Them That’s Got: How Tie Formation in Partnership Networks Gives High Schools Differential Access to Social Capital

Abstract

School partnerships are important sources of school social capital. Schools may have unequal access to social capital due to the pattern of relationships in the school-partner network. Using data on school resource needs, sociometric measures, and a set of multilevel logit models, the results of a study of 211 New York City public high schools and 1,098 partner organizations from 1999 to 2005 suggest that high schools have unequal access to partner resources. Already well-endowed schools, in terms of having many experienced teachers or being embedded in dense networks, are most likely to partner. Disadvantaged schools, in terms of having many low socioeconomic status students or being in high-competition network positions, are least likely to partner. So, some policies promoting school partnerships may unintentionally reinforce existing structural inequalities among schools.

Keywords

school partnerships social capital high school networks

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Arthur

W. B.

(1990, February). Positive feedbacks in the economy. Scientific American, 92–99.

Atteberry

Bryk

A. S.

(2010). Centrality, connection, and commitment: The role of social networks in a school-based literacy initiative. In Daly

A. J.

(Ed.), Social network theory and educational change (pp. 51–76). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Auerbach

(Ed.). (2012). School leadership for authentic family and community partnerships: Research perspectives for transforming practice. New York, NY: Taylor and Francis.

Baker

W. E.

Faulkner

R. R.

Fisher

G. A.

(1998). Hazards of the market: The continuity and dissolution of interorganizational market relationships. American Sociological Review, 63, 147–177.

Berne

(1994). Educational input and outcome inequities in New York State. In Berne

Picus

(Eds.), Outcome equity in education (pp. 191–223). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press Inc.

Borgatti

S. P.

Everett

M. G.

Freeman

L. C.

(2002). UCINET for Windows: Software for social network analysis (Version 6.0). Harvard, MA: Analytic Technologies.

Borooah

V. K.

(2002). Logit and probit: Ordered multinomial models (Vol. 138). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Bourdieu

(1986). The forms of capital. In Richardson

J. G.

(Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York, NY: Greenwood Press.

Brass

D. J.

Galaskiewicz

Greve

H. R.

Tsai

(2004). Taking stock of networks and organizations: A multilevel perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 47(6), 795–817.

10.

Bridwell-Mitchell

E. N.

Cooc

(2016). The Ties that bind: How social capital is forged and forfeited in teacher communities. Educational Researcher, 45(1), 7–17.

11.

Bridwell-Mitchell

E. N.

Lant

T. K.

(2014). Be careful what you wish for: The effects of issue interpretation on social choices in professional networks. Organization Science, 25(2), 401–419.

12.

Burt

(1992). Structural holes: The social structure of competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

13.

Butler

McNertney

(1991). Estimating educational production functions: The problem of multicollinearity. Social Science Journal, 28(4), 489–499.

14.

Byrd

Maloy

(1988). Partnerships for improving schools. New York, NY: Greenwood Press.

15.

Caldas

S. J.

(1993). Reexamination of input and process factor effects on academic achievement. Journal of Educational Research, 86, 206–214.

16.

Calvo

Picus

L. O.

Smith

J. R.

Guthrie

J. W.

(2000). A review of the Oregon quality education model. Davis, CA: Management Analysis & Planning.

17.

Child

(2006). Essentials of factor analysis. New York, NY: Continuum.

18.

Chung

Singh

Lee

(2000). Complementarity, status similarity and social capital as drivers of alliance formation. Strategic Management Journal, 21, 1–22.

19.

The City of New York. (2013). NYC department of youth & community development: Seventy years of serving New York City youth and communities. Retrieved from http://www.nyc.gov/html/dycd/html/about/history.shtml

20.

Coburn

C. E.

Stein

M. K.

(Eds.). (2010). Research and practice in education: Building alliances, bridging the divide. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

21.

Coleman

(1988). Social capital and the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94, S95–S120.

22.

Coleman

Katz

Menzel

(1957). The diffusion of innovation among physicians. Sociometry, 20(4), 253–270.

23.

Dacin

Oliver

Roy

J. P.

(2007). The legitimacy of strategic alliances: An institutional perspective. Strategic Management Journal, 28, 169–187.

24.

Dika

S. L.

Singh

(2002). Applications of social capital in educational literature: A critical synthesis. Review of Educational Research, 72(1), 31–60.

25.

DiMaggio

Powell

(1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48, 147–160.

26.

Educational Partnership Act of 1988, P.L. 100-418 Congress, 20 U.S.C. 5031-5039 Cong. Rec. § Title VI, Subtitle A, Chapter 5 (1988).

27.

Ehrenberg

R. G.

Brewer

D. J.

(1994). Do school and teacher characteristics matter? Evidence from high school and beyond. Economics of Education Review, 13(1), 1–17.

28.

Feuerstein

(2001). Selling our school? Principals’ views on schoolhouse commercialism and school-business interactions. Educational Administration Quarterly, 37(3), 322–371.

29.

Figlio

D. N.

(1999). Functional form and the estimated effects of school resources. Economics of Education Review, 18(2), 242–252.

30.

Finnigan

Daly

(2010). Learning at a system level: Ties between principals of low-performing schools and central office leaders. In Daly

(Ed.), Social network theory and educational change (pp. 179–196). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

31.

Frank

K. A.

Zhao

Borman

(2004). Social capital and the diffusion of innovations with organizations: The case of computer technology in schools. Sociology of Education, 77, 148–171.

32.

Freeman

L. C.

(1979). Centrality in social networks: Conceptual clarification. Social Networks, 1, 215–239.

33.

Friedkin

N. E.

Slater

(1994). School leadership and performance: A social network approach. Sociology of Education, 67, 139–157.

34.

Galaskiewicz

(1985). Interorganizational relations. Annual Review of Sociology, 11, 281–304.

35.

Giddens

(1979). Central problems in social theory: Action, structure and contradiction in social analysis. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

36.

Glasman

Biniamov

(1981). Input-output analyses of schools. Review of Educational Research, 51(4), 509–539.

37.

Goodall

D. W.

(1966). A new similarity index based on probability. Biometrics, 22(4), 882–907.

38.

Granovetter

(1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 778(6), 1360–1380.

39.

Granovetter

(1985). Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91(3), 481–510.

40.

Greenwald

Hedges

L. V.

Laine

R. D.

(1996). The effect of school resources on student achievement. Review of Educational Research, 66(3), 361–396.

41.

Gulati

(1995). Social structure and alliance formation patterns: A longitudinal analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40, 619–652.

42.

Gulati

Gargiulo

(1999). Where do interorganizational networks come from?American Journal of Sociology, 104(5), 473–506.

43.

Hansen

B. E.

(1992). Testing for parameter instability in linear models. Journal of Policy Modeling, 14(4), 517–533.

44.

Hanushek

(1996). School resources and student performance. In Burtless

(Ed.), Does money matter? The effect of school resources on student achievement and adult success (pp. 43–73). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

45.

Hanushek

(1997). Assessing the effects of school resources on student performance: An update. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 19(2), 141–164.

46.

Herzog

Holiday

(1942). God bless the child. New York, NY: Okeh Records.

47.

Hite

J. M.

Williams

E. J.

Baugh

S. C.

(2005). Multiple networks of public school administrators: An analysis of network content and structure. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 8(2), 91–122.

48.

Holme

J. J.

Rangel

V. S.

(2012). Social capital, and school performance putting school reform in its place: Social geography, organizational. American Educational Research Journal, 49(2), 257–283.

49.

Honig

M. I.

(2004). The new middle management: Intermediary organizations in education policy implementation. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 26(1), 65–87.

50.

James-Burdumy

Dynarski

Moore

Deke

Mansfield

Pistorino

Warner

(2005). When schools stay open late: The national evaluation of the 21st century community learning centers program final report. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/other/cclcfinalreport/index.html.

51.

Johnson

P. C. D.

Barry

S. J. E.

Ferguson

H. M.

Muller

(2015). Power analysis for generalized linear mixed models in ecology and evolution. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 6, 133–142.

52.

Jones

Maloy

(1988). Partnerships for improving schools. New York, NY: Greenwood Press.

53.

Kahneman

Slovic

Tversky

(1982). Judgments under uncertainty. Heuristics and biases. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

54.

Kane

P. R.

(Ed.). (2000). The difference between charter schools and charter like schools. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.

55.

Koka

Prescott

(2002). Strategic alliances as social capital: A multidimensional view. Strategic Management Journal, 23, 795–816.

56.

Laumann

E. O.

Marsden

P. V.

Prensky

(1983). The boundary specification problem in network analysis. In Burt

R. S.

Minor

M. J.

(Eds.), Applied network analysis: A methodological introduction (pp. 195–222). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

57.

Leana

C. R.

Pil

F. K.

(2006). Social capital and organizational performance: Evidence from urban public schools. Organization Science, 17(3), 353–366.

58.

Lin

(2001). Social capital: A theory of social structure and action. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

59.

Long

J. S.

Freese

(2003). Regression models for categorical dependent variables using STATA. College Station, TX: STATA.

60.

Merton

R. K.

(1968). The Matthew effect in science. Science, 159(3810), 56–63.

61.

Meyer

J. W.

(1977). The effects of education as an institution. American Journal of Sociology, 83(1), 55–77.

62.

Mitsuhashi

Greve

H. R.

(2009). A matching theory of alliance formation and organizational success: Complementarity and compatibility. Academy of Management Journal, 52(5), 975–995.

63.

Oliver

(1990). Determinants of interorganizational relationships: Integration and future directions. The Academy of Management Review, 15(2), 241–265.

64.

Ouchi

(2003). Making schools work: A revolutionary plan to get your children the education they need. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

65.

Ouellette

J. A.

Wood

(1998). Habit and intention in everyday life: The multiple processes by which past behavior predicts future behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 124(1), 54–74.

66.

Penuel

W. R.

Riel

Krause

A. E.

Frank

K. A.

(2009). Analyzing teachers’ professional interactions in a school as social capital: A social network approach. Teachers College Record, 111(1), 124–163.

67.

Pohl

Steiner

P. M.

Eisermann

Soellner

Cook

T. D.

(2009). Unbiased causal inference from an observational study: Results of a within-study comparison. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 31(4), 463–479.

68.

Polidoro

Ahuja

Mitchell

(2011). When the social structure overshadows competitive incentives: The effects of network embeddedness on joint venture dissolution. Academy of Management Journal, 54(1), 203–223.

69.

Powell

W. W.

White

D. R.

Koput

K. W.

Owen-Smith

(2005). Network dynamics and field evolution: The growth of interorganizational collaboration in the life sciences. American Journal of Sociology, 110(4), 1132–1205.

70.

Rabe-Hesketh

Skrondal

(2008). Multilevel and longitudinal modeling using Stata (2nd ed.). College Station, TX: Stata Press.

71.

Raudenbush

S. W.

Bryk

A. S.

(2002). Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

72.

Reagans

(2010). Close encounters: Analyzing how social similarity and propinquity contribute to strong network connections. Organization Science, 22(4), 835–849.

73.

Roncek

D. W.

Swatt

M. L.

(2006). For those who like odds: A direct interpretation of the logit coefficient for continuous variables. Social Science Quarterly, 87(3), 731–738.

74.

Rosenbluth

(1955). Measures of concentration. In National Bureau of Economic Research (Ed.), Business concentration and price policy (pp. 57–59). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

75.

Sanders

M. G.

(2003). Community involvement in schools. Education and Urban Society, 35(2), 161–180.

76.

Sanders

M. G.

(2006). Building school-community partnerships: Collaboration for student success. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc.

77.

Sanders

M. G.

(2014). Principal leadership for school, family, and community partnerships: The role of a systems approach to reform implementation. American Journal of Education, 120(2), 233–255.

78.

Schwartz

Stiefel

(2004). Immigrants and the distribution of resources in an urban school district. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 26(4), 303–327.

79.

Smith

Wohlstetter

(2006). Understanding the different faces of partnering: A typology of public-private partnerships. School Leadership and Management, 26(3), 249–268.

80.

Sorenson

Stuart

T. E.

(2001). Syndication networks and the spatial distribution of venture capital investments. American Journal of Sociology, 106(6), 1546–1588.

81.

Spillane

J. P.

Kim

C. M.

Frank

K. A.

(2012). Instructional advice and information seeking behavior in elementary schools: Exploring tie formation as a building block in social capital development. American Educational Research Journal, 49(6), 1112–1145.

82.

Spillane

J. P.

Shirrell

Sweet

T. M.

(2017). The elephant in the schoolhouse: The role of propinquity in school staff interactions about teaching. Sociology of Education, 90, 149–171.

83.

Steiner

P. M.

Cook

T. D.

Shadish

W. R.

Clark

M. H.

(2010). The importance of covariate selection in controlling for selection bias in observational studies. Psychological Methods, 15(3), 250–267.

84.

Tsang

K.-K.

(2009). School social capital and school effectiveness. Education Journal, 37(1–2), 119–136.

85.

Tuckman

H. P.

(1971). High school inputs and their contribution to school performance. Journal of Human Resources, 6(4), 490–509.

86.

Wasserman

Faust

(1994). Social network analysis: Methods and applications. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

87.

Wohlstetter

Malloy

C. L.

Chau

Polhemus

J. L.

(2003). Improving schools through networks: A new approach to urban school reform. Educational Policy, 17(4), 399–430.

88.

Yang

(2005). Factor analysis methods. In Swanson

R. A.

Holton

E. F.

III (Eds.), Research in organizations: Foundations and methods of inquiry (pp. 181–200). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.23 MB