Generating social capital in schools through service-learning.

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between service-learning and the development of social capital, particularly the expansion and deepening of social networks for children. Drawing on ethnographic data gathered from five rural schools that first .began offering service-learning opportunities in the early 1990's, as well as two additional rural schools beginning efforts to institutionalize service-learning, this article describes the range of service-learning activities offered and sustained in these schools. First hand accounts of the impact of service-learning on the expansion and deepening of social networks are also examined. The study concludes by asserting more effort is needed to articulate how the development of social capital should be an intended outcome of service-learning practices; only then will service-learning find its proper place in the debate over school reform policy.

Introduction: Social Capital and Schooling

Social capital theory has received increased attention as a method focusing on the important role social networking, trusting relationships, and common norms have on the education of young people. James Coleman offered the first direct link between social capital theory and the process of schooling in a study examining the variability in academic achievement between public, private-secular, and parochial schools. Coleman and his colleague T.B. Hoffer asserted that the amount and quality of "family-based" social capital that the families of parochial school students possessed played a significant role in generating higher levels of academic achievement among student within the parochial schools (Coleman & Hoffer 1987). Closed social networks, found in most close-knit families for instance, tend to provide a "bonding" function. In the case of parochial schools, Coleman found that students were more apt to internalize the norms of their parents (in these cases, norms for high levels of academic achievement) than their peers from other school settings. Coleman's study has been used to justify increased focus on promoting parental involvement in the education of their children.

Since Coleman's initial research utilizing social capital in the analysis of schooling, other researchers have examined the relationship between social capital, academic achievement, student drop-out rates, and student aspirations (Morgan & Sorensen 1999; Isreal, Beauliu & Hartless 2001; Croninger & Lee 2001; Stanton-Salazar & Dombusch 1995). Other studies have noted how the existence of social capital was not always a positive force in the educational process. Portes (1998) and Gamarnikov & Green (1999) observe that social capital can be used for undesirable ends, ranging in the school context from exclusion of outsiders, a common form of bullying (Mellor 1999; Smith et. al. 1999), to networks which reinforce resistance to schools, exemplified by truanting or violence toward pupils who comply with school norms and standards (Munn 1999). The results these studies underscore the potential negative consequences of social capital in the development of effective learning opportunities for students. Thus, the concept of social capital needs to be understood as a neutral term, endowed with the potential for both positive and negative consequences on individuals and social systems.

Refining his understanding of the role of social capital in schooling, Coleman in 1990 asserted, "What I mean by social capital in the raising of children is the norms, the social networks, and the relationships between adults and children that are of value for the child's growing up. Social capital exists within the family, but also outside of the family, in the community ... in the interest, even the intrusiveness, of one adult in the activities of someone else's child" (1990, 334). Several years later Coleman added, "Social capital is the set of resources that inhere in family relations and in community social organization and that are useful for the cognitive or social development of a child or young person"(Coleman 1994, 300).

Family and community resources can be represented in terms of social networks. "Social networks can have powerful community effects for several interrelated reasons. Most fundamentally, networks of engagement are typically associated with a norm of generalized reciprocity ... Communities or organizations in which this norm is followed can more efficiently restrain opportunism, facilitate cooperation, and lower transaction costs. Honesty, reciprocity, and trust are social emollients" (Putnam 2001, 59) Social Networks also aid in the transmission of knowledge and information, and help to propagate or amplify relationships (Coleman 1988; Putnam 2001, 59). It is important to note that an explicit understanding of generalized reciprocity lies at the core of service-learning's principles of practice (Honnet & Poulsen. 1989).