Robert K. Ream

Reexamining Social Class Differences in the Availability and the Educational Utility of Parental Social Capital

Emergent ethnographic research disentangles “social capital” from other components of social class (e.g., material and human capital) to show how class-stratified parental social networks exacerbate educational inequality among schoolchildren. The authors build upon this research by using survey data to reexamine whether certain forms of parental social capital create educational advantages for socioeconomically privileged students vis-à-vis their less economically fortunate peers. By drawing a distinction between the availability of social capital and its convertibility, the authors find that whereas larger stocks of parental social capital accompany higher rungs on the social class ladder, its educational utility is less clearly associated with class status. A possible exception to this pattern pertains to the educational utility of middle-class parents’ ideas about the collective efficacy of influencing school policies and practices. At issue is whether a more inclusive understanding of the material and sociological reasons for educational inequality can spur educationally useful social exchange among parents across social class boundaries.

Toward Understanding How Social Capital Mediates the Impact of Mobility on Mexican American Achievement

This study links the social capital literature with research on student mobility to investigate low test score performance among Mexican origin youth. Specifically, it examines whether Mexican Americans learn less in school than non-Latino Whites, in part because they have limited social capital due to the fact that they are more mobile during their school careers. This study also considers whether different forms of peer social capital, like different kinds of currency, have differential exchange value, and if such differences influence the test-score gap. Findings encourage greater sensitivity to inter- and intra-ethnic distinctions in the socialization process that contribute to group differences in the availability and utility of the resources that inhere in social networks.

Variation Across Hispanic Immigrant Generations in Parent Social Capital, College-Aligned Actions, and Four-Year College Enrollment

Not beginning college at a four-year institution has been demonstrated as one key obstacle to equitable rates of bachelor’s degree attainment among Hispanic individuals in the United States. Drawing on nationally representative longitudinal data and social capital theory, this research investigates the process of four-year college enrollment among different immigrant generations of Hispanic adolescents. Of particular interest is how parents of Hispanic youth use resources embedded in their social networks to promote their children’s engagement in college-aligned actions and whether this process varies according to student immigrant generation status. Results suggest that regardless of immigrant generation, Hispanic students who take instrumental steps during high school that are aligned with admission to college have a greater probability of initially enrolling in a four-year institution. Importantly, however, the influence of different forms of parent social capital during the process of four-year college enrollment varies markedly according to student immigrant generation.

Autism Advocacy: A Network Striving for Equity

In this exploratory case study, we examine the rise of autism on the policy agenda and the new generation of autism advocacy. We focus especially on interconnections between the rhetoric about autism in the media and the emergence and political effectiveness of Autism Speaks, the nations largest autism advocacy group. We portray how influential social actors frame the story of autism and how they have secured policy victories for youth with autism and their families. Whether issue framing affects policy by motivating network collaboration, or whether collaboration affects how social actors frame issues to affect policy is of fundamental concern in our preliminary analyses. We conclude by discussing implications for new research on the framing of the issue and network development.

Whither Collaboration? Integrating Professional Services to Close Reciprocal Gaps in Health and Education

This chapter sets forth a transdisciplinary response to an urgent problem: the significant contribution of poor health to racial and social class gaps in educational outcomes that divide America. The first section (1) describes reciprocal gaps in health and education, (2) identifies prevailing market values that undergird reforms that are failing to produce excellent and equitable outcomes across both systems of care, and (3) articulates a rationale and conceptual framework for collaborative civic professionalism among practitioners of human improvement in medicine, health, welfare, and education. The second section envisions university-sponsored adaptations designed to overcome barriers to partnering across the human improvement professions. Intersystem partnering is not without detractors; partnering may threaten the autonomy of professionals and the efficiency of markets without producing improved outcomes. Thus, we conclude by calling for a series of disciplined dialogs about how to facilitate collaborative interdependence and health–education partnerships designed to eliminate the gaps.

Summarizing the Lessons: Shaping a Blueprint

This chapter begins by summarizing key points of convergence among the analyses presented throughout the preceding 18 chapters. Following that summary, it outlines a blueprint for nurturing and sustaining robust commitment to professional responsibility in the fields of education and medicine. Nine points of convergence are identified. Taken together, they frame a comprehensive picture of how education and medicine, along with other social and human service occupations, could be positively transformed into more equitable and effective services for the nation’s children and adults. These convergent points cover the conceptualization of professionalism, the social, organizational, and political contexts of professional work, the importance of recognizing the power of institutional environments to either support or deflect professional actions, and the extent to which the working relationships among individual physicians and teachers need to be transformed into collaborative community action systems in order to define and promote responsible professionalism. The tentative blueprint for professional practice reform in the last section of the chapter aims at providing some useful guidance for turning scholarly insight into practical action.

A Brief Introduction to the Problem of Professional Responsibility

Professionals in education and medicine are well aware that serious and repeated attempts at systemic reform and program improvement have not overcome political criticism or client dissatisfaction. Advances in research are not overcoming inadequacies in professional practice that are producing distressing gaps in health care and educational attainment; gaps separating the rich from the poor, majority from minority ethnic groups, and English speakers from English learners. The central problem, this chapter suggests, is one of empowering professional responsibility among those who provide educational and medical services. In the literature of both occupations, there is a rich history of deliberation over the nature of professional responsibility. Key points of convergence are noted (e.g., professions are complex and professionals responsible for client well-being). So are points of divergence (e.g., Does being professional mean working in a particular occupation, or attaining superior performance within an occupational group, or does it mean execution of specifically professional tasks?). This chapter introduces an exploration of professional responsibility pursued throughout this volume to bring fresh perspective to a neglected side of education and medical reform and improvement. The chapter closes with a brief orientation to the rest of this book.