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Abstract:
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The aims of this study were to examine the relations among social capital , human capital , economic capital , and children’s socioemotional well -being during the transition from late childhood to early adolescence and to test an ecological -transactional model of children’s social capital . This work was informed by sociological and economic theory on social capital , human capital , and economic capital (e .g . , Becker , 1993 ; Bourdieu , 1986 ; Coleman , 1988 ; Foster , 2002 ) and two principal frameworks in developmental psychology : ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner & Morris , 1998 ) and the transactional model of child development (Sameroff , 2009 ) . Social capital was conceptualized as both a family -level and a community -level phenomenon , distinguishing between family social capital and community social capital . A major hypothesis was that family social capital and community social capital , alongside family -level human capital and economic capital , are associated with low levels of socioemotional problems . Family -level variables were considered to be nested within the more distal ecological context of community social capital , and the indirect relation of community social capital to socioemotional well -being through family social capital was also considered . Another postulation was that children’s socioemotional well -being and the social capital that inheres in family relationships (i .e . , family social capital ) are mutually influential , changing over time in a transactional manner . In this vein , children were regarded as agents of social capital , both “creating” and utilizing it to their developmental benefit (or detriment as the case may be ) . These family -level transactional processes were nested within the context of community social capital . Results indicated that community social capital had little association with family social capital and children’s socioemotional well -being as indexed by internalizing and externalizing problems . However , caregivers’ human capital and economic capital were significant predictors of family social capital . In turn , family social capital was strongly related to socioemotional problems . Notably , harsh parenting behavior , a measure indicative of the health of the caregiver -child relation and thus the potential for social capital to be realized in their interactions , was the strongest predictor of socioemotional well -being . |