connecting child care
Mario Small of the University of Chicago and a former orgtheory guest blogger has a coauthored paper in the September issue of Social Forces that looks at the interorganizational networks of urban child care centers. The paper finds that, contrary to expectations established by the urban poverty literature, social service organizations in poor neighborhoods do not have fewer interorganizational connections than similar organizations in non-poor neighborhoods. In fact, child care centers are one of the vital institutions of poor urban neighborhoods precisely because of their important role as brokers in the network of social service providers. Working mothers and others come to depend on these centers as part of their social capital. Child care centers in poor neighborhoods have significantly more ties to other organizations than centers in non-poor neighborhoods. Mario and his coauthors also find that government and private non-profit child care centers have more ties to other organizations than for-profit centers do. Here is Mario’s post on this research.
Small et al. note that research on the interorganizational structure of communities (especially of poor communities) has all but disappeared in recent years. People who study poverty tend to focus on other factors, such as individual social capital or neighborhood effects. Organizational scholars have shifted their attention to other kinds of organizations, namely corporations and business. Due to this shift, there has been a gap of current research on how local organizations impact inequality. This appears to be changing, however. Mario is just one of a group of new urban poverty/inequality scholars who are drawing on and contributing to organizational theory. Those who are interested in the topic ought to check out Mario’s impressive blog (with Celeste Watkins-Hayes), Urbanorgs, where you can learn more about the most current research on urban inequality and organizations.
