About the Program

Our work explores how social capital is defined and how it works in Canada to help people realize their career and life ambitions. While there is not an insignificant body of research on the questions of social mobility and social capital in the United States, this work lacks precedent in Canada. Our work will include the first ever longitudinal survey to establish how social capital might be acquired and utilized towards the realization of individuals' ambitions.

By establishing for the first time a baseline study to understand how social capital is defined, attained, and maintained by people in Canada over the funding period of 3 years, organizations, and institutional bodies (e.g. government agencies) would be better able to put in place programs that could address and enable people's ambitions. These findings can be used to inform policy and action plans towards systems change that is centred on the lived experiences and needs of individuals in the Canadian context.

Beyond the three-year funding period, we anticipate that the findings will be used as the foundation for future research on social capital, social mobility and how it operates and is accessed. To this end, future supports can be tailored to the needs of Canadians based on their experiences.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

Primary Objectives

The primary objective of this research program is to explore the experiences of racialized peoples and the effectiveness of social mobility supports and assess social capital in a race conscious way in Canada. We will do so by gathering a significant set of longitudinal data points from four program partners: York University's School of Continuing Studies, the Coalition of Innovation Leaders Against Racism (CILAR), YorkU-TD Community Engagement Centre, and the Black Opportunity Fund (BOF) over a three-year period, and we will use data obtained from surveys, focus groups and interviews to help inform Canadian policy and practice on a national level.

For more information: find out more about our survey and focus groups

Early Learnings

The Social Capital Research Team has been actively involved in a comprehensive scoping review guided by Arksey and O’Malley's (2005) recommendations and protocol for conducting a comprehensive scoping review. The first stage involves formulating research questions and defining core concepts.To guide the study's focus, four research questions are formulated. These are:

How is social capital defined by racialized peoples?
How is social capital used by racialized people?
How is social capital facilitating racialized people’s journeying through different educational and occupational spaces/environment)?
What challenges do racialized people face in accessing and utilizing social capital for occupational and/or career mobility that would lead to upward social mobility in society?

York University has received a $750,000 USD donation from Walmart Foundation for the ground-breaking research in Social Capital and Mobility project lead by Professor Carl James the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora.