In its three parts, this presentation: (1) describes five aspects of James Coleman's concept of "social capital"; (2) describes how the concept of social capital was used to develop a questionnaire for assessing teachers' investment of emotional self (personality, warmth, enthusiasm, etc.) in caregiving; and (3) provides related information about aspects of a research project based on the conceptualization and use of the questionnaire. Defined are five components of teachers' social capital: attention, personal interest, intensity of involvement, intimacy or closeness, and persistence or continuity over time. These characteristics are seen as lying at the core of successful developmental education programs for young children. The questionnaire was designed to answer the questions: (1) To what extent do early childhood teachers report investment of social capital with each student? (2) Are self-reported information and observational data consistent for 20 percent of the subjects? Each component of social capital was delineated in terms of Child Development Associate (CDA) functional areas. The quesionnaire was field-tested in two metropolitan areas. The concluding portion of the presentation includes a brief overview of the literature on social capital; discusses results of efforts to establish the instrument's reliability and validity; and depicts expected outcomes of the project. (RH)