Design
The study involved the secondary analysis of a data from the Fall 1998
and Spring 1999 waves of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten
Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K). Multiple regression analysis was used
to examine the relative contribution of ethnicity, parental education expectation
and levels of human and social capital (Coleman, 1988; Boudieu, 1977) to
the prediction of youth's cognitive-behavioral achievement and school readiness
skills.
Sample & Setting
ECLS-K is a study conducted by the National Center for Educational
Statistics (West, Denton, & Germino-Hausken, 2000) and involves a nationally
representative sample of approximately 22,000 children enrolled in about
1,000 public and private kindergarten programs during the 1998-99 school
year. The ethnic distribution was approximately 55% European-American,
18% Africian-American,18% Hispanic-American, 6% Asian, 1% Native Hawaiian-Pacific
Islander-American and 2 % Native-American.
Main Results
The findings suggested that social capital is more strongly associated
with school readiness and cognitive-behavior achievement than ethnicity.
The role that school social workers can play in strengthening family social
capital and reduce child's risk of future educational failure will be discussed.
References