Social Capital Theory Summary

Thayer (2000) presented demographic characteristics and strategies that addressed the unique issues related to students who are both first-generation and low-income college students. Thayer found that students who were both first-generation college and low-income were less likely to attend college and if they did enroll were more likely to drop out after the first or second year (Thayer, 2000). He explained that more programs like Upward Bound, which addressed the challenges of this student population, were needed on America’s college campuses. According to Thayer (2000) first-generation and low-income students lacked sufficient knowledge to navigate the college process; they are less likely to enter college with the proper academic preparedness and are more likely to perceive a lack of support from their family for attending college. These characteristics have been found to be significant with

Theoretical Framework - Social Capital
Contemporary approaches to social capital theory can be traced to three key authors; Bourdieu (1986), Coleman (1988), and Putnam (2000) (Wall, Ferrazzi & Schryer, 1998). Bourdieu (1986) defined social capital as membership to a group where each member could draw on the capital accumulated by the entire group. Bourdieu held a critical view on social capital. Those who could not become members of a group could not access the capital owned by that group because the existing group members controlled its membership (Bordieu, 1986). New members could join a group without consent.
In contrast to Bordieu, Coleman (1988) described social capital as a system of norms, values, and behaviors. He showed that the development of social capital is linked to the development of human capital (Coleman, 1988). In addition, he argued that acquiring social capital allows individuals to achieve certain goals such as high school graduation, and higher achievement test scores that they could not otherwise achieve (Coleman,