Social capital and academic success

Social capital has been widely used in educational research, although with diverging conceptualizations and areas of emphasis. This chapter provides a review of this literature and tracks developments across different waves of research. The seminal work of James Coleman inspired much research on how family and community structures affect students’ grades, test scores, and degree persistence - mainly using large, national surveys of secondary school students. A subsequent wave of studies has instead followed Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptualization of social capital as institutional resources embedded in networks to focus attention on the reproduction of inequalities and factors constraining access to and effective use of social capital. Recent scholarship has extended this second wave and has featured a broader range of research methods to consider how students use social networks, including studies of important social resources for non-traditional, underrepresented, and minoritized students.