Social Capital According to Gender : Social and political trust within gender divided groups in Babati, Tanzania

Sammanfattning: The theory of social capital has been well discussed within the field of Political Science. This paper aims to study how social capital is gender related within gender divided groups in Babati, Tanzania. The study maps out the distribution of social and political trust within these groups. The material consists of 50 interviews with men and women that participate in informal, voluntary groups in Babati. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods has been used to analyze the trust distribution between men and women. The data that is analyzed through the theory of Robert Putnam and trough) Gidengil and O’Neill’s criticism of Putnam, claiming that social capital is imbued in gender patterns, inequalities and hierarchies. The result shows small variety between men and women’s social and political trust, with the exemption of women possessing stronger trust towards court judges than men do. Gender patterns can be found in the motivations for trust and distrust among the respondents, which suggests that, the assumptions of Gidengil and O’Neill are valid.