Transcript Social Science Perspective: Trends, Skills, and Opportunities

Community Issues and Social
Capital
Frank Clearfield
Director
Social Sciences Institute
Presentation Outline
1. Provide an Overview of
NRCS Social Science
Institute
2. Review Community
Trends and the Concept
of Social Capital
3. Review SSI’s Web Based
Tools
1. Social Sciences Institute
Interdisciplinary
•
•
•
•
Sociologist
Economist
Anthropologist
Environmental
Psychologist
• Community Planner
SSI Applied Products and
Activities
24 Technical Reports
36 Fact Sheets -People, Partnership
and Community Series
8 Web-Based Products
34 Leader-in-You
Training Tapes
2 Training Courses
14 Surveys
Technology Transfer in FY-03
Google
 SSI reached about
300,000 people
• 52,000 web visitors
• 340,000 web hits
• 30,000 unique web
visitors
• 47,700 documents
downloaded
2. Community Trends and
Social Capital
Definitions of Economic,
Human, & Social Capital
• Economic - land, labor, natural
resources, & production
• Human - skills, talent and
education of people
• Social - bonds of trust between
people in communities
Changes in Social Capital
•
•
•
•
•
•
Political
Civic
Religious
Workplace
Social
Volunteering
Political Participation
12
Number per million
people in organization
10
percent
8
attend pol mtg
work for pty
paid staff
6
4
2
0
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
1996
Voting Turnout
70
60
50
40
Presidential
Off-Year
30
20
10
20
02
98
94
90
86
82
78
74
70
19
66
0
Civic Trends
Activity
• Served on a
committee for some
local organization
• attended a public
meeting on town or
school affairs
Relative change
1973-74 to 1993-94
-39%
-35%
Source: Roper Social and Political Trends surveys, 1973-1994
Civic Club Meetings
# of annual club meetings
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
1997
PTA membership
(% of families with children under 18)
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1920
1930
1950
1960
1980
1990
1997
Church Membership & Attendance
90
members
80
percent
70
60
Church Records
Gallup Poll
Attendance
50
40
30
20
10
0
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 1999
Participation in Work
• Union membership is
down to 14 percent in
1998, from a high of 33
percent in 1952
• Average membership in 8
national professional
associations showed
increases from the 1930’s
to the 1960’s, followed by
decreases to the present
Social Visits
Percent (bi-)weekly
60
50
40
Friends over
Visit friends
30
20
10
0
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
1999
Volunteering & Participation in
Community Projects
9
8
times last year
7
6
5
Volunteered
Com. Proj.
4
3
2
1
0
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
1999
What has caused the downturn in
social capital?
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•
•
•
•
Generation change
Pressures of time & money
Family structure (working women)
Mobility and sprawl
Technology and mass media
– DVDs, VCRs, TV, video games,
computers (Internet access, e-mail)
• Alienation from politics
• Fear of _______
3. Web Based Tools
Estimating
Social Capital
Technical Note: Adding Up Social Capital: An
Investment in Communities
Web Based Tool, Go to
http://www.ssi.nrcs.usda.gov/ click on
interactive tools
Building Social Capital
• Identify & Recruit Community
Leaders
• Develop Partnerships
• Establish Networks
• Inclusiveness
• Understand Small Group
Behavior
• Understand Community Power
Other Interactive Tools
• Evaluating Locally Led Process
• Leadership Assessment Tool
Locally Led Evaluation
and Training Package
• CD and web version tool
that examines behavioral
aspects of the locally led
planning process
• Repeatable
• Provides an overall score &
also scores for 9 areas
• Training module for each of
these 9 areas
Tool to Assess
Leadership Skills
General Assumptions about Leadership
• We are not all leaders, nor
do we all need to be
• Some people are better at
some things than others
• Team members play
different roles
• There are situational leaders
• There are multiple
dimensions of leadership
Leadership Dimensions
•
•
•
•
•
Drive
Emotional Intelligence
Building Trust
Conceptual Thinking
Systems Thinking
Leadership Assessment Instrument
• Rates the user on five
dimensions
• Provides hyperlinks
– Articles
– Leader-in-You Tapes
– Fact Sheets
Summary
• Reviewed SSI work
• Examined community trends
• Looked at potential opportunities -social capital, locally led evaluation,
and the leadership assessment
instrument
Product Requests
• Call 1-888-526-3227 x 2
• Web site:
http://www.ssi.nrcs.usda
.gov/
• Order from Product
Catalog
• [email protected] or 336334-7058