memo 5

memo 5 Order Description memo should take up a specific argument, comparing the positions of different authors and identifying particular strengths and weaknesses in the text. In other words, you are not simply being asked to summarize the readings Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 31 (2013) 1–21 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Does capital at home matter more than capital at school? Social capital effects on academic achievement Mikaela J. Dufur a,*, Toby L. Parcel b, Kelly P. Troutman c a Department of Sociology, 2008 JFSB, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, United States b Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Campus Box 8107, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27603, United States c Department of Sociology, 3151 Social Science Plaza, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, United States Received 7 December 2011; received in revised form 17 August 2012; accepted 29 August 2012 Abstract A relatively neglected problem is how individuals derive social capital from more than one context and the extent to which they benefit from the capital in each. We examine whether social capital created at home and at school has differing effects on child academic achievement. We hypothesize that children derive social capital from both their families and their schools and that capital from each context promotes achievement. Using data from the National Longitudinal Education Study and structural equation modeling, we show that capital from each context is helpful, with social capital in the family more influential than social capital at school. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on child achievement and for studies of inequality generally. © 2012 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Social capital; Academic achievement; Families; Schools; Structural equation modeling 1. Introduction It is well known that there is variation across adolescents in tested levels of achievement (Farkas, 2003; Fischer et al., 1996; Parcel & Menaghan, 1994) and that differences in achievement are associated with variations in school success (Jencks et al., 1972; Sewell & Hauser, 1972). School success, in turn, is a critical predictor of occupational and earnings attainment (Farkas, 1996), an important component of life in meritocratic society, and consequential to the transmission of inequality across generations. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 801 422 1720; fax: +1 801 422 0625. E-mail address: mikaela dufur@byu.edu (M.J. Dufur). It is also well known that resources from multiple social contexts influence academic attainment among adolescents. After classic studies of occupational status attainment demonstrated the importance of family background and the intervening effects of education on adult attainment (Blau & Duncan, 1967), scholars developed increasingly sophisticated models of why and how education was so consequential (Breen & Jonsson, 2005; Shavit & Blossfeld, 1993). Others studied why various aspects of families, such as family structure (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994) and family process (Conger, Conger, & Martin, 2010) were influential. Theorists such as Coleman (1988, 1990) pointed to social capital as an underlying construct influential in both families and schools that influenced attainment, as well as to the generality of the social capital concept in explaining other social outcomes. Despite these accomplishments, additional questions remain. 0276-5624/$ – see front matter © 2012 International Sociological Association Research Committee 28 on Social Stratification and Mobility. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2012.08.002