Them That’s Got: How Tie Formation in Partnership Networks Gives High Schools Differential Access to Social Capital

Abstract

School partnerships are important sources of school social capital. Schools may have unequal access to social capital due to the pattern of relationships in the school-partner network. Using data on school resource needs, sociometric measures, and a set of multilevel logit models, the results of a study of 211 New York City public high schools and 1,098 partner organizations from 1999 to 2005 suggest that high schools have unequal access to partner resources. Already well-endowed schools, in terms of having many experienced teachers or being embedded in dense networks, are most likely to partner. Disadvantaged schools, in terms of having many low socioeconomic status students or being in high-competition network positions, are least likely to partner. So, some policies promoting school partnerships may unintentionally reinforce existing structural inequalities among schools.