Facilitating Social Capital in Elementary School Settings

This ethnographic study was designed to examine how an elementary school can develop and foster children's social capital among a diverse student population. Social capital theory framed the study's analysis. Students bring to school their own and their family's social relationships. Once in school, children, and by extension parents, establish new types of relationships. Such relationships are nested within social networks, which render some tangible and intangible social value that is social capital.\ud The study's focal point was the desire to build understanding of trust, friendship, and classroom participation as contributors to the development of social capital. The research study question sought to identify what classroom practices that build social capital do teachers engage in on a daily practice? Thus, the study primarily focused on how teachers use the classroom environment to assist children in establishing social networks outside of their familiar, natural networks - whether based on ethnicity, socioeconomic factors, gender, or neighborhood contexts. This case study examined how these interactions translated into meaningful, ongoing relationships outside the classroom walls and their potential to affect classroom cultural activities. One central finding was that students built a sense of common good, therefore trust, when they shared collectively their own supplies, personal items, and did collective work