社会资本研究50年

Fifty Years of Social Capital Study

过去三四十年间,社会资本研究始终是全世界社会科学最热门的领域之一,而因社会资本衰减所导致的社会问题也引起人们普遍关注。社会资本可分为粘合性社会资本和连接性社会资本。其中,连接性社会资本在现代民主国家更重要,但也更脆弱。自20世纪60年代中期始,美国的社会资本呈崩溃趋势,美国人的社会连接已经全面塌陷,每个人都成为一个孤岛个体;不仅如此,由贫富悬殊形成的阶级隔离,已经严重危及了"美国梦",因为出生决定命运。社会资本衰减问题既然事关现代民主的日常,就应当构成有担当之社会科学研究者的案头议题。

For the last thirty or forty years,the study of social capital has been one of the most rapidly growing fields of research in social science all over the world.And people have paid general attention to the social problems caused by a decline of social capital.Social capital can be distinguished as bonding social capital and bridging social capital,of which bridging social capital is more important to a modern,diverse,democratic country.Since the mid-1960 s,American social capital has seen a trend of collapse;on the other,since there’s been a growth of economic inequality,the gap of social capital between rich kids and poor kids is widen,severely endangering the American dream.The decline of social capital is simply not a problem which the average citizens are worried about,and social scientists should take seriously their obligation to do social science on topics that will help their fellow citizens as well.