More Than a Village. Social Capital and Students Educational Outcomes: Findings From a Longitudinal Study

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Family and Community Social Capital

Abstract

Using publicly available data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health survey (Add Health) Waves I and IV, I examine how social capital in the family, school and neighborhood affect educational outcomes in terms of college enrolment, retention, and graduation of American children. The longitudinal design of the data allowed for extracting a large number of variables to represent the different domains/setting of social capital. Factor analysis was applied for correlating and isolating variables that appropriately represented family, school, and neighborhood social capital respectively. Logistic regression was used to show if social capital contributes to college attendance, which domain of social capital matters more for college attendance, and if gender influences social capital use.

Author

• Emiola Oyefuga, Virginia Commonwealth University