2 results
one - Introduction
- Edited by Julie Allan, University of Birmingham, Ralph Catts
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- Book:
- Social Capital, Children and Young People
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 01 September 2022
- Print publication:
- 25 April 2012, pp 1-12
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- Chapter
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Summary
This book is about young people and the ways in which their lives and experiences are shaped by social relationships, both those in which their participation is more or less obligatory, such as in families or at school, and those they establish by themselves. These relationships, and the norms and values that shape them, lead to the production of social capital:
a capability that arises from the prevalence of trust in a society or in certain parts of it … embodied in the smallest and most basic social group, the family, as well as the largest of all groups, the nation, and in all the other groups in between. (Fukuyama, 1995, p 26)
In this introductory chapter, we explore the interest in, and perceived utility of, social capital. We describe the Schools and Social Capital Network, which was established within the Applied Educational Research Scheme, a major programme of research and research capacity building, then outline each of the chapters.
Social capital: fetish or civilising influence?
The attraction to the concept of social capital by policy makers and researchers alike has been developed and sustained both by politicians as the basis for the new politics of the Third Way to address social policies (Szreter, 1999; Fine and Green, 2000) and by some academics as an important scientific tool. Fine and Green (2000) suggest that social capital has come to be seen as having a use in social discourse as a weapon to deploy in the ‘skirmishes’ (p 78) between economics and other social sciences. Paterson (2000) argues that social capital is nothing new and in Scotland is no more than the strong sense of Scottish civil society and obligation that was a feature of the eighteenth century enlightenment period. Its popularity, particularly among policy makers, has been subject to resolute criticism (Sturgess, 1997; Portes, 1998; Woolcock, 1998), yet it remains in place as something that ‘provides for (a) civilising flow of ideas’ (Fine and Green, 2000, p 91). Here we outline the specific takes of the three main proponents of social capital, identify three ‘types’ of social capital that are understood to exist and raise our own question about the assumption that social capital can be possessed – or not.
nine - Transitions to secondary schooling: a social capital perspective
- Edited by Julie Allan, University of Birmingham, Ralph Catts
-
- Book:
- Social Capital, Children and Young People
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 01 September 2022
- Print publication:
- 25 April 2012, pp 159-180
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Introduction
The transition from primary to secondary school has been identified as of interest, with much research focused on the articulation of the curriculum provision (Galton et al, 2000). Our aim was to explore the experience of transition from the perspective of social capital to see whether this could add to our understanding.
The research was undertaken in two phases over a period of twelve months. The first phase was based in a primary school that was located in an urban area just outside a city centre. The catchment area could best be described as a medium-size working-class estate. Using the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (ONS, 2004) the majority of the parents had occupations classified as skilled manual or unskilled occupations and some were unemployed. The school was ranked in the second lowest quartile on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (Scottish Government, 2004). The second phase was undertaken in the secondary school to which the majority of the primary school pupils moved.
Data were collected from students in classroom activities during the final months of primary school and the follow-up occurred near the end of the first year of high school. In both phases, the data included interviews with selected pupils, a class teacher and the head teacher. The views of parents were also sought through a survey in primary school.
Previous research and policy on transition
In published research into the primary to secondary school transition, the major focus has been on the effects of transition on attainment and on the changes in school culture (Galton et al, 1999; Anderson et al, 2000; Demetriou et al, 2000; Galton et al, 2000; Ward, 2000; Topping, 2007). These studies focused on curriculum links and also on links between teachers. An exception was the study reported by Zeedyk et al (2003), which focused on institutional differences between primary and secondary schools which, they argued, risked creating among individual students a sense of helplessness. There are significant differences between primary and secondary school contexts that can be categorised as being to do with structure, philosophy and curriculum focus. These differences may reduce the sense of belonging to both a physical space and a social group (Boyd, 2005). More recently Evangelou et al (2008) concluded that a major concern for young people in the transition to secondary school was developing new friendships and that young people found the experience stressful.