The Ties That Bind: How Social Capital Is Forged and Forfeited in Teacher Communities

Item

Title

The Ties That Bind: How Social Capital Is Forged and Forfeited in Teacher Communities

Abstract/Description

The effects of social capital on school improvement make it important to understand how teachers forge, maintain, or forfeit collegial relationships. Two common explanations focused on formal organizational features and individual characteristics do not address how social capital accrues from informal dynamics of teachers? interactions in communities. Our longitudinal study of teacher networks in four urban public schools finds that teachers in larger communities and communities with stronger cohesion are more likely to interact with each other over time. Teachers who frequently span community boundaries are less likely to continue interacting. These community-level characteristics are stronger predictors than teacher traits and formal organization. Our results have implications for how schools can support teachers in maintaining relationships and generating social capital.

Author/creator

Bridwell-Mitchell, E. N.

Cooc, North

Date

2016

In publication

Educational Researcher

Volume

45

Issue

1

Pages

7-17

Resource type

en Research/Scholarly Media

Resource status/form

en Published Text

Scholarship genre

en Empirical

Language

en

Open access/full-text available

en No

Peer reviewed

en Yes

ISSN

0013-189X

DOI

10.3102/0013189X16632191

URL

https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X16632191

Citation

Bridwell-Mitchell, E. N., & Cooc, N. (2016). The Ties That Bind: How Social Capital Is Forged and Forfeited in Teacher Communities. Educational Researcher, 45(1), 7–17. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X16632191

Cited in

The Institution of Schooling

Item sets

Handbook Chapter 4 Citations

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