Diverse communities : the problem with social capital / Barbara Arneil.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Arneil, Barbara.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social capital (Sociology).

Social capital (Sociology)--United States.

Social participation--United States.

Social participation.

Communities.

United States.

Communities--United States.

Cultural pluralism--United States.

Cultural pluralism.

Social change--United States.

Social change.

Putnam, Robert D. Bowling alone.

Putnam, Robert D.

United States--Social conditions--1945-.

Social conditions.

Physical Description:

xii, 267 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Summary:

Diverse Communities is a critique of Robert Putnam's social capital thesis, re-examined from the perspective of women and cultural minorities in America over the last century. Barbara Arneil argues that the idyllic communities of the past were less positive than Putnam envisages and that the current 'collapse' in participation is better understood as change rather than decline. Arneil suggests that the changes in American civil society in the last half-century are the result not so much of generational change or television as of the unleashing of powerful economic, social and cultural forces that, despite leading to division and distrust within American society, also contributed to greater justice for women and cultural minorities. She concludes by proposing that the lessons learned from this fuller history of American civil society provide the normative foundation to enumerate the principles of justice by which diverse communities might be governed in the twenty-first century.

Contents:

Social capital, justice and diversity : an introduction

The Progressive Era : past paradise?

The present malaise in civic participation : empirical and normative dimensions

The causes of "decline" in social capital theory

Civic trust and shared norms

Beyond Bowling alone : social capital in twenty-first-century America

Justice in diverse communities : lessons for the future.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-256) and index.

ISBN:

0521857198

0521673909

OCLC:

63472719

Publisher Number:

9780521857192

9780521673907

Online:

Publisher description