Social Capital and the Interplay of Families and Schools

Families and schools are two primary sources of social capital in the early life course. This study examines the degree to which these different contexts overlap to shape adolescent development. Multilevel modeling on nationally representative data (n = 11,927) revealed that emotionally distant relationships with parents were associated with declining academic achievement over 2 years of secondary schooling and that various aspects of the social environments of schools were associated with increasing academic achievement during this same period. Additionally, adolescents who had more social capital at home often benefited more from social capital at school. Key Words: adolescence, ecology, parenting, schooling, social capital. The ecology of human development is a complex web of personal relationships, social settings, and institutions that influence developmental trajectories independently and interactively. In the early life course, families and schools represent arguably the two primary ecological contexts (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998). As such, both have been major foci of developmental research, but such research has tended to view them in isolation from each other. Recognizing and exploring the overlap between the two, however, is a necessary step in advancing knowledge about the developmental significance of each of these contexts and the intricate nature of the larger ecology. This study takes this step by investigating how the academic functioning of young people is related to their family and school environments and to the intersection of the two. The theoretical motivation for this research is drawn from the ecological perspective (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998) and the concept of social capital (Coleman, 1988). The first argues that development is shaped by microcontexts, such as families and schools, but also by the mesolevel interactions between them. The second refers to the resources that can be accessed through social relations. Bringing the two together, developmental research in family studies and education can benefit from examining the transmission of social capital in families and schools and how these different conduits of social capital can reinforce or counterbalance each other. Thus, this study examines families' lack of social capital in terms of weak affective bonds between parents and adolescents; the presence of social capital in schools in terms of the interpersonal and normative climate of the student body; and the role of the mesolevel ecological interaction between the two in adolescent academic achievement. The significance of this study is both conceptual and methodological. First, it better captures the essence of ecology by viewing major settings as intertwined rather than isolated from each other (Call & Mortimer, 2001). This approach can be adapted to other stages of the life course (e.g., the intersection of work and family in adulthood), thereby benefiting research on human development more generally. Second, unlike other family-focused studies that have introduced the school, this study examines the characteristics of the school itself rather than aspects of the child's functioning in school (Crosnoe, Erickson, & Dornbusch, 2002). Third, it draws parallels between families and schools by conceptualizing the school as an interpersonal environment rather than simply an educational institution (McNeal, 1997). Fourth, it draws on nationally representative data and multilevel modeling techniques well suited to these tasks. FAMILY-BASED SOCIAL CAPITAL AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT The concept of social capital has been applied rather loosely in contemporary research, but it essentially refers to the resources that flow through relationship ties. Such ties can be viewed on the microlevel, in terms of personal relationships, or the macrolevel, in terms of social networks or institutions. Information, norms, and support are three general types of resources that can flow through these ties to enhance individual functioning (Bourdieu, 1987; Coleman, 1988; Sampson, Morenoff, & Earls, 1999). …