FORMS OF SOCIAL CAPITAL IN THE ROMANIAN KINSHIP (English version)

This study aims at providing a theoretical and methodological preamble to the more ample issue concerning the research project entitled „Modele de interacţiune între capitalul social informal şi formal; investigarea rolului de suport şi mediator al familiei lărgite (kinship)” (Models of interactions between formal and informal social capital; investigating its role as support and mediator of kinship networks). However,it also includes certain empirical data from field studies and official statistics, especially concerning the Romanian single parent family. In the first part of the article, I outline the current trends in the development of the domestic group, while also commenting on the important issue of “right” and “wrong” in the structure and dynamics of the contemporary family and, as a consequence, I discuss the sensitive issue of “family values”. At the same time I point out the major challenges in understanding social capital and, subsequently, of the forms thereof, and I suggest certain conceptual-theoretical solutions. The second part brings together classical ideas, but also innovations in the methodology and even in the epistemology of the optimal socio-human investigation in general, and concerning family social capital in particular. The third part focuses on certain functional mechanisms of social capital, especially in the case of the single parent family in Romania, by carrying out relevant comparisons with other countries.