MARIO LUIS SMALL Department of Sociology Princeton University Princeton NJ 08544 609-258-6970 msmall@princeton.edu princeton.edu/~msmall |
HOW DOES NEIGHBORHOOD POVERTY AFFECT SOCIAL CAPITAL?
Received wisdom suggests that residents of poor neighborhoods are disadvantaged by social isolation and low rates of community participation. But sociological theories have been unclear or fuzzy when explaining how and why neighborhood poverty produces these outcomes. In my recent book, Villa Victoria: The Transformation of Social Capital in a Boston Barrio, I argued that neighborhood poverty does not always have this impact on people and that it is important to ask why. In this neighborhood, the impact was conditional on how residents understood the neighborhood’s history, on what loyalties and ambitions they had developed, on the replacement of cohorts over time, on the neighborhood’s ecological configuration, and on the presence of businesses and organizations. I am exploring related ideas in my new projects. One project examines the availability in poor and non-poor neighborhoods of grocery stores, banks, pharmacies, and other organizations important for day-to-day living. Another examines the social ties and resources that parents derive from their participation in childcare centers in New York City. In this study I ask how organizational conditions shape individuals’ social capital. A third project develops alternative methods for conducting case studies of single entities, such as neighborhoods or organizations. SELECTED PUBLICATIONS: 
Small, Mario L., 2004. /Villa Victoria: The Transformation of Social Capital in a Boston Barrio/. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Please use book cover jpeg for this publication.)
Small, Mario L. and Monica McDermott. Forthcoming 2006. “The Presence of Organizational Resources in Poor Urban Neighborhoods: An Analysis of Average and Contextual Effects.”/ Social Forces/. Small, Mario L. and Laura Stark. Forthcoming, 2005. “Are Poor Neighborhoods Resource-Deprived? A Case Study of Childcare Centers in New York.” /Social Science Quarterly/. 86(s1): 1013-36. Small, Mario L., 2002. “Culture, Cohorts, and Social Organization Theory: Understanding Local Participation in a Latino Housing Project.”/American Journal of Sociology/. 108(1): 1-54. |
