Social capital and social inclusion: some elements for social policy in Colombia

Abstract

The topic of the social capital turns out to becentral in the analysis of the elements that canpromote conditions of development and socialinclusion, for its implications of economic, social,political and cultural order. This analysisnecessarily passes through the examination ofthe diverse conceptions on social capital andsocial inclusion and the experiences and locallearning in the topic. In this sense, the purposeof this document is to emphasize some elementsof the social capital that can be useful to the socialpolicy to generate social inclusion spaces. Forthis, in the first part some theoreticalapproximations of the social capital are explored.In the second section a theoretical approach isrevised on the concepts of social exclusion andinclusion. In the third part, general lines of thesocial policy in Colombia and Valle del Cauca areoutlined and finally, in the fourth paragraph, someelements of social capital that can play a role inthe social policy to propitiate social inclusion areidentified