Social Networks and Educational Decisions: Who has Access to Social Capital and for Whom is it Beneficial?; Soziale Netzwerke und Bildungsentscheidungen: Wer hat Zugang zu Sozialkapital und wer kann davon profitieren?

Abstract

This article investigates students’ access to social capital and its role in their educational decisions in the stratified German school system. We measure social capital as the availability of highly educated adults in adolescents’ and parents’ social networks. Using panel data on complete friendship as well as parental networks and the educational decisions of more than 2700 students from the CILS4EU-DE dataset, we show that social networks are segregated along socio-economic differences, which restricts access to social capital for socio-economically disadvantaged students. A comparison shows that parental networks tend to be substantially more segregated than children’s friendship networks. In addition, our results indicate that access to social capital is linked to academically ambitious choices—i.e., entering upper secondary school or enrolling in university. This relationship is especially pronounced for less privileged students. © 2023, The Author(s).

Keywords

Author Keywords

educational inequality Educational stratification Academically ambitious decisions Exponential random graph model Parental networks

Index Keywords

female human male adolescent Article major clinical study social capital high school social network child friendship

Author Affiliations

Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology, Universität zu Köln, Koln, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

Funding & Acknowledgements

Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, H2020

Grant: 716461

Funding text 1: This work has been supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 716461). We use data from the CILS4EU research project funded in the NORFACE Research Programme on Migration in Europe—Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics.; Funding text 2: The authors thank Clemens Kroneberg, the Socialbond-Team, the participants of the Sunbelt 2020 session on “Social Capital” as well as the participants of the panel on Social Networks at the DGS conference 2020 for providing valuable comments and feedback. This work has been supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 716461). We use data from the CILS4EU research project funded in the NORFACE Research Programme on Migration in Europe—Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics.

Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, H2020

Funding text 1: This work has been supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 716461). We use data from the CILS4EU research project funded in the NORFACE Research Programme on Migration in Europe—Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics.; Funding text 2: The authors thank Clemens Kroneberg, the Socialbond-Team, the participants of the Sunbelt 2020 session on “Social Capital” as well as the participants of the panel on Social Networks at the DGS conference 2020 for providing valuable comments and feedback. This work has been supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 716461). We use data from the CILS4EU research project funded in the NORFACE Research Programme on Migration in Europe—Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics.

European Research Council, ERC

Funding text 1: This work has been supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 716461). We use data from the CILS4EU research project funded in the NORFACE Research Programme on Migration in Europe—Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics.; Funding text 2: The authors thank Clemens Kroneberg, the Socialbond-Team, the participants of the Sunbelt 2020 session on “Social Capital” as well as the participants of the panel on Social Networks at the DGS conference 2020 for providing valuable comments and feedback. This work has been supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 716461). We use data from the CILS4EU research project funded in the NORFACE Research Programme on Migration in Europe—Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics.

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Social Networks and Educational Decisions: Who has Access to Social Capital and for Whom is it Beneficial?; Soziale Netzwerke und Bildungsentscheidungen: Wer hat Zugang zu Sozialkapital und wer kann davon profitieren?

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