Schools and their social context

While social disadvantage may not be an excuse for poor achievement in academic terms it certainly is an explanation. As Power et al. (2002: 26) conclude in their study:
[Educational] outcomes in deprived areas are worse than those in non-deprived
areas, whether they are measured in terms of qualification, attendance, exclusions
or ‘staying on’ rates. Inner-city areas in particular feature as having low outcomes.


They go on to point out that in England in the 1990s ‘the gap in outcomes grew rather than narrowed’ (p.64). They also point to the need to reduce the ‘compositional effects that appear to result from high concentrations of disadvantaged students’ (p.65). A significant issue emerges in their conclusion that:
… schools serving deprived populations could do more to ensure better home–school
relations, which appear to be less facilitative than those in schools serving nondeprived
areas. (p.66)


Schools in deprived areas have a great deal in common with schools in nondeprived areas – the same curriculum, assessment regimes, inspection and accountability models, etc. There are significant differences in funding, teacher supply and access to resources but these are not consistent as causal factors. What is consistent is the notion of deprivation.


This raises the question of the nature of the relationship between schools and their communities. Mulford and Silius (2001: 5) found that there was not a direct causal relationship between high community involvement and improving student outcomes:

On the basis of our results, and if a choice needs to be made between working with
and being sensitive to the community and improving home educational environments,
then the latter will have more direct and immediate ‘payoff’ for student
outcomes … Of course, having a strong community focus may be important for
other reasons such as for the development of social capital in the community, especially
in poor inner city and rural communities.


The distinction between family and community is a valid one – the impact of the family is more direct, immediate and sustainable. However the family is a classic manifestation of community. The status, significance and value attached to the family will often be a product of broader, community-based values. The resilience and potency of the family will be a function of generic factors – most significantly social capital.
In their study of the factors influencing the development of young people in the USA, the Search Institute (2000) found what they describe as a ‘crumbling infrastructure’ which has a number of key manifestations:

1. Most adults no longer consider it their responsibility to play a role in the lives of their children outside the family.
2. Parents are less available for their children because of demands outside the home.
3. Adults and institutions have become more uncomfortable articulating values.
4. Society has become more and more age segregated.
5. Socialising systems (e.g. families, schools and congregations) have become more isolated, competitive and suspicious of each other.
6. The mass media have become influential shapers of young people’s attitudes, norms and values.
7. As problems and solutions have become more complex, more of the responsibility for young people has been turned over to professionals.

These symptoms are in stark contradistinction to what would normally be regarded as criteria for an effective community. Amit (2002: 18) offers criteria to describe a community:

People care because they associate the idea of community with people they know,

with whom they have shared experiences, activities, places and/or histories.

Community arises out of an interaction between the imagination of solidarity and

its realisation through social relations.

If there are not the ‘shared experiences’ and the ‘realisation through social relations’ then community cannot be said to exist and the factors identified by the Search Institute can be said to be both cause and effect. What is being described is a paucity of social capital – the lower the level of engagement in a community, the lower the level of social capital, and so the more likely it is that an area will be deprived – not just in economic terms but also in social terms. Social poverty is as negative and destructive as economic poverty. For Putnam (2000: 296–7) there is an absolute link between levels of social capital and success in the education system:

States that score high on the Social Capital Index – that is, states whose residents

trust other people, join organisations, volunteer, vote and socialise with friends –

are the same states where children flourish: where babies are born healthy and where

teenagers tend not to become parents, drop out of school, get involved in violent

crime, or die prematurely due to suicide or homicide. Statistically, the correlation

between high social capital and positive child development is as close to perfect as

social scientists ever find in data analysis of this sort.

Social Capital is essentially about networks, trust, engagement, communication, shared values, aspirations and interconnectedness. High social capital produces the benefits that Putnam describes above. He also points out that ‘social capital appears to be a complement, if not a substitute, for Prozac, sleeping pills, antacids’ (p.289). Social capital appears to be the panacea for the social, psychological and physiological ills of society, and it might even extend to education.

What is clear is that high social capital enhances academic success. Therefore one answer to academic under-achievement might be not just to strive to improve the efficiency of schools but rather to increase social capital. 

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