| Summary: | In December 2019, a new coronavirus spread across the world, leading to the respiratory infectious disease COVID-19. In many ways, the everyday life of millions of people was turned upside down. Drastic measures to stop the virus from spreading were taken and different guidelines were given from authorities worldwide. The general guidelines and recommendation issued by the Public Health Agency of Sweden are however not binding. Both scientists and one of the leading analysis and research companies, Novus, in Sweden has pointed out the importance of institutional trust among citizens during the pandemic. Without this trust, do we follow the guidelines and general advice given to us by authorities? In social science the opinions on how trust works differ. The theoretical starting points of this thesis are therefore two opposing theories on social capital and institutional trust: one by Robert Putnam and one by Bo Rothstein. These theories do not however focus on either trust among students or trust in crisis. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to gain knowledge about the social capital among students in Swedish universities during the Corona crisis. Furthermore, the purpose is to investigate if, and how, students’ social capital correlates with their institutional trust and if any of these trusts is correlated to their behavioural pattern during the Corona crises. The study is achieved by forming and analysing three hypotheses inspired by theories on social capital. The chosen method in this study is an online survey questionnaire that collects data from 193 students, which then is analysed through bar charts, crosstabs, trivariat analysis and last regression analysis. The result of the study shows that there is a strong correlation between students social capital and their institutional trust during the Corona crisis which goes in line with Rothsteins theory on social capital. The analysis also shows that students who are actively involved in an organization has a higher social capital in general than people who are not, which goes in line with Robert Putnams theory on social capital. Further, the study shows that students with a high trust in the government has changed their travel habits outside the region in line with the guidelines. Apart from this, most students do follow the given guidelines no matter what their institutional trust. Nor social capital correlate in a significantly way with students behavioural pattern in this study.
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