The correlation between the social capital of students and their academic performance

Socialni kapital je pojem, ki se z razvojem družbe in vse številčnejšimi socialnimi odnosi vse bolj uveljavlja v družboslovju. Socialni kapital se nanaša na sredstva, pridobljena skozi socialne odnose, bodisi informacije, znanja, veščine ali čustveno podporo. V diplomskem delu nas zanima, ali ta sredstva oziroma socialni kapital vplivajo na študijski uspeh študentov Univerze v Ljubljani. V delu smo se bolj določno osredotočili na dve obliki socialnega kapitala, in sicer na povezovalno in premostitveno obliko. Metoda, uporabljena v empiričnem delu diplomskega dela, je polstrukturiran intervju, izvedenih je bilo osem takih intervjujev s študenti različnih fakultet Univerze v Ljubljani. Za merjenje omenjenih oblik socialnega kapitala smo se oprli na mersko lestvico, ki jo je Williams razvil leta 2006. Obenem smo za študijski uspeh uporabili največkrat uporabljen indikator v podobnih raziskavah zadnjih let, to pa je povprečna ocena študija. Rezultati so pokazali, da imajo študentje s prevladujočim premostitvenim socialnim kapitalom za odtenek višjo povprečno oceno (8,4) in s tem študijski uspeh v primerjavi s študenti s prevladujočim povezovalnim socialnim kapitalom (7,98). Vendar je, upoštevaje majhen vzorec, ta razlika tako majhna, da je težko govoriti o kakšni znatni povezanosti socialnega kapitala študentov in njihovega študijskega uspeha. Prihodnje raziskave z bistveno večjim vzorcem študentov bi lahko prikazale malce bolj jasno sliko.Social capital is a concept that is becoming ever more established in social studies due to the increasing number of social relations. The term refers to all resources gained through social relations, whether it be information, knowledge, skills or emotional support. In this paper we are interested in whether this social capital affects the academic success of the students of the University of Ljubljana. We are specifically focusing on two key forms of social capital, i.e. bonding and bridging social capital. The method used in the empirical part of the paper is a semi-structured intervieweight such interviews were carried out with students from different faculties of the university. For the purpose of measuring the beforementioned forms of social capital we are employing the measurement scale developed by Williams in 2006. As an indicator of academic performance we are using grade point average as the most commonly used such indicator in relevant research. Results suggest that students with a predominantly bridging social capital have a moderately higher GPA (8,4) than students with a predominantly bonding social capital (7,98). However, taking into account the small sample size, we believe this difference is not significant enough to suggest a strong correlation between specific types of social capital and academic success. Future research done with larger sample sizes could paint a clearer picture