University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Graduate Theses and Dissertations 8-2017 Qualitative Analysis of Social Capital in Arkansas – A Case Study based Approach Valerie Kilders University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.edu/etd Part of the Agricultural Economics Commons Citation Kilders, V. Qualitative Analysis of Social Capital in Arkansas – A Case Study based Approach. Graduate Theses and Dissertations Retrieved from https://scholarworks.edu/etd/2419 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK.
For more information, please contact scholar@uark. Qualitative Analysis of Social Capital in Arkansas – A Case Study based Approach A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Agriculture Economics by Valerie Kilders Humboldt University zu Berlin Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, 2015 August 2017 University of Arkansas This thesis is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. Eric Wailes Thesis Director _________________________________ _________________________________ Dr. Joost Dessein Dr.
Daniel Rainey Committee Member Committee Member Abstract Despite the vast research on social capital in general, only very little research is focused on the quality of social capital. While some research studies incorporated aspects that are associated with the quality of social capital, they often take a one dimensional approach that fails to take the different aspects of the topic into consideration. In order to gain more insights into this I conducted a series of semi-structured interviews in three rural counties in Arkansas. The counties were selected on the basis of a social capital index of all U.
counties using quantitative measures. I used a guide on qualitative research on social capital as my conceptual framework to analyze the interviews. The analysis, which utilized NVivo, a qualitative data management program, yielded a variety of results. I was able to observe that the involvement in a large number of groups tended to prevent participants from becoming involved on a deeper level.
However, often the same people were involved in the majority of groups and many of the groups struggled to recruit new members. In addition, ethnic differences were not perceived to be a hampering factor in building intense social capital by the participants. Among other things the results also showed that there are noteworthy differences in the quality of social capital between the three counties. The results indicate that there seems to be a correlation between the level of local social capital when measured via qualitative or quantitative indicators.
A factor that should be explored further in future research. This study supplements the growing body of literature on social capital. In exploring the largely untapped aspect of social capital quality new insights are gained. The results can be used to improve existing measures of social capital and to develop more efficient policies, particularly for rural areas in Arkansas Acknowledgements I would like to thank the members of my thesis committee, Dr.
Eric Wailes, Dr. Daniel Rainey, and Dr. Their continued support and valuable input has been a tremendous help in conducting my research and writing my thesis. I have also greatly benefitted from the assistance of Dr.
Jeff Miller, who has given me indispensable advice on qualitative research and for the use of the NVivo software. In addition my thanks goes to all the participants of the different counties. Giving me your time and sharing your thoughts with me has been invaluable for my research. I am indebted to the fantastic administrative staff at the Agricultural Economics and Agricultural Business department of the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food & Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas.
The department has been vital in making this research possible. I would also like to thank Evy Mettepenningen, who has been very supportive in administrative matters. Lastly I am deeply grateful to the professors, the university staff, fellow students and friends I have met throughout my academic path. They have supplied me with the knowledge, skills and perseverance to write this thesis.
Dedication I would like to dedicate this thesis to my parents and my sister. Despite thoroughly testing their patience at times, they have supported me relentlessly in all matters of life. By passing on their experience and imprinting me with their values they have given me the ability to see the world with open eyes and inspired me to live off the beaten path. They have allowed me to pursue my goals and for this I am forever thankful.
Das Erste, was der Mensch im Leben vorfindet, das Letzte wonach er die Hand ausstreckt, das Kostbarste was er im Leben besitzt ist die Familie – Adolf Kolping Table of Contents 1.1 Indicators for Quality of Social Capital .2 Importance of Social Capital .3 Critique on the Concept and Measurement of Social Capital .1 Summary of Approach .3 Description of the Case Study Sites .1 Van Buren County .1 Results grouped by the six Dimensions .1 Groups and Networks .2 Trust and Solidarity .3 Collective Action and Cooperation .4 Information and Communication.5 Social Cohesion and Inclusion .6 Empowerment and political Action .2 Summary of Results .1 Limitations of Study. 61 List of Tables Table 1: Social Capital Indicators in Italy. 16 Table 2: List of Participants. 21 Table 3: Education Level of Participants.
22 Table 4: Median Age. 22 Table 5: Religious Adherents per County. 24 Table 6: County Data for Rupasingha, Goetz, and Freshwater’s Social Capital Index Indicators 28 List of Figures Figure 1: Dimensions of Social Capital. 6 Figure 2: Relationship between the different Forms of Capital.
14 Figure 3: Location of the Case Study Sites. 25 Figure 4: Annual Estimates of the Resident Population 2005-2015. 25 Figure 5: Median Household Income 2005-2015. 26 Figure 6: Unemployment Rate (not seasonally adjusted).
26 Abbreviations GDP Gross Domestic Product NCCS National Center for Charitable Statistics OECD Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development WVS World Value Survey 1 1. Introduction Rural America has been found to have a very rich community life (Kellogg Foundation, 2002) Butler Flora, Flora, and Gasteyer (2015) describe McKenzie Country North Dakota, a very rural area, where local shops trust their customer to pay later if they forget their checkbook. Ranchers work together to sustainably graze the land. Members of the community band together to erect a local playground.
These examples can be seen as evidence for high levels of social capital. Alongside cultural capital and human capital, the concept of social capital, while a less tangible form of capital, is increasingly studied in the socio-economic literature. The database ProQuest renders 47,137 results for the period of 1996-2016 for a keyword search on social capital. The growing literature on the topic has shown the various areas on which social capital can have an influence.
Some examples include Putnam, Leonardi and Nonetti (1993), who investigated the role of social capital in the economic advantage the north of Italy has over the south. Akçomak and ter Weel (2012) found a correlation between crime rates and the level of social capital and Acar (2011) found a positive influence of social capital on educational performance. Organizations such as the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Co- Operation and Development (OECD) have recognized the importance of social capital for rural development and are actively integrating social capital measures in their programs. Messeley, Rogge, and Dessein (2013) for example explored if actors could be actively engaged in reflecting on the development of their region by using the rural web as a mobilizing tool.
The rural web is a new comprehensive theoretical framework on rural development that incorporates social capital as one of its six main components. In contrast to most other forms of capital researchers still have not been able to completely agree on a universal definition. Putnam (1995) for example defined social capital as ‘features of social 2 organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit’. This differs significantly from Bourdieu’s definition which defines social capital as ‘the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition’ (Bourdieu 1983).
Partly due to the lack of agreement on one definition a broad variety of methods to measure social capital has been developed. Most of them focus on quantitative measures such as memberships in groups and organizations or the voter turnout. Although they do not necessarily reflect the multidimensionality of social capital they can be seen as indicators of the level of social capital in the particular area. Rupasingha, Goetz, and Freshwater (2006) conducted a study that measured the quantitative level of social capital on a county basis.
Using principal component analysis the researchers employed the associational density, the voter turnout in the last presidential elections, the county-level response rate to the U. Census Bureau’s decennial census and the number of tax- exempt non-profit organizations to create a county level index of social capital. This index shows differences in the level of social capital across all U. counties with McKenzie County ranking in the upper mid-range.
While their study combines several quantitative metrics in order to create an index of the level of social capital it completely ignores the quality aspect of social capital. According to Morrow (1999) this is a common flaw in U. studies on social capital. The typical study focuses on the analysis of large quantitative data sets and does not explore the quality of social capital.
Some studies distinguish between different forms of social capital, most commonly bonding, bridging and sometimes also linking social capital (e. According to Putnam (2000) bonding social capital is a sociological superglue and bridging social capital acts as a sociological WD-40. 3 Differentiating between the strength of relationships can be seen as an indicator for quality, however it again only focuses on one aspect of social capital instead of acknowledging the multidimensionality. Studying the quality of social capital will fill this knowledge gap.
Additionally, an understanding of differences in quality might be able to provide insights on differences in quantity of social capital. Based on the aforementioned multidimensionality of social capital, I define certain indicators and characteristics measuring quality for the different dimensions of social capital. They include among others the reliability of information members receive from their network and the inclusiveness of the communities and groups. Following one of the few guides available on qualitative research on social capital, which was published by the World Bank (2006), I conducted 30 semi-structured interviews in three rural counties in Arkansas.
The interviews aimed to gain insights on the research objectives described below. I organized this study as follows. Chapter 2 is a literature review of the concept of social capital, the importance of it and of the different measurements of social capital. This is followed in Chapter 3 by an explanation of the research framework and methods used to conduct the study.
Additionally, the case study sites are described. In Chapter 4 the results research are stated. Finally, I describe the limitations of my study and propose certain policy implications.1 Research Objectives The geographical focus area of my research are the rural counties in Arkansas, in particular three counties that I chose as case study sites. Representing the counties that rank the highest the lowest and the median for rural Arkansas counties in Rupasingha, Goetz, and Freshwater’s (2006) index, I aimed to depict the range of levels of social capital.
By conducting semi- structured interviews in each of the case study sites, I intended to obtain observations to address 4 my research objectives. Due to the fact that this analysis is predominantly based on a qualitative approach of an inductive nature, I chose to follow two main research objectives instead of a hypothesis. The first objective is to identify the most salient themes and topics of each dimension of social capital.