Buone pratiche e capitale sociale. Servizi alla persona pubblici e di privato sociale a confronto.

The core of the volume is that the quality of services to person and the possibility to consider them as “good practices" depends on their ability to generate and regenerate the social capital of the users and their networks of relationships. From the perspective of relational sociology, social capital consists of mutual relationships based on trust and cooperation, which are a good in itself and not a mere instrument to achieve other goals. These specific characteristics make more likely that social capital generates itself in social private organizations, in which individuals generally act on the basis of a spirit of solidarity, and their help is centered on the relationship of trust between the provider of the service and the user. On the contrary, it is difficult that social capital develops in public or market organizations providing standardized services, where the role takes precedence over the person, and where bonds between people is functional and instrumental. Through the analysis of the results of two studies – on public and social private Youthful Aggregation Centers of the city council of Milan and on professional foster care of the Province of Milan - the starting hypothesis is only partially confirmed: social capital may also be the unexpected effect of any action brought by public bodies that through a participatory approach manage to release the work of social networks. Whereas, social capital may find it hard to increase where subjects of social private fail to fully promote the empowerment of the recipients of its services.