Unanticipated Gains Origins of Network Inequality in Everyday Life

by Small, Mario Luis

• ISBN13: 9780195384352
• ISBN10: 0195384350
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-07-02
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Social capital theorists have shown that some people do better than others in part because they enjoy larger, more supportive, or otherwise more useful networks. But why do some people have better networks than others? Unanticipated Gains argues that the practice and structure of the churches, colleges, firms, gyms, childcare centers, and schools in which people happen to participate routinely matter more than their deliberate "networking." Exploring the experiences of New York City mothers whose children were enrolled in childcare centers, this book examines why a great deal of these mothers, after enrolling their children, dramatically expanded both the size and usefulness of their personal networks. Whether, how, and how much the mother's networks were altered--and how useful these networks were--depended on the apparently trivial, but remarkably consequential, practices and regulations of the centers. The structure of parent-teacher organizations, the frequency of fieldtrips, and the rules regarding drop-off and pick-up times all affected the mothers' networks. Relying on scores of in-depth interviews with mothers, quantitative data on both mothers and centers, and detailed case studies of other routine organizations, Small shows that how much people gain from their connections depends substantially on institutional conditions they often do not control, and through everyday processes they may not even be aware of. Emphasizing not the connections that people make, but the context in which they are made, Unanticipated Gains presents a major new perspective on social capital and on the mechanisms producing social inequality.

Author Biography

Mario Luis Small is Associate Professor of Sociolgy and the College at the University of Chicago. He is author of Villa Victoria: The Transformation of Social Capital in Boston Barrio (Chicago 2004) which was awarded the 2004 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems and the 2005 Robert E. Park Award for Best Book from the Community and Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association.

Table of Contents

Personal Ties in Organizational Settings
Social Capital and Organizational Embeddedness	p. 3
Childcare Centers and Mothers' Well-Being: Whether Mothers Did Better When Their Children Were in Daycare	p. 28
Social Ties
Opportunities and Inducements: Why Mothers so Often Made Friends in Centers	p. 51
Weak and Strong Ties: Whether Mothers Made Close Friends, Acquaintances, or Something Else	p. 84
Trust and Obligations: Why some Mothers' Support Networks Were Larger Than Their Friendship Networks	p. 107
Organizational Ties
Ties to Other Organizations: Why Mothers' Most Useful Ties Were Not Always Social	p. 129
Organizational Ties and Neighborhood Effects: How Mothers' Nonsocial Ties Were Affected by Location	p. 157
Beyond Childcare Centers
Extensions and Implications	p. 177
Appendices: A Multimethod Case study
The Process	p. 201
Quantitative Data	p. 206
Qualitative Data	p. 221
Notes	p. 229
References	p. 263
Index	p. 281
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