Trust as a component of social capital - comparative analysis of students from Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia
ENThe main aim of the article was to characterize and compare personal and public trust of students from Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia as a core component of social capital. Chosen issues considering social capital and trust as its constituent are presented in the theoretical part. The part has also become a foundation to the analysis of the survey outcomes conducted among students of Department of Economics and Management of University of Szczecin (n = 239), Faculty of Politics and Management Mykolo Romeris University in Vilnius (n = 113) as well as Faculty of Economics, Matej Bel University in Banska Bystrica (n = 153). Presented results, as a part of in-depth research study regarding social capital, led to arriving at a few valid conclusions. First and foremost students are quite careful as far as relations are concerned; on the other hand they claim that their closest surroundings are trustworthy. Therefore it seems reasonable to assume that closest bonds are strongly settled in their communities and cautiousness in dealing with other people primarily refers to strangers. What is more, students show a relatively greater lack of trust in people of other nations. In addition, among students there is a very low degree of trust in the state, regardless of its level. Worth mentioning is the fact that there are considerable differences in the students' trust in different occupational groups.
