Research On Social Capital Of Confucius Institute

As a practice of language and culture communication, Confucius institutes have built a strong social network with 475 branch institutes in 126 foreign countries during their development in the past decade①, which has become a present existence. For one thing, they have helped fill in cultural gaps by consciously making targeted adjustment to resolve cultural friction and conflicts due to globalization. In this way, the natural multi-cultural imbalance situation is rebalanced. For another, the social network can promote the collaboration, communication and dialogue among different cultures. Therefore, a balance can be rebuilt among diverse cultural communities, where ties can be built benefiting all the parties with enhanced mutual trust and sharing in a win-win situation.The great social impact of Confucius institutes is coupled with various problems, as their network spreads. We need to organize and sum up those problems in an academic way, which has important theoretical significance. Therefore, the study of their social network has great pragmatic and theoretical value. It promotes the sustained development of Confucius institutes with theoretical development. Meanwhile, it meets the realistic demand of exploring successful practice in language and culture spreading to seek a balance between diverse cultures.The thesis studies how to enhance trust in the social network of Confucius institutes so as to fully unleash the function of them from the perspective of social capital. The author gives a systematic analysis on the value, concept, accumulation, function and safeguarding of the social network based on previous theoretical study on social capital. Through the analysis, the author proposes insightful suggestion on the trust problems and trust building in the current social network.The thesis attempts to answer the following five questions based on a systematic study of the social network of Confucius institutes. What is the significance of study on social capital of Confucius institutes? What is the concept of social capital of Confucius institutes? How is it accumulated? What do social capital functions of Confucius institutes implement? How is the social capital of Confucius institutes sustained and guaranteed? The thesis is developed around the questions above with seven chaptersChapter one is the introduction. It introduces the significance of the topic with the research background, the realistic questions to be discussed and their logic relations. Then the author gives a literature review of the field and his comments. Afterwards, the logic framework and research methods are introduced.Chapter two defines the concept of Confucius institutes social capital. Based on the previous theoretical study on social capital, this chapterdefines it as "the integration of social network built by Confucius institutes on the basis of trust, conductive to the implementation of Confucius institute activities" from the network globally set by Confucius institutes. The core of their social capital is trust, a social integrating mechanism including institutional trust, process trust and characteristic trust. From the perspective of trust, the thesis divides the concept into three dimensions—social network based on institutional trust, social network based on process trust and social network based on characteristic trust. The foundation of the social capital of Confucius institutes is their social network. The network system is constituted by three fundamental elements—social relation, resources in the social network and rules and standards for building social network. The basic unit of Confucius institutes is relation capital, and their social capital includes internal social capital and external social capital. Therefore, the social capital of Confucius institutes has not only general features shared by all social capitals, but also its own features different from other organizations.Chapter three gives an analysis to the social capital accumulation of Confucius institutes (hereafter referred to as the accumulation). An analysis is given to the mechanism of the accumulation process. Then the author summarizes the factors beneath the accumulation, including internal factors and external factors. The internal factors include structure factors, resource factors and institutional factors, while the external ones include policy environment, historic background and cultural background. Finally, the author conducts general and individual study on the accumulation and analyzes its advantages and disadvantages from the perspective of internal factors and external factors.Chapter four provides the international experience of the accumulation. The author selects representative and influential language spreading institutes from four countries, namely, Alliance Francaise, Goethe Institute, British Council of Culture and authorities concerned in America. An analysis is given to these institutes from the type, method and foundation of their accumulation. The author has explored how to promote the accumulation considering the characteristics of Confucius institutes on the basis of the experience other foreign institutes.Chapter five is about the implementation of social capital functions by Confucius institutes. The author provides a summary of the positive and negative functions of the capital at the beginning, the former including social support, social control and social understanding, and the latter including social exclusion and social dependence. Secondly, an analysis is given to the conditions of the function fulfillment from precondition, foundation and guarantee. Thirdly, the chapter gives the two methods to fulfill the social capital functions from the perspective of resource allocation, including mobilizing and integrating social resources on the one hand, allocating and spreading social resources on the other. Finally, the author analyzes the effects of social capital of Confucius institutes from the perspective of industry, nation, society, culture and economy.Chapter six is about the guarantee and maintemance of the social capital of Confucius institutes. The chapter explores who is responsible for safeguarding the social capital, what needs to be safeguarded and ways to guarantee and safeguard the social capital from the subjects, elements and mechanism. Firstly, the author clarifies the duties of the three subjects, namely, government and authorities concerned, Confucius institutes and their partners, enterprises and social force. Then the author gives suggestions from the three influential elements—institutional elements, structure elements and resource elements. Finally, mechanisms can be introduced to enhance the interaction within the social network of Confucius institutes, improve its stability and reduce potential risks, including cultural industry operation mechanism, risk warning and settlement mechanism, multi-subject interactive mechanism and assessment mechanism with the core of "trust".Chapter seven concludes the thesis with main research content and principal views, conclusions, and innovation. The author proposes problems to be explored for further studies considering the insufficiency of the thesis.