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USAID-funded programs for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) provide comprehensive sets of services to improve child and household wellbeing for households affected by HIV. Research suggests that OVC programs enhance household- and child-level resilience to economic, environmental, social, or political shocks, but there is little evidence elucidating the pathways by which intervention components, including economic strengthening and social protection programs, affect these outcomes. This case study uses exploratory qualitative research to generate a causal model for the Community Care Program (CCP) in Mozambique. We used the Most Significant Change methodology to compile mini-case studies and identify primary causal pathways between program components and outcomes. We also used the Community Capitals Framework to explore how CCP affected community-level resilience. Our findings suggest that CCP’s multi-component approach generated mutually reinforcing drivers that enhanced child-, household-, a...

Strong supportive organizations and interpersonal networks are taken to be instrumental for increasing social groups’ ability to actuate collective interests and build problem-solving capacity. Primary survey data from the island hinterlands area of Carriacou, Grenada, are used to test how key determinants of social capital in developed nations – supportive organizational efficacy, civic organization participation, social interaction, and socio-demographic characteristics – influence the normative dimension of social capital in a developing setting. Results indicate that perceptions of government efficacy and education enhance both measures of social capital in this island hinterland, while different indicators of social interaction display independent influences on each. This study concludes that hinterland settings such as Carriacou exhibit significantly different causes of social capital formation than found in other sectors of the world system.

Treatments of sustainability outcomes such as food security, economic development and environmental degradation typically have adopted monocausal approaches. Many have argued for substantial increases in world meat production as the panacea to global food insecurity. We use global and national synthetic explanations and path analytic approaches to examine sustainability outcomes for 200 nations. Both strong direct or indirect links are found among global geography, global power and national capitals, as well as warfare and military expenditures, and economic development. These factors are differentially predictive of the other key measures of sustainability.

Hunger represents a persistent problem in less developed countries (LDCs). Comparative sociological research debates the role of exports in influencing hunger, as export specialization can be a means to development as well as dependency. We consider the severity of hunger as an outcome of unequal exchange relationships, utilizing a measure of agricultural export flows. The results reveal that agricultural export flows to high-income countries elevate the severity of hunger in LDCs, net of other important modernization, food production, and military factors. Thus, the concept of unequal exchange is relevant in explaining cross-national patterns in hunger, and suggests that inequalities in food distribution are paramount in contributing to threatening levels of hunger in LDCs.

This study uses a quasi-experimental design to assess differences in student performance and satisfaction across online and face-to-face (F2F) classroom settings. Data were collected from 368 students enrolled in three online and three F2F sections of an introductory-level sociology course. The instructor, course materials, and assessments were consistent between the two delivery formats. The investigators compare student satisfaction and student performance on midterm exams and an integrating data analysis assignment. Ordinary least squares regression is used to evaluate the effect of the different course settings, independent of a number of demographic and control variables. Results indicate that differences in student performance between the two settings may be accounted for by the presence of a selection effect and that student satisfaction does not significantly differ across the two settings. These findings are interpreted to mean that when online courses are designed using pedagogically sound practices, they may provide equally effective learning environments.

This study investigates the influence of family solidarity, community structure, information access, social capital, and socioeconomic status on the extent of nutrition and health knowledge (NHK) among primary household meal planners. In turn, we pose the question: does this knowledge influence dietary decision making? Data are taken from a survey determining socioeconomic impacts of vitamin A fortified peanut butter on Philippine households. Questions on the relationships of nutrition to health were selected to construct a knowledge index on which household respondents could be ranked. We then tested hypotheses regarding what types of individual, family-level, and community structural characteristics would predict performance on this index. The results indicate that the strongest predictors of NHK come from sociological theory related to family solidarity and community centrality, in addition to information accessibility and household income. Our findings also indicate that NHK influences dietary choices with regard to the purchase of a vitamin fortified staple food product, which is essential when addressing nutritional deficiency problems in developing countries.

This article presents the findings of a case study examining the relationship between social capital and individual participation in collec- tive action on a Caribbean island recovering from devastation inflicted by Hurricanes Ivan and Emily. Using data drawn from 114 residential surveys on the island of Carriacou, Grenada, over the summer of 2006, we empirically test social capital as a predictor of individual participation in both formal and informal civic events. In addition, we further the theoretical development of the concept of social capital by independently testing the relationships between its multiple dimensions, specifically social networks; interpersonal trust; and norms of reciprocity. We find that associational membership and age are the two strongest predictors, while interpersonal trust, gender, and marital status are also significant. Our path analysis reveals that there is not a significant direct effect between associational membership and interpersonal trust, suggesting that the two dimensions may have independent, yet comple- mentary, influences. This study sheds light on factors influencing citizen participation in "civic" forms of collective action in a developing region of the world, while demonstrating the multidimensional nature of social capital.

This paper offers a meta-analysis that traces the contested meaning and use of social capital in sociological research over the last 18 years by focusing on journal article definitions. We identify six common definitions in use that closely correspond to the original—and in some cases, independent—formulations offered by Hanifan, Putnam, Coleman, Bourdieu, and Granovetter. Drawing from Kuhnian theory, we contend that these definitions illuminate deep divisions between those who understand social capital as a normative “cure-all” (Portes 1998)—in the tradition of Hanifan, Putnam, and Coleman —and those who view it as a resource—in the tradition of Bourdieu and Granovetter— that may be used to create or maintain social inequality. The transition of social capital from preparadigm to paradigm status may potentially involve an integration of these approaches, but this will require greater consideration of power and inequality on the part of normative theorists, who are currently dominating the debate.