GÜVEN AĞBAĞLARI, SOSYAL SERMAYE ve TOPLUMSAL CİNSİYET

The purpose of this article is to search for an answer to the question of whether trust, defined in this article following Putnam, Coleman, Burt,and Lin as a form of social capital which is needed and produced by all communities, varies based on social gender and class. The declining amount of trust in Turkey has been the subject of both popular(media) and scientific writings for some time. Particularly, research exists and the writings focus on the two of the three different types of trust as described in the literature, namely the generalized and institutional trust. On the third type, strategic trust, however, no empirical research has been conducted. This paper is based on the findings of a research which tries to fill this gap in the literature. In this research, compared to the earlier research in the literature, trust is considered with a focus on social gender and class. For the analysis of this article employee of three different kinds of organizations (public, private and not-for-profit) who were chosen to represent working men and women from different strata and class were surveyed. They were asked to answer network questions designed to map their formel, informel, social and work related ties. For each organization ‘trust network’ data gathered from the employees of were analyzed for this article. After the sociograms are mapped the amounts of bonding type of social capital defined by Coleman and the bridging type of social capital defined by Burt are calculated for all three organizations and employees, respectively, by using UCINET. The two types of social capital that were calculated by using the techniques of social network analysis are compared between genders (male-female employees) and by social classes (upper, medium and lower). Additional socio-economic data gathered from the same surveyed employees is analyzed by SPSS to locate each individual in a social class and gender scala. The findings show variations between the amounts of social capital that each class has. Additionally, findings suggest variations in the distribution of social capital between genders, however, not a major one. Such findings provide partial support to the literature that claims the existence of negative discrimination against women. On the other hand, visual analysis of the sociograms and the ties that exist between employees in all three organizations demonstrate that in all three organizations people tend not to discriminate neither against the women nor against the lower class members-at least in relations of trust. Most of the sub-groups and/or the cliques are composed of men and women from different income and occupational groups. The suggestive findings demonstrate that social class has more explanatory power in explaining the differences between the amounts of bridging social capital. For instance, more upper-class women were found to have more bridging social capital then the lower-class men. However, within the same class women tend to have less bridging social capital then their male counterparts. The tests show that, statistically, the variations between genders however is not found to be significant in all comparisons. When the amounts of bonding social capital are compared, the private organization, not the public or not-for profit, is found to have the highest network density, thus the bonding type of social capital, in the trust network. This finding is against the mainstream assumptions about private organizations which are generally expected to have a more individualistic and competitive work culture. In addition to work culture; variables such as size, geographic proximity, an existence of collective societal cultures are known to explain variations in the amounts of bonding social capital. Further, research is required to set the record straight. The number of empirical research on social capital and on the distribution of social capital by gender, class, type of organization and occupation is extremely small in Turkey. Further, the causes, sources and outcomes of bonding and bridging social capital variances remains theoretically and empirically underdeveloped in the social sciences literature in general.