Lendo aqui a literatura clássica sobre capital social, temos um paper do sociólogo James Coleman (Chicago, já falecido) que conta um exemplo muito interessante. Em "Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital", publicado na American Journal of Sociology, Vol 94 (1988), pp. S95-S120, diz Coleman:
Essa história me parece familiar. Não, minha mãe não comprava dois livros, mas sei bem como funciona a cabeça desses pais orientais.
In one public school district in the United States where texts for school were purchased by children's families, school authorities were puzzled to discover that a number of Asian immigrant families purchased two copies of each textbook needed by the child. Investigation revealed that the family purchased the second copy for the mother to study in order to help her child do well in school. Here is the case in which the human capital of the parents, at least as measured traditionally by years of schooling, is low, but the social capital in the family available for the child's education is extremely high. [...]
That is, if the human capital possessed by parents is not complemented by social capital embodied in family relations, it is irrelevant to the child's educational growth that the parent has a great deal, or a small amount, of human capital. (p. S110)
Essa história me parece familiar. Não, minha mãe não comprava dois livros, mas sei bem como funciona a cabeça desses pais orientais.
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