Bearers of social capital: who are they?

The key idea of the article is to create a generalized image of a typical representative of a group with low and high levels of social capital.The authors are convinced that creating a social portrait of a bearer of social capital of a certain level is a visual and concise way of presenting significant information, convenient for further use.The authors see theoretical grounds for studying the essence of social capital in a number of works.Thus, the study of the social organization of communities by R. Putnam with a concretization of attention to emerging social connections allowed the scientist to typologize social capital.The application of P. Bourdieu's field theory to the study of social capital transfers the perception of this social phenomenon to the level of generalizations, creating a theoretical basis for zoning territories.J. Coleman's observation about the need for trust, which is a prerequisite for the emergence of social capital, seems essential.The existing conceptual foundations made it possible to form an integral index of social capital, highlighting a number of fundamental indicators in it, which include trust, networks, values and attitudes.The empirical basis of the article was a study of the social capital of the population of the Vologda region.The use of the index in subsequent diagnostics allows us to distribute the study participants into five groups depending on the level of social capital they possess.In developing the issue of selecting the most effective approach to presenting the results, the methodology for forming a social portrait was tested.The idea of creating social portraits is theoretically substantiated by the concept of ideal types by M. Weber.Such data as gender, age, level of education and type of employment, and marital status were considered as essential characteristics for forming a portrait of a typical representative of a group with a low and high level of social capital.The presented information, acting as key contours of the portrait, served as a "background" and allowed us to clearly present the differences in the perception of groups of their own participation in public and political life, thereby characterizing one of the areas of using social capital.