Unanticipated Gains Origins of Network Inequality in Everyday Life

Why do some people enjoy larger, more supportive, or otherwise more useful networks than others? In Unanticipated Gains, Mario Luis Small argues that the practices and structure of the churches, colleges, firms, gyms, childcare centers, and schools in which people happen to participate routinely matter more than deliberate "networking." Exploring the experiences of New York City mothers whose children were enrolled in childcare centers, Small examines why a great deal of these mothers dramatically expanded both the size and usefulness of their personal networks. Relying on scores of in-depth interviews with mothers, quantitative data on both mothers and centers, and detailed case studies of other routine organizations, Small shows that how much people gain from their connections depends substantially on institutional conditions they often do not control, and through everyday processes they may not even be aware of. Emphasizing not the connections that people make, but the context in which they are made, Unanticipated Gains presents a major new perspective on social capital and on many of the mechanisms sustaining social inequality.

Mario Luis Small is Professor of Sociology and the College at the University of Chicago. He is author of Villa Victoria: The Transformation of Social Capital in Boston Barrio, winner of the 2004 C. Wright Mills Award and the 2005 Robert E. Park Award.

Preface
Part One: Personal Ties in Organizational Settings
1. Social Capital and Organizational Embeddedness
2. Childcare Centers and Mothers' Wellbeing: Whether Mothers Did Better When Their Children Were in Centers
Part Two: Social Ties
3. Opportunities and Inducements: Why Mothers So Often Made Friends in Centers
4. Weak and Strong Ties: Whether Mothers Made Close Friends, Acquaintances, or Something Else
5. Trust and Obligations: Why Some Mothers' Support Networks Were Larger than Their Friendship Networks
Part Three: Organizational Ties
6. Ties to Other Entities: Why Mothers' Most Useful Ties Were Not Always Social
7. Organizational Ties and Neighborhood Effects: How Mothers' Non-social Ties Were Affected by Location
Part Four: Beyond Childcare Centers
8. Extensions and Implications
Appendix A: A Multi-method Case Study
Appendix B: Quantitative Data
Appendix C: Qualitative Data
Appendix D: Tables