Mentors as Social Capital: Gender,Mentors, and Career Rewards in Law Practice*

Previous studies have demonstrated that mentoring provides numerous career benefits to individuals and organizations. This article advances past work by examining the effects of individuals’ primary and multiple developmental relationships in a longitudinal study of the careers of lawyers. We develop a social capital perspective on mentorship emphasizing reciprocity of exchange, resource mobilization, and normative expectations embedded within mentoring relationships. We empirically assess mentoring benefits across a diverse range of career rewards. The results provide evidence that male lawyers gain more from their mentor‐derived social capital than female lawyers. Specifically, male lawyers with mentors of senior status benefit with elevated earnings, greater perceived fairness in their workplace, and greater work satisfaction. Women with multiple mentors, however, report enhanced work satisfaction. Implications for research on mentoring, social capital, and professional careers are discussed.     

Race,Gender, and the Invisible Hand of Social Capital

To better understand persistent race and gender inequality in the labor market, this article discusses the informal processes by which social connections provide individuals with access to information, influence, and status that help to further people’s careers. Because social networks are segregated by race and gender, access to these social capital resources tends to be greater for white men than for minorities and women. To illustrate this point, research on the invisible hand of social capital is presented. In short, high-level job openings are commonly filled with non-searchers – people who are not looking for new jobs – thanks to their receipt of unsolicited job leads. Recent studies find that this process operates more effectively for white men than for minorities and women, demonstrating how the invisible hand of social capital helps to perpetuate race and gender inequality. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings and directions for future research.     

Social Capital: An Interdisciplinary Concept*

Abstract This paper sets forth an interdisciplinary interpretation of social capital that will permit the concept to be used with precision in scholarly and scientific work. If the interpretation is accepted, the social capital concept cannot be regarded as a social theory, nor as a statement of normative goals. The interdisciplinary concept proposed here is applied to rural studies.     

Drug Courts: A Social Capital Perspective*

Social capital is a variable resource embedded in all social networks. Although the majority of work on social capital describes it as contributing to socially beneficial outcomes, it also contributes to deviant activities. In addition to laying a theoretical basis for understanding the deviant potentials of social capital, this paper argues that a change in social networks results in a change in social capital. Using data collected from adult drug courts in Wyoming, multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analyses and analyses of personal interviews were used to explore changes in the social capital of drug court participants. However, as a result of deficiencies in available data, questions remain as to the long‐term social circumstances of participants after graduating from the programs and differences in social outcomes among minority groups. The results from this project have implications for future research conducted on drug courts and the theory of social capital.     

The Intergenerational Transmission of Social Capital: A Developmental Approach to Adolescent Social Capital Formation*

Previous scholarship has demonstrated the importance of individual characteristics and structural context for understanding social capital formation. However, a developmental approach to social capital formation has, so far, been absent. In this study, I argue that social capital formation must be understood intergenerationally as well as structurally. Using hierarchical linear modeling, I investigate the hypothesized intergenerational transmission of social capital using Waves 1 and 2 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The results show that, in addition to individual characteristics, neighborhood‐level factors, and school‐level variables, parental social capital is an important predictor of adolescent social capital. This study also suggests that the intergenerational transmission of social capital functions, in part, through family structure and that structural differences account for only a relatively small share of the variation in adolescent social capital. Potential explanations for these findings are discussed.     

The 1950s: Gender and Some Social Science*

Among the literature considered for issues pertaining to gender in the 1950s is David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd (1950), John Seeley, et al., Crestwood Heights (1956), William H. Whyte, Jr., The Organization Man (1956), Jules Henry, Culture against Man, and essays by Talcott Parsons on the family. The paper shows how the authors apparently document the modernization of gender and the family by ignoring or downplaying conventional and conservative factors. In fact, they were more sanguine than even their own evidence warranted, although they seemed unaware of this. By seeing only progressive indicators they neglected the constraints on women, often identified as the “feminine mystique.” Three gender and family issues are considered for actual evidence about what was happening in the 1950s but also for contradictions in the authors' work that yield insights as well. These are whether feminine and masculine sex roles were converging in modern America, the development of companionship marriage, and the issue of “maternal overinvolvement” (or the domineering mother) in childrearing. The work under consideration suggests contradictory gender messages and developments in the postwar period, indicating a period in which possibilities for equality between the sexes were being both created and denied to women.     

Gender,Social Bond,and Academic Cheating in Japan*

There is evidence that females are less likely to cheat than males on college campuses. A frequently offered but still untested explanation is that females, with a stronger sense of responsibility for the maintenance of social relationships, tend to develop a stronger bond to a conventional society—a key explanatory concept in Hirschi’s (1969) social control theory. With academic cheating as the dependent variable, we test the hypotheses that the four elements of social bond are the intervening variables linking gender to such dishonesty among Japanese students who, due to their stronger orientation toward masculinity on Hofstede’s (1980) scale of gender role separation, are subject to more gender distinct socialization, leading to greater gender differences in the strength of social bond than those previously reported in the United States. The analysis provides rather limited support for the theory, most of which is due to the stronger belief in the legitimacy of societal rules among the females.     

The Influence of Family and Community Social Capital on Educational Achievement*

Abstract It is increasingly recognized that families and communities are important in helping youths develop the knowledge and skills they need to obtain technologically sophisticated jobs, which are an emerging part of the global economy. In this paper we adopt social capital as a framework for examining the influence of family and community on promoting educational achievement among public school students. We explore more fully the role of community social capital in influencing educational performance beyond that attributed to family social capital. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS), we find that both process and structural attributes of family social capital are key factors affecting high school students' educational achievement. Process and structural attributes of community social capital also help youths to excel, though they contribute less strongly to achievement. These findings suggest that policies designed to promote educational achievement must extend beyond the school and must seek to strengthen social capital in the family and the community.     

Benefit or Burden? Social Capital,Gender, and the Economic Adaptation of Refugees1

This paper examines the role of co‐ethnic social capital on the earnings of refugees, using a unique data set for adult refugees who resettled in Portland, Maine, between 1998 and 2004. Multiple regression models test the effect of access to co‐ethnic social capital on the log earnings of refugees in their first and most recent years of work. Results show that over time access to co‐ethnic social capital upon arrival decreased earnings for female refugees. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for social capital and immigration research.     

The Role of Social Capital in Educational Aspirations of Rural Youth*

Drawing on a recent national survey of rural high school students, this study investigated the relationship between social capital and educational aspirations of rural youth. Results showed that various process features of family and school social capital were important for predicting rural youths' educational aspirations beyond sociodemographic background. In particular, parents' and teachers' educational expectations for their child and student, respectively, were positively related to educational aspirations of rural youth. In addition, discussion with parents about college was positively related to educational aspirations of rural youth. On the other hand, there was little evidence to suggest that number of siblings and school proportions of students eligible for free lunch and minority students are related to educational aspirations of rural youth, after controlling for the other variables. We highlight unique features of rural families, schools, and communities that may combine to explain the complexity of the role of social capital in shaping educational aspirations of rural youth.     

Gender,Race, Social Class,and Self-Evaluations among College Students*

The purpose of this study was to modify Heiss and Owens's (1972) formulation on trait differences in the self-evaluations of blacks and whites and integrate it with the literature on sex role socialization, thereby elaborating the instrumental-expressive dichotomy they proposed so as to generate and test hypotheses regarding race, gender, and SES differences in self-evaluations. University students rated themselves on a fifteen-item semantic differential scale. A principal component factor analysis with varimax rotations yielded five factors, three of the factors were seen as private-domain, one as public-domain, and one as mixed. A series of 2X2X2 ANOVAS indicated that (1) on the public-domain factor, black females rated themselves more positively than did the white females, while black males and white males did not differ; (2) blacks rated themselves more positively than did whites on two private-domain factors; (3) white females rated themselves more positively than did males on the private-domain factor indicative of a feminine stereotype; and (4) SES differences appeared on the private-domain factors in particular.     

Age and Gender Differerences In a Social Process Model of Adolescent Cigarette Use*

This study examines how age and gender influence the ability of social process theory to explain adolescent cigarette use. Differences in the causal effects of social process variables for three age periods for male and female adolescents are examined. Longitudinal data from a sample of midwestern adolescents are analyzed using path analyses procedures. Findings from these analyses indicate that social process theory is better able to account for cigarette use among older females than any other age and gender group. For females, commitment to education and school activities were better predictors of cigarette smoking at a later age than an earlier age, whereas the opposite was found for belief in conventional societal rules. For males, previous smoking was the major variable in all three age groups to directly affect subsequent smoking. These findings are discussed in terms of previous age and gender research.     

Social Capital,Place Meanings,and Perceived Resilience to Climate Change*

This research analyzes individuals' perceived resilience to changing climatic conditions. Specifically, we suggest individual resilience is composed of an awareness of localized risks created because of climate change, a willingness to learn about, and plan for, the potential impacts of altered environmental conditions, and general appraisals of personal adaptive capacities. We hypothesize that resilience is influenced by the characteristics of individuals' social networks and also by their social-psychological dependence on local environments. Using data collected in three resource-associated communities within the southeastern United States, our analysis suggests bonding ties may limit individuals' willingness to seek new information about the potential impacts of climate change. Conversely, the data suggest the use of a diverse array of bridging ties is positively associated with information-seeking behavior. The data also support our hypothesis that individuals' social psychological dependencies on the local environment influences their perceived resilience to changing climatic conditions. By gaining a clearer understanding of how individuals' social networks and social-psychological dependencies affect their perceived ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions, decision makers can focus on policy solutions that increase adaptive capacities and build social resilience.     

Gender Differences in Social Acculturation and Social Capital in Determining Marital and Parental Role Expectations Among People of Mexican Descent

Men and women experience acculturation differently, creating acculturative gaps that may affect traditional family role expectations. In the current study, additive moderation between social acculturation, bonding social capital, and gender in relationship to marital and parental role expectations was explored among Mexican Americans (N = 314). The results indicate that when bonding social capital is at low to moderate levels, women are more committed to marital and parental roles and report more marital reward value as social acculturation increases. However, as bonding social capital and social acculturation increase, women report less marital reward value and marital and parental commitment. The size and quality of personal networks among Mexican American men and women appear to relate to social acculturation’s conditional relationship to family role expectations.     

Gender and the Limits to Diversity in the Contemporary British Army

This article considers equal opportunities and diversity management policies in the contemporary British Army for what they indicate, not only about policy frameworks for women's military participation, but also for what they tell us about the construction of ideas about gender and difference within that organization. The article sets out contextual information on women in the British Army and describes the research methodology on which this article is based. It looks at the evolution of equal opportunities policies and the more recent shift towards diversity management policies in the Army, focusing on their contributions towards female equity. The article examines the consequences of the shift towards the management of diversity, noting how embracing the ideas of diversity management is ultimately limited by the Army's construction of female difference. It concludes with a discussion of the issues of female and military specificity in relation to the management of diversity.     

Gender Convergence and Delinquency*

Theory about the relationship of gender roles to delinquency illustrates the taken-for-granted assumption that as role expectations of people become more alike, their behavior becomes more similar. This paper tests the hypothesis that delinquency of androgynous and undifferentiated males and females is more similar in frequency than that of traditional males and females. Self-reported delinquency and self-ratings on scales of traditionally feminine and traditionally masculine expectations provide the data for this research. The analysis reveals that, as predicted, androgynous and undifferentiated males and females report more similar frequencies of delinquent behavior than do traditionally masculine males and traditionally feminine females. Undifferentiated respondents report the highest levels of delinquency among females, but the reverse pattern tends to hold for males. These patterns are analyzed and their importance for theory of gender and crime is suggested.     

The Role of Peer Social Capital in Educational Assimilation of Immigrant Youths*

The academic achievement of immigrant children has been a focus of social research for decades. Yet little attention has been paid to peer social capital and its importance as a school context factor for the academic success of immigrant youths. Using multilevel data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Waves 1 and 3), this article draws upon social capital theory and assimilation theory to examine the effects of peer social capital on the academic achievement and attainment of immigrant and native youths. The effects of three measures of peer social capital are studied, controlled for many important variables, for example, sociodemographic background variables, school characteristics, and family social capital. Results indicate that only the average GPA (grade point average) of peers had a consistent and significant effect on children's achievement and attainment, whereas the density and the homogeneity of the peer network did not. Furthermore, all three measures of peer social capital have stronger effects for immigrant youths than for native youths.     

Social Stigma and Homelessness: The Limits of Social Change

We examine the issues around the stigmatization of homelessness and how it links to capitalism. Society focuses on the individual as the cause of his or her own state of homelessness, blaming the victim rather than focusing on the larger antecedent social and economic forces, such as unemployment, limited affordable housing, and breakdowns in kinship networks. Social stigma occurs in situations where there is unequal social, economic, and political power and there is an opportunity to label, stereotype, separate (us versus them), lose status, and discriminate. Stigmatization is due, in part, when people feel threatened by another group. Society categorizes people who are homeless as no longer “useful” and/or “functional” members of capitalism, since they do not actively work and support the system. The paper ends on a discussion of the limits of social change in a capitalist society.     

Social Capital and the Human Psyche: Why Is Social Life "Capital"?

In this article, we propose a revised definition of social capital, premised on the principles of evolutionary psychology. We define social capital as any feature of a social relationship that, directly or indirectly, confers reproductive benefits to a participant in that relationship. This definition grounds the construct of social capital in human nature by providing a basis for inferring the underlying motivations that humans may have in common, rather than leaving the matter of what humans use capital for unspoken. Discussions and empirical reviews are presented on the innateness of human sociability, sex differences in sociability, and psychological mechanisms that mediate sociability .