Social capital is a concept that is becoming ever more established in social studies due to the increasing number of social relations. The term refers to all resources gained through social relations, whether it be information, knowledge, skills or emotional support. In this paper we are interested in whether this social capital affects the academic success of the students of the University of Ljubljana. We are specifically focusing on two key forms of social capital, i.e. bonding and bridging social capital. The method used in the empirical part of the paper is a semi-structured interview; eight such interviews were carried out with students from different faculties of the university. For the purpose of measuring the beforementioned forms of social capital we are employing the measurement scale developed by Williams in 2006. As an indicator of academic performance we are using grade point average as the most commonly used such indicator in relevant research. Results suggest that students with a predominantly bridging social capital have a moderately higher GPA (8,4) than students with a predominantly bonding social capital (7,98). However, taking into account the small sample size, we believe this difference is not significant enough to suggest a strong correlation between specific types of social capital and academic success. Future research done with larger sample sizes could paint a clearer picture.
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