- Students should have knowledge about sub questions in sociology regarding social capital (related to both social inequality and social cohesion), specific hypotheses providing answers to these questions and the operationalization of these hypotheses.
- Students should have knowledge about the historical development of the two research lines focusing on social capital.
- Students should be able to describe differences between specific hypotheses and the operationalization of hypotheses.
- Students should be able to formulate relevant research questions, theoretical propositions and hypotheses, as well as the operationalization of these hypotheses.
- Students should be able to write a coherent paper in groups, in which relevant research questions, theoretical propositions and hypotheses, as well as the operationalization of these hypotheses are formulated.
- Students should be able to present their paper in groups.
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During this course, two very different lines of research in social science (as well as their interfaces) will be discussed. In recent decades, the concept of ‘social capital' has become an umbrella term for a variety of different aspects (e.g., resources of other people which one has access to, but also levels of participation in voluntary organizations or levels of social trust in others). In this course, this variety of topics will be reduced to two clear lines of research. We will discuss how hypotheses with regard to social capital are formulated within both lines of research. One research tradition deals with questions regarding social inequality, the other tradition with questions related to social cohesion. Different generations within both lines of research will be addressed and aspects which deserve further attention in future research will be discussed. |
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