Impact of School Reform Policies on College Linking Strategies, Social Capital, and Access to College

• In Event: Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: Pathways to College From Urban High Schools

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of school reform policies on college counseling activities in Denver high schools using the construct of social capital. We first compare the school-wide college counseling strategies - traditional, clearinghouse, or brokering (Hill, 2008) - employed by two Denver area public high schools with similar low-performing, urban demographics. We add to the literature by examining the effects of these different strategies on the amount of college-going social capital that high schools offer to their first-generation college-going students. We found the constant introduction of new school-wide policies, often implemented by administrators as an attempt to raise test scores and graduation rates, not only impeded the school’s availability of social capital, but underestimated our high achieving focal students.

Authors

• Sarah Ohle, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Margaret A. Eisenhart, University of Colorado - Boulder