Over the last few years, Tristan Claridge has given several informative webinars on social capital. You can watch these webinars for free on YouTube. The details are listed below with links to the videos.
The strengths and weaknesses of social capital in Guernsey with Tristan Claridge
Webinar held on Wednesday, November 6, 2024
This webinar will explore the findings of new research on social capital in small communities, focusing on the island of Guernsey as a case study. We’ll explore the strengths and challenges Guernsey faces, from its strong sense of belonging and trust to the growing threats posed by inequality, social divides, and an aging population. The webinar will highlight key opportunities to safeguard and enhance Guernsey’s social capital, including actionable strategies for fostering greater connectedness, building trust, and empowering local organisations. Whether you’re a researcher, policymaker, or community leader, this session offers valuable insights into how we can evaluate community social capital and identify insights for implementing meaningful change. The techniques and findings are highly relevant to anyone interested in social capital, community and economic development, and social wellbeing.
Social Capital: Reconnecting the Importance & Value of Social Relationships with Tristan Claridge
Webinar held on Friday, March 1, 2024
The concept of social capital has exploded in popularity since the 1990s to become one of the most popular concepts in the social sciences and has even entered politics, business, and public health arenas, to name a few. It is even becoming part of everyday language. The popularity of the concept of social capital demonstrates the apparent need for a concept to emphasize social dimensions that have typically been marginalized by the dominant paradigm of individualism and economic rationalism. The fact that social factors have been framed as 'capital' is an indictment of our modern system and values. Throughout human history, the importance and value of social relationships have been intuitively understood and nurtured. However, in the excessively individualistic, self-interested, and radically rational 20th century, the importance and value of social factors have been consistently underestimated, undervalued, and underprioritized.
By the 1990s, as evidenced by social capital's popularity, a concept was needed to reconnect with the importance and value of sociality and communicate this fact to decision-makers. However, the concept is not without its flaws, challenges, and weaknesses. Unfortunately, many explanations of social capital do little to change the dominance of asocial or non-social thinking. Even the transformative approaches can find it challenging to communicate the somewhat intangible value of prosocial action to people who are used to undervaluing it. Join Tristan Claridge for an exploration of the promise of social capital and the struggle to recognize social value through the concept of social capital.
The practical application of social capital: A general guide
Webinar held on Wednesday, January 31, 2024
This webinar by Tristan Claridge from the Institute for Social Capital provides a general guide to the real-world application of social capital and the various ways the concept can be applied in practice. Social capital is vital for a wide range of contexts, from individual personal and professional success to organisational and group performance and community wellbeing, to name a few. This webinar goes beyond narrow academic definitions to outline a general approach capable of incorporating the complexity of social capital in a way that is easy to understand and apply to the real world. Every application of social capital is unique and requires a context-appropriate approach. Tristan will provide a framework for designing theory-informed practical applications of social capital and a brief description of the main ways social capital can be applied.
Outline for the social capital paradigm
Webinar held on Wednesday, October 25, 2023
This webinar will sketch an outline for the social capital paradigm by identifying the common themes and underlying similarities between different meanings of social capital. I will propose a consistent logic schema for social capital and ten “pillars” of the paradigm; statements that are broadly true and generally applicable to any interpretation of social capital. I anticipate this will allow researchers and practitioners to more easily see how different perspectives relate to each other in complementary rather than conflicting ways, thereby improving the possibilities for discourse between scholars and comparisons between studies. It has been 25 years since Castle (1998) concluded that “unless the social capital concept is used with some degree of precision and in a comparable manner, it will come to have little value as an analytical construct”. By outlining a paradigm for social capital, it will be easier for researchers and practitioners to implement and evaluate quality scholarship, thereby improving precision and comparability, and therefore, the explanatory and transformative potential of the concept for the benefit of everyone.
Introduction to Social Capital for Researchers 2023
Webinar held on Thursday, August 23, 2023
This session provides a foundation for understanding what social capital is, where it comes from, and what it does as well as some of the challenges of reading the literature and conducting research on social capital. The session is designed to kick-start your social capital research or to help you with your existing research. The session gives you a blueprint for understanding the different meanings of social capital and how to navigate the literature on social capital. It is designed to give you a rapid introduction to the concept of social capital and its use in research, helping you avoid weeks or even months of reading.
Exploring the outcomes of social capital
Webinar held on Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Social capital has been described by some authors as lubricating the fabric of society and allowing modern economies to function efficiently (Fukuyama 2001). It is claimed that our society, economy, institutions, and political system could not exist without social capital; it is a glue that holds society and institutions together and lubricates their function. However, social capital remains an elusive concept, difficult to define, involving uncertain processes, and yet charged with important outcomes. The academic literature is typically vague about what it is, what it does, and the mechanisms that produce the claimed outcomes.
Introduction to Social Capital for Researchers 2022
Webinar held on Thursday, August 18, 2022
This session provides a foundation for understanding what social capital is, where it comes from, and what it does as well as some of the challenges of reading the literature and conducting research on social capital. The session is designed to kick-start your social capital research or to help you with your existing research. The session gives you a blueprint for understanding the different meanings of social capital and how to navigate the literature on social capital. It is designed to give you a rapid introduction to the concept of social capital and its use in research, helping you avoid weeks or even months of reading.
Social capital limits: can social capital be continually improved?
Webinar held on Friday, May 27, 2022
If you were tasked with increasing social capital as much as possible, what would you do? What would that look like? How can you ensure it is positive and as good as possible? If we intervene to build social capital, how can we be confident it will improve? In this webinar, I will propose a new line of inquiry that aims to link interdisciplinary understandings to improve our understanding of social capital and how to build or improve it in any context.
Exploring the theoretical foundations and meaning of social capital
Webinar held on Friday, April 8, 2022
This webinar will explore the differences between the main conceptual approaches to social capital and their theoretical foundations. Social capital has a variety of different meanings, and this tends to create confusion, with the same term meaning different things. Several authors have attempted to categorise the different conceptual approaches, such as the network, normative, and resource approaches. This is helpful; however, the approach adopted by any specific research project often does not fit neatly into these categories, and it is not clear how different aspects of different approaches relate to each other.
The wicked problems of social capital theory
Webinar held on Friday, March 31, 2021
In this webinar Tristan Claridge discusses the several nagging tensions and incongruences associated with the concept of social capital that are typically ignored but are impossible to escape and, it seems, to resolve. Critics are quick to point to these problems but the growing body of literature on social capital seems immune to criticism. Is it useful to frame these issues as “wicked problems”? This session discusses which problems associated with the concept of social capital should be considered “wicked” and how these problems can best be resolved or mitigated.
Social capital: the popularity and need for the concept of social capital
Webinar held on Friday, February 5, 2021
In this webinar, Tristan Claridge discusses whether the concept of social capital can be a transformative tool, or whether it reinforces the problems we hope it will address. The term “social capital” was used sporadically through the 20th century but it was not until the 1990s that it rapidly started to spread across the social sciences, into the physical sciences and virtually every area of academic enquiry. It has been adopted outside of academia; in politics, business, and international development, to name a few.
Social capital dimensions at different levels of analysis
Webinar held on Friday, November 27, 2020
This webinar explores the dimensions of social capital at different levels of analysis. In recent years there has been some agreement in the literature that social capital relates to networks, trust and norms. Despite extremely diverse views, there has been a coalescing of agreement around these three components with most definitions including some form of all three. These components are often articulated more rigorously with the terminology structural, relational, and cognitive dimensions. However, there is still little understanding of how these dimensions relate to different levels of analysis.
Social capital - is there an accepted definition in 2020?
Webinar held on Friday, November 13, 2020
This webinar reports on a review of 250 peer-reviewed journal articles on social capital that explores whether an accepted definition is emerging in the literature as well as the different conceptual and methodological approaches to social capital research.
