Abstract

DUARTE BAJANA, Ricardo  and  CALIZ, Nelly. ARE COMMUNITARIAN DIMENSIONS AND SOCIAL CAPITAL, PROMOTERS OF THE HEALTH-ENVIRONMENT NUCLEUS IN A UNIVERSITY IN BOGOTÁ?. rev.udcaactual.divulg.cient. [online]. 2008, vol.11, n.2, pp.41-50. ISSN 0123-4226.

The possibility of forming and consolidating academic work groups in the university context is a fundamental task. The development of communities and social capital allows to increase the potential production of these groups, being therefore essential to understand the dynamics of those categories to determine if its structure makes working groups possible. The objective of this research consisted in understanding the community dimensions and the social capital as dynamic elements of a work group in the Health-Environment nucleus within a University in Bogota, Colombia. By means of a qualitative approach survey of hermeneutic type, 15 professors from the Health Science area were interviewed, five additional qualitative interviews (two within the original group, three outside) were conducted with professors, who had investigated and written papers on this theme. A collective activity of inquiry, participative observation through the methodology of focal group, whose objective was to understand the dynamics of inter-action between professors of the Health Science Area of the university and to review the academic work produced by the educational participants of the investigation, was realized. Nothing seems to indicate that the communitarian dimensions and the social capital are elements which promote a work group in the nucleus health-atmosphere within the institution. Nevertheless, the explanation of this fact is not in the mentioned nucleus, but in the low levels of development of the community dimensions such as cognitive and structural dominions inherent to social capital.

Keywords : Social capital; community; health; environment; university; work groups.

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