earticle

영어

Since Doi Moi policy(1986), traditional communities in Vietnam, which could be characterized by their own local products such as silk ceramics, wood crafts, began to be rehabilitated. This paper aims to analyze social capital in those communities of Vietnam with data on Dong Ky town. In this paper, social capital is categorized into three types; trust, participation and networks. Dong Ky town, located 20 km away from the Hanoi center, is known for its wood crafts. Two hundred people were interviewed and their answers were analyzed to show social capital and to explain the structure of social capital in the communities of Vietnam. The results can be summarized into four findings. First, Dong Ky people tend to have much higher trust in their family member than in their friends, merchants, neighbors and public officials. This signifies that a great deal of activities in the communities of Vietnam operate through kinship bonds. Second, Dong Ky people participate in sports games and social activities with friends frequently. However, they rarely do so in professional associations, volunteer activities, community activities and governmental activities. Third, Dong Ky people collect the most of information about government policies from their relatives, friends and neighbors. The next active information source is local market, followed by wall posters and TV. The three most active social associations that Dong Ky people involve themselves in are social meetings, sport club, and parent association, respectively. Fourth, regarding the overall structure of social capital, Dong Ky people consider trust (bonding social capital) to be more important than the other two types of social capital such as participation and networks(bridging social capital). However, the younger generations aged below fifty years old treat networks that signify bridging social capital as the most important type of social capital. Then, they consider participation as the second most important social capital, followed by trust. This reveals that the communities of Vietnam are in the process of changing the structure of social capital from bonding social capital to bridging one.