Social Capital and Education: Implications for Student and School Performance

Abstract

Scholars seeking to understand why some students and schools perform better than others have suggested that social capital might be part of the explanation. Social capital in today’s terms is argued to be an intangible resource that emerges—or fails to emerge—from social relations and social structure. Use of the term in this sense has been traced to John Dewey’s writings in 1900 in The Elementary School Record . The idea that outcomes in education are conditioned by social interactions has in tuitive appeal. Schools are more than learning factories where inputs are used to generate outputs; they are fundamentally social environments. Empirical evidence links social capital to higher student and school performance, but explanations of how and why the concept works as it does are varied and often vague. This article examines social capital as a concept and its link to student and school performance. The language of social capital includes concepts that have been in use for de cades. At different times social capital has been said to be about networks, associa tions, volunteering, trust, solidarity, sympathy, cooperation, reciprocity, belonging, norms, and relationships. Variety in the construct and its connection to many outcomes has some concerned that social capital is on its way to becoming all things to all people (Woolcock 1998) or that it has taken on a “circus-tent quality” (De Souza Briggs 1997). Despite variation in its use and roots reaching into education, economics, sociology and political science, there is some agreement about the basis for the concept. Its discovery, disappearance, and rediscovery, as well as the debate over its composition, make for an interesting story that today’s educators may find valuable as they strive to address concerns about student and school performance.