Social Capital - Subject Follow-up

This measure appears in the following time-points: Follow06, Follow12, Follow18, Follow24, Follow30, Follow36, Follow48, Follow60, Follow72, Follow84.

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Related Construct

Personal Capital and Social Ties

Description of Measure

The Social Capital Inventory measures the connectedness an adolescent feels to his/her community (Nagin & Paternoster, 1994). This concept is explored along three dimensions: intergenerational closure (e.g., "How many of the parents of your friends know your parents?"), social integration (e.g., "How many of your teachers do your parents know by name?"), and perceived opportunity for work (e.g. "Employers around here often hire young people from this neighborhood?"). The measure contains 19 items; however, only 13 are considered in scoring. Higher scores indicate greater degree of community connectedness.

Originally, syntax was written to generate three scores, which match each of the dimensions noted above:

Social Capital - Intergenerational closure (S#SOCAP1; mean of 3 items)
Social Capital - Social integration (S#SOCAP2; mean of 5 items)
Social Capital - Perceived opportunity for work (S#SOCAP3; mean of 5 items)

These three scores, however, did not all demonstrate adequate fit to the baseline data when tested as individual factors (separate one factor CFAs). The values for each of these scales were:

Intergenerational closure (items 07,08,09): 3 items alpha .73; RMR .096, GFI=.972 RMSEA = .137
Social integration: items 10, 02, 03, 04, 11. alpha = .67, RMR=.047; GFI = .976 and RMSEA = .089
Perceived opportunity for work (5 items: SocCap12, 13, 14, 15,16) : alpha = .76, RMR = .039; GFI = .981 and RMSEA = .094 (Note - items must be reversed scored before they are averaged)

The intergenerational closure scale presented particular problems and did not appear to fit the data well enough to use on its own. A new scale combining intergenerational closure and social integration was therefore created and this scale fit the data adequately as a single factor when tested using CFA. (alpha .74, RMR=.059, GFI = .954, RMSEA = .084).

This leaves three acceptable scales for social capital:

Social Capital - Social integration [s#socap2]; mean of 5 items: 10, 2, 3, 4, 11
Social Capital - Perceived opportunity for work [s#socap3]; mean of 5 items: 12, 13, 14, 15,16
Social Capital - Closure+Integration [s#scclint]; mean of 8 items: 02, 03, 04, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11

Data Issues

This measure are skipped if the subject spent the entire recall period in a facility. This is automatically determined by programming code by looking at the location types listed in the living calendar. "Locked up" is defined as being in locations of types 6 (secure facility), 8 (RTC), 9 (medical hospital) and 10 (psychiatric hospital) for all months of the recall period.
For 86 cases across all follow-up time-points, the subject spent the entire recall period in an institution, but a programming bug caused the subject to receive the neighborhood questions. For these cases, we have removed all data from this measure and inserted a missing value code indicating the subject did not skip into the measure.
Beginning with version 01.16, S#SocCap10 (how many of your teachers do your parents know by name) is skipped if the subject is locked up for the entire recall period, and if they were not enrolled in school during the recall period. This item is used in both the computation of s#socap2 and s#scclint.
Some cases are missing data for this measure as a result of a bug in the programming code. Cases with this issue are noted with a missing value code of -700.
Some cases are missing data for this measure as a result of data cleaning changes done in order to correct an interviewer mistake. Cases with this issue are noted with a missing value code of -800.

References

Nagin, D. S., and Paternoster, R. (1994). Personal capital and social control: the deterrence implications of a theory of individual differences of offending. Criminology, 32, 581-673.
Williams, H.R., and Hawkins, R. (1986). Perceptual research on general deterrence: A Critical Overview. Law and Society Review, 20, 545-572.
Grasmick, H.G. and Bursik, R.J., Jr. (1990). Conscience, significant others, and rational choice: extending the deterrence model. Law and Society Review, 24, 837-861.