Social Capital Matters As Much As Human Capital – A Message To Skeptics
This is the third post in a series on “The Social Side Of Reform”, exploring the idea that relationships, social capital, and social networks matter in lasting, systemic educational improvement. For more on this series, click here.
In recent posts (here and here), we have been arguing that social capital — social relations and the resources that can be accessed through them (e.g., support, knowledge) — is an enormously important component of educational improvement. In fact, I have suggested that understanding and promoting social capital in schools may be as promising as focusing on personnel (or human capital) policies such as teacher evaluation, compensation and so on.
My sense is that many teachers and principals support this argument, but I am also very interested in making the case to those who may disagree. I doubt very many people would disagree with the idea that relationships matter, but perhaps there are more than a few skeptics when it comes to how much they matter, and especially to whether or not social capital can be as powerful and practical a policy lever as human capital.
In other words, there are, most likely, those who view social capital as something that cannot really be leveraged cost-effectively with policy intervention toward any significant impact, in no small part because it focuses on promoting things that already happen and/or that cannot be mandated. For example, teachers already spend time together and cannot/should not be required to do so more often, at least not to an extent that would make a difference for student outcomes (although this could be said of almost any policy).
Some might even add additional force to this argument by portraying social capital as a kind of unaffordable luxury – i.e., poor kids are way behind, and need all the attention and time they can get. “Are you are telling us that teachers need time to hang out with their colleagues?,” they might contend.
My first response is pretty straightforward: Yes, one of the things I am saying is that teachers should spend more (and better) time together and interact more. And I am of course not the only one saying this. In fact, the idea is catching on. Just a few days ago the New York Times published a pieceShanker Blog » Social Capital Matters As Much As Human Capital – A Message To Skeptics: