Students can benefit from relationships

Money isn’t the only kind of wealth a school might use to help its students.

If teachers can forge trust relationships with students and parents, and if a school can establish social norms that support learning, its students appear to perform better on state standardized tests, according to newly released research. It doesn’t require funding, and it’s within reach of any kind of school.

Sociologists call that “social capital” — the benefits that one can derive from relationships with others — and three researchers, including one from Ohio State University, studied it in 96 public high schools in Ohio. Their goal was to see whether they could measure social capital, whether it affected student performance, and whether

even less-well-off schools can cultivate it.

Yes, yes and yes, said Roger Goddard, an OSU professor of educational administration. And he sees that as cause for hope.

“I really wouldn’t want to live in a world where (the socioeconomic level of an area) determines how much social support you’re going to get,” Goddard said.

The great thing about social capital, he explained, is that it’s both motivational and informational. Students are inspired by seeing that adults in the community care about them, and they also can learn useful things from those connections, such as how

to apply to college.

The paper by Goddard, Serena Salloum of Ball State University in Indiana and Ross Larsen of Brigham Young University in Utah appears in the most recent issue of the research journal Teachers College Record.

A French sociologist suggested in the mid1980s that social capital is merely a proxy for wealth. Although more money does give schools some access to social capital that they wouldn’t have otherwise, that doesn’t tell the whole story. The new study found that the area’s socioeconomic level predicts less than half of the amount of social capital a school can wield.

The research team went to the 96 high schools — in rural, suburban and urban areas

— and surveyed faculty members during staff meetings, asking them to evaluate whether they agreed with statements, using a 1-to-6 scale. Examples include: “Teachers in this school have frequent contact with parents”; “Teachers in this school trust their students”; and “Students respect others who get good grades.”

Those results were combined into a total score for the school. The researchers then examined the students’ performance on 10thand 12th-grade state math and reading tests.

Overall, the degree of social capital has a significant positive effect on achievement.

The researchers didn’t explicitly study the role of leaders in creating these conditions for success, but Goddard said that in his years of research, he has seen how much the principal sets the tone.

“Principals, both literally and metaphorically, hold the keys to the school door, and they can do a lot to open it up,” he said.

Also worthy of study, the paper said, might be the effectiveness of inschool programs that could build social capital.

Goddard mentioned a program in Chicago that teaches students to de-escalate situations in which they can get themselves into trouble by reacting rashly. That is the very definition of changing a norm to support learning, he said, because kids are learning to come to that moment of decision and rethink what they were about to do or say.