The Contextual Effects of Community Social Capital on Academic Performance

Although previous research has underscored the importance of family social capital in serving educational purposes, few studies have examined the relationship between social capital accumulated in a local community and the academic performance of all students living in the community. The current study has applied an explicit multilevel model to study this relationship. Hierarchical linear model analyses of a nationally representative sample of 8th-grade students have demonstrated that most measures of community social capital are consistently associated with performance, even after controlling for measures of family social capital and demographic factors. Further, the socioeconomic characteristics of a community and the process component of community social capital explain a large portion of the associations between community structure and academic performance. In addition, the contextual effects of a high concentration of nontraditional and large families vary according to the level of process social capital. Finally, most of the contextual effects examined are approximately linear. In summary, this study has underscored the importance of community-based social capital in studying academic performance.