| As a product of industrial society, distance education in its hundred years of development history has always been influenced by the social, political, economic and technical underpinnings of industrial society. Accordingly, as the conception of an industrial society has given way to the ideas of the network society, liquid life and risk society, the question of how distance education should adjust to these social transformations has become one of the most significant issues to be explored by researches in the field of distance education.;As a sociological study, this study applies theories of the network society and social capital in studying the social interactions among distance learners. It aims to clarify the processes and mechanisms through which social capitals are built and to investigate their effects on the distance learners. More specifically, social capital is conceptualized into three dimensions in this study, namely, trust, social identity and norms. Accordingly, the research question to be explored is how distance learners construct and make use of these three constituents of social capital, and how these constituents in turn affect the learning and work of the distance learners under study.;This study selected a provincial Radio & TV University in Mainland situates in the coastal areas of China as its site, and twenty-eight students enrolled in five classes in the University as its subjects. Mainly by using ethnographic research method, such as semi-structural interviews, and observations and documentations of web-based interactions, this study traces the interactions of these distance learners throughout the first term of their academic year in 2010--2011.;This study has revealed how social capitals are constructed among distance learners, and how their studies and works are affected by these social capitals. More specifically, it is revealed that first of all, through varieties of interactions inside and outside the classroom, trusts among the subjects are gradually formed on the bases of partners' performances, reputations and appearances. Secondly, this study has also found that by means of continuous and repeated identification and comparison, individual and group identities are formed among these distance learners. Thirdly, group norms are also gradually developed. These norms are subsequently complied by members of the group through the mechanism of reward and punishment. Finally, this has also revealed that these three dimensions of social capital do not work separately, but mutually reinforcing each other in a sequential way. Furthermore, this study has found that these accumulated social capitals have asserted some positive effects on the learning outcomes of the distance learners under study. These effects take the form of enhancing their learning performances, improving their class attendance rates and reducing their drop-out rates. Moreover, it is revealed that this social capital have also positive impacts on other aspects of the lives of the distance learners, such as enhancing chances in job-hunts, solving practical problems in workplace, lending supports to the social adjustments to their disembedding and reembedding processes of migrations.;The study has also found that in the context of late modernity, the risks that distance learners have to endowed are high. That is to say, to be distance learners, they are expected to learn independently and at the same time to bear all their other obligations of commitments in their work and family lives. At the same time, it is revealed the social structure of distance education system has transformed from the onion model to a more flexible and open-network structure, in which nodes are formed and connected according to the structure of the paradigm of information technology and the network logic. Accordingly, the learning and socializing processes of distance learner in the new millennium demand further investigations in these emerging perspectives. Finally, this study suggests that distance education institutions should rethink its aims and procedures in the direction of promoting the development of social capital among distance learners in the network society. |
