Social Capital Building Among Black Chicagoan Emerging Adults: Applying a Critical Race Theory Lens

Social capital is one of the most salient factors for success. Terms such as “it’s not what you know, it’s who know” are prevalent today and capture the essence of social capital - using social connections and relationships to achieve goals or objectives. However, for African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities, social capital access and the value of the social capital held is partially determined by one’s identity within a cultural and hierarchical society. Literature on social capital acquisition and mobilization is saturated with studies that take on a deficit- focused model and position the social capital held by minorities as less valuable. Studies assessing the social capital held and mobilized by African Americans often do so by comparing minority men and women to their white counterparts, using primarily quantitative methodologies. In doing so, studies place the deficit in the individual and suggest that membership to a racial category is the causal mechanism for the difference in social capital, not societal issues. Drawing from interviews with fourteen Black Chicagoan emerging adults, this study explored the process of social capital access and mobilization for this population and how their identity might have impacted the process. Four overarching themes emerged: 1)racial solidarity and shared experience, 2) racial and gender experiences, 3) benefits of representation, and 4) unique forms of social capital in the Black community. This study contributes to this literature by exploring the process of social capital building and utilization for African American emerging adults – a population understudied within social capital literature. Further, This study explored unique forms of social capital within the African American community created out of resistance and shared experience.