社会资本起作用吗?——农村家庭的代际闭合与儿童学业表现

Does Social Capital Matter?The Influence of Family Intergenerational Closure on Student Academic Performance in Rural China

根据科尔曼的社会资本理论,家庭的代际闭合包括父母在家庭内部与子女的交流以及在家庭外部与教师和其他家长的联系,这种社会资本形态会影响儿童学业表现。然而基于甘肃基础教育调查数据,发现西部农村家庭的代际闭合对子女学业表现并无显著影响。对此提出三种可能的解释:(1)农村儿童的学业表现主要取决于家庭经济资本而非社会资本;(2)农村父母较低的人力资本水平制约了社会资本在促进儿童教育发展上的作用;(3)现有的社会资本测量指标不能准确度量农村家庭父母的育儿方式。

According to Coleman＇s theory of social capital,family intergenerational closure comprises the communication between parents and children in the family and the connections among parents,teachers and other parents outside the family,which is a kind of social capital that affects student academic performance.However,based on the Gansu Survey of Children and Families data,we found that there was no significant effect on student academic performance in the western rural families.Possible explanations for the results could be as follows：first,student academic performance mainly depends on family financial capital rather than social capital;second,the effect of family social capital is limited by parents＇ human capital which is low for rural parents;third,existing measurement indicators of social capital can not accurately measure the parenting style of rural families.