programs that build on and strengthen community development principles do not have the key goal of precluding a certain illness or promoting a particular health outcome (DiClemente…
