Family, Social Capital and Family Associations

Social Capital (SC) is a concept variedly defined and object today of great attention at an international level: it concerns trust among people, the ability to active nets, solidarity, and civic engagement in the public sphere. The SC constitutive character makes it producible only in original and fundamental relationships (in primis the family), where trust is developed and the code of solidarity is current. Nevertheless, the increasing fragmentation and individualization of the family seem to consume SC; rather than to increase it. This leads to the question about the nature of SC today as constituted by the family. Some phenomena, for example family associationism, show that the family is still a patrimony irrefutable for social life: when families constitute family associations, they produce primary and secondary SC.