جامعه شناسی کاربردی (Jul 2013)
The Study of the Components of Urban Social Capital in Central Cities of East Azerbaijan Province
Abstract
Intordoction Nowadays social capital is disscussed along with human resorces and economic -financial capital. This concept of capital considers the communications between members of the network as a valuable resource which couse individual and collective objective to be realized using norms and mutual trust. Social capital is considered suitable way for increasing productivity of human resources and achieving success. (Knach, 1996, 1260).Social capital is a multidimensional concept which widespread among other social sciences such as urban studies, area studies, criminology, historical and geographic studies. Social capital is play important role in social, politic and economic development which guarantees sustainable development. Accordingly, government is not the only effective factor of development, thereis two other factors which named “civil society" and "private sector” which have effective role in development along with government including national and local government. These three factors should be in cooperation with each other to solve the complex challenges of development and society. Private sector including small, medium and large companies, :union:s, trade associations and multinational investment organizations. Civil society including NGOs, People's voluntary organizations, academic institutions, mass media, religious groups and civic organizations (Share Pour 2006) For this reason the measurement of social capital and understanding its status, helps social policymakers to make proper policy to achieve sustainable development. fuction of this paper is to introduce components and generalized dimensions of social capital to authorities and city managers to applynecessary policy to promot social capital in various urban areas of provice. The main purpose of this study was to measure social capital in the nineteen central cities of East Azarbaijan province. Also other partial objectives is following ; - Identifying social capital in the urban centers of East Azarbaijan province - Understanding the components of social capital in the city center of East Azarbaijan - Measurment of informal social capital of citizens of central cities of East Azarbaijan province - Ranking of the cities of East Azarbaijan province from the view of informal social capital Material and Methods According to various studies and research on social capital,to measure social capital in this study its used from model of "Stone and Hughes" which proposed by Share Poor (Sharepoor, 2006: 156). Study of related literature of social capital measurement in different countries showed that the model of "Stone and Hughes” is the most complete measurement metod of social capital due to considering all kinds of networks, norms, structure and quality of social networks. So in this research its attempted to mesure different dimensions of social capital by adapting this model with local conditions of country and province. İn this research its used from survey method to discribe features of social capital in East Azarbaijan province. Discussion of Results & Conclusions In this study, about 53% of the respondents are female and 46% were male. Distribution of respondents by age groups shows that the respondents were in the age range of 15 to 80. The greatest percentage of respondents was in age range of 26 - 21 with 16.9% and then age range of 32-27 with 16.5 percent respectively. The average age of respondents was 35. About reliability of people, approximately 44.4% of respondents do not trust to most of the people. Reliability rate of respondents to the family was 93%, to relatives 65%, to friends 49% and to neighbors was 54%. thus its clear that among informal networks, family has the highest levels of Reliability rateand friends have lowest level of reliability. 67% of respondents had full Reliability to teachers. Also 40%,37.9% and 60.1% of respondents had full reliability to judges, taxi drivers and physicians repectively. 32% of respondents do not trust the managers of governmental organizations. 65.3% have complete and have high Reliability the police. The lowest Reliability of respondents wereto social groups, foreign radio and television, newspapers and shopkeepers and merchants respectively. The Highest Reliability level were related to community groups, teachers, police, Disciplinary Force, university professors and Physician. In general, this study shows that the lowest level of social trust related to political groups and commercial jobs and the highest level of social trust was related to cultural positions and jobs. Based on this research findings, there is considerable differences between the types of social capital in terms of associative relations, norms and social trust, links and interpersonal trust. Cooperation between associative groups with civil society groups is low. Highest level of cooperation was related to religious groups, charities and campaign groups and lowest level was related to political groups. Membership in civil society groups was also low. The highest percentage of membership was related to religious groups, Koran classes and sports groups and lowest percentage of membership was related to political groups. Most people do not participate in programs and group meetings of civil institutions or attended very low, and gives very little financial assistance to these groups. Highest level of social capital in related to less developed urban centers like Charuymaq and Hashtrood and lowest social capital was related to developed cities such as Tabriz. So in East Azerbaijan Province intergroups’s social capital is more than external social capital. This kinds of social capital has various positive and negative effects. Thus general trust of people to the country should be increased. Also reliability of people should be increased by increasing their general trust and the strengthening of social capital.
