Giving Compass' Take:

• Michael B. Horn discusses how schools can engage with outside communities to help disadvantaged students build essential social capital to help them succeed. 

• How can funders help schools connect students with their communities? How can individuals use their existing social capital to help disadvantaged students? 

• Learn about the value of mentoring. 

The idea that whom you know matters has been long known and well studied by researchers across a variety of fields. An individual’s social capital has significant impact on their success and failure in life, as well as their health. The robustness of a society’s social capital has a significant impact on the wellness of the society across a range of metrics.

Despite knowing all this, there has been a persistent puzzle in the extensive research. How do we increase access to positive social capital for those from disadvantaged backgrounds? If we don’t address this, then millions will struggle to access the American dream, as they lack the opportunity to get ahead.

Enter Julia Freeland Fisher’s new book, Who You Know: Unlocking Innovations That Expand Students’ Networks, which she wrote with her husband, Daniel Fisher. After summarizing the relevant research on social capital, Fisher, who is the director of education at the Clayton Christensen Institute, dives squarely into the territory of how do we unleash innovations to solve this challenge.

The book’s first insight is that schools, which have been built to keep the outside world…outside, must be the gateway for innovations that tackle the opportunity gap—meaning the gap disadvantaged students face that goes beyond academics by considering broader life outcomes. No longer can schools just focus on what you know.

Read the full article about social capital by Michael B. Horn at Christensen Institute.