中華心理衛生協會

Purpose: Social capital consists of some aspects of social structures and inheres in networks of relationships between people or organizations, facilitating the actions of the actors within the structures. This article investigates the effect of social capital, in both the family and school environment, on the development of internalizing behavioral problems in elementary school students. Methods: The study was conducted by using secondary data analysis of 2003 data from the ”Child and Adolescent Behaviors in Long-Term Evolution (CABLE)” project. The study sample consisted of a total of 2,247 sixth grade students from Taipei City and Hsinchu County who were living with both parents. ”Internalizing behavioral problems” was used as the dependent variable and was broken down into the three constructs of ”depression”, ”social anxiety” and ”social loneliness”. Results: After controlling for background factors, we found that family and school social capital were able to prevent internalizing behavioral problems in children. In addition, students whose family lack social capital (low levels of family interaction, high levels of family conflict) or school lack social capital (poor school identity) had more serious internalizing behavioral problems. Moreover, social capital was more predictive in girls than in boys. Conclusions: The results support that girls and lower social capital are associated with internalizing behavioral problems among children. Hence, our study suggests that parents and teachers should provide children with mental health education, create an environment with better social capital, and consequently, prevent children's internalizing behavioral problems.