The Impact of Social Capital on High School Teachers' Occupational Activities in Esfahan

Subject Areas : Research in Curriculum Planning

mansoor haghigatian ¹ , rasool rabani ² , sohayla kazemi ³

1 -
2 -
3 -

Received: 2017-10-17 Accepted : 2017-10-17 Published : 2008-04-20

Keywords: occupational activity, Trust, Social capital,

Abstract :

Studying the effects of work on people's attitudes has been an important topic in sociology. On the other hand, social capital as the totality of resources and benefits that are available to an individual via social relations, has gained widespread acceptance during the past few decades. But few researches have been done on the effects of social capital on individuals' occupational activities. In this paper, drawing on the ideas of theoreticians like Robert Putnam and James Coleman, first, the social capital of tenured high school teachers in Esfahan's five educational districts were measured, and then its effects on occupational activities were tested. The components of social capital included the quality of relations (trusting) and the quantity of relations or relational network (group memberships and cooperative behaviors). Utilizing a questionnaire, for a population of a stratified random sample of teachers were studied. Cronach alpha for social capital was and for occupational activity was . Research data showed that the average social capital of teachers, on a scale, was (it was for trust and for relational network) and that the average for occupational activity was . It was found that social capital was significantly associated with the quality of educational activity (r= ). the quantity of educational activity (r = ) and the quality of research activity (r = ). All components of social capital explained only percent of the variance of occupational activities.