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Does school choice have implications for parents’ social capital and adolescents’ academic outcomes?

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Abstract

School choice has received national attention in the United States from policymakers and professionals as a way to improve parents’ social capital and subsequent academic outcomes for adolescents. However, limited work has empirically tested the links among school choice, social capital, and academic outcomes, particularly for high school students. Guided by theories of social capital and Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model of Human Development, this study used multi-year data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (N = 9350) to examine the associations among school choice, social capital (intergenerational closure and perceived inclusion in school decision-making), and academic outcomes (cognitive test scores and educational attainment) for a diverse population of adolescents. Consistent with previous work, findings revealed positive associations between social capital and academic outcomes, along with differences based on family socioeconomic status. However, contrary to hypotheses, findings revealed no evidence of links between school choice, parental social capital, and subsequent adolescent academic outcomes. Implications for research, practice, and policy are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Sharon Christ, Marilyn Hirth, and Shawn Whiteman for their feedback on this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, Cornell University, 35 Thornwood Drive, Ithaca, NY, 14850, USA

    Elizabeth Day

  2. Department of Family, Consumer, and Human Development, Utah State University, Logan, USA

    Aryn M. Dotterer

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  1. Elizabeth Day
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Correspondence to Elizabeth Day.

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Research involving human participants

The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS) dataset is used in the study. All analyses performed with restricted data from the NELS-1988 involving human participants were approved by the Institutional Review Board, Human Research Protection Program at Purdue University (Protocol #1601016989).

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Day, E., Dotterer, A.M. Does school choice have implications for parents’ social capital and adolescents’ academic outcomes?. Soc Psychol Educ 23, 815–836 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-020-09560-4

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