Social Capital, Community Agency, and Social Work Practice in Urban Informal Settlements in Lagos: A Longitudinal Analysis

Urban informal settlements in Lagos represent some of the most challenging social welfare environments in sub-Saharan Africa, yet they also contain rich reservoirs of social capital and community agency that social work has rarely engaged with systematically. This doctoral study undertakes a longitudinal analysis of the relationship between social capital, community agency, and social work practice outcomes in informal settlements in Lagos, South West Nigeria, drawing on data collected from Makoko, Ajegunle, and Mushin across three data collection waves over eighteen months. A critical transformative paradigm employing longitudinal mixed methods is adopted, combining repeated-measures surveys of 250 community households, participatory observation, and qualitative interviews with community leaders and social workers. Latent growth curve modelling and longitudinal thematic analysis are applied. The study's original methodological contribution is the application of longitudinal design to community social work research in Nigerian settings, generating dynamic rather than static evidence of change processes. Theoretically, the study integrates Bourdieu's social capital theory with community social work practice frameworks to explain how social capital mobilisation by social workers amplifies community agency and sustains welfare improvements beyond project intervention periods. Recommendations include redesigning community social work practice models to explicitly build and leverage social capital at settlement level. Keywords: social capital, community agency, urban informal settlements, Lagos, longitudinal social work research