School Type, Social Capital, and Young Children: Testing the Ideas of Coleman and Bourdieu

• In Event: 435 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 12. Social Capital across Schooling Contexts

Abstract

This paper focuses on the relationship between school type and the level of social capital in a student’s family, school, and community. Unlike any other study in this area, I incorporate multiple methodological techniques to gain a new insight into the relationships between attendance in public, private, and Catholic schools and the level of social support available for elementary aged children. Specifically, I assess the school type and social capital of kindergarten, 1st, 3rd, and 5th grade students in the Restricted Use Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K) using weighted regressions and propensity score matching. I also add to educational research by utilizing multiple measures of social capital, such as parental investment in the child, connections between parents in a school, and widespread parental and community involvement in the school. The results of the analyses are contradictory to the assumptions made by theorists like James Coleman and suggest that in fact public elementary school students do not have lower levels of capital compared to private and Catholic school students.

Author

• Jennifer Lynn Triplett, Anderson University