Strong relationships among teachers, parents and students
at schools have more impact on improving student learning than does financial
support, new research shows.
"Social capital" is the name scientists give to
the network of relationships among school officials, teachers, parents and the
community that builds trust and norms promoting academic achievement.
The study found that social capital had a three- to
five-times larger effect than financial capital on reading and math scores in
Michigan schools.
“When we talk about why some schools perform better than
others, differences in the amount of money they have to spend is often assumed
to be an explanation,” said Roger Goddard, co-author of the study and Novice G.
Fawcett Chair and professor of educational administration at Ohio State
University. “We found that money is certainly important. But this study also
shows that social capital deserves a larger role in our thinking about
cost-effective ways to support students, especially the most vulnerable.”
Goddard conducted the research with Serena Salloum of
Ball State University and Dan Berebitsky of Southern Methodist University. The
study appears online in the Journal
of Education for Students Placed at Risk and will be published in a
future print edition.
The study involved 5,003 students and their teachers in
78 randomly selected public elementary schools in Michigan. The sample is
representative of the demographics of all elementary schools in the state.
Teachers completed a questionnaire that measured levels
of social capital in their schools. They rated how much they agreed with
statements like “Parent involvement supports learning here,” “Teachers in this
school trust their students” and “Community involvement facilitates learning
here.”
State data on instructional expenditures per pupil was
used to measure financial capital at each school.
Finally, the researchers used student performance on
state-mandated fourth-grade reading and mathematics tests to measure student
learning.
Results showed that, on average, schools that spent more
money did have better test scores than those that spent less. But the effect of
social capital was three times larger than financial capital on math scores and
five times larger on reading scores.
“Social capital was not only more important to learning
than instructional expenditures, but also more important than the schools’
poverty, ethnic makeup or prior achievement,” Goddard said.
While social capital tended to go down in schools as
poverty levels increased, it wasn’t a major decrease.
“We could see from our data that more than half of the
social capital that schools have access to has nothing to do with the level of
poverty in the communities they serve,” he said. “Our results really speak to
the importance and the practicality of building social capital in high-poverty
neighborhoods where they need it the most.”
The study also found that the money spent on student
learning was not associated with levels of social capital in schools. That
means schools can’t “buy” social capital just by spending more money. Social relationships
require a different kind of investment, Goddard said.
The study doesn't address how to cultivate social capital
in schools. But Goddard has some ideas.
One is for schools to do more to help teachers work
together.
“Research shows that the more teachers collaborate, the
more they work together on instructional improvement, the higher the test
scores of their students. That’s because collaborative work builds social
capital that provides students with access to valuable support,” he said.
Building connections to the community is important, too.
School-based mentoring programs that connect children to adults in the
community is one idea.
“Sustained interactions over time focused on children’s
learning and effective teaching practices are the best ways for people to build
trust and build networks that are at the heart of social capital,” Goddard
said.
“We need intentional effort by schools to build social
capital. We can’t leave it to chance.”