Beyond the Individual Teacher: Developing Social Capital in Schools and School Systems By: Megan Hopkins, James P. Spillane, and Tracy M. Sweet

What’s the Problem?

Efforts to improve schooling increasingly narrow in on improving individual teacher’s instruction. That makes sense given that having an effective teacher is the greatest in-school factor associated with student success. But, this focus on the individual is shortsighted: It fails to recognize the potential of social capital. Social capital refers to those resources like expertise and advice that reside in the relations among people, and it has been linked to teacher productivity and student achievement.

Yet we know little about the conditions that support the development of social capital in schools, and especially within school systems (i.e., within as well as between schools). This information is critical because social relations that span organizations can provide access to new information, important for developing new knowledge about instruction.

In our recent study, “Intra- and Interschool Interactions about Instruction: Exploring the Conditions for Social Capital Development,” we examined teachers’ and leaders’ interactions about language arts and mathematics instruction both within and between schools using social network analysis. We focused on advice and information instructional interactions because these are essential building blocks for knowledge development. Our social network data included a survey of all teachers and leaders in two school districts, and we interviewed 35 teachers and leaders in one of the districts.

Why do teachers and leaders form the ties they do?

Aspects of the formal organizational structure best predicted both within-school and between-school ties. For instance, individuals who held subject-specific leadership positions (e.g., reading and math coaches) were far more likely to provide advice in those subjects to others, both in the same and in different schools. These leaders were also more likely to seek advice from individuals who worked in different schools.

Within schools, another aspect of the formal organization that was important was grade level, with being assigned to teach the same grade a strong predictor of having an instructional tie in both subjects. While some individual characteristics (e.g., gender, years teaching) were related to whether or not teachers and leaders exchanged advice and information, features of the formal organizational structure had the strongest influence on whether or not teacher and leaders interacted.

How do you structure a school system to facilitate the development of social capital?

The prominence of the formal organizational structure in our analysis was related to how the school districts designed systems of routines that supported interactions among teachers and leaders. Interviewees described how organizational routines were employed at the school and district levels, enabling teachers and leaders to interact regularly in a structured manner about instruction. Within schools, professional learning communities (PLCs) at each grade level provided teachers with opportunities to discuss their language arts and mathematics instruction, and often provided access to subject-specific leaders who regularly attended these meetings. Between schools, an array routine, organized and led by subject-specific leaders, brought teachers and leaders together for regular professional development. Overall, these routines worked in tandem with other aspects of the instructional guidance infrastructure (e.g., subject-specific leadership positions) to support the development of social capital within and between schools.

Where to from here?

District and school leaders can be intentional about designing systems that support the development of social capital. Our findings offer several pieces of advice for these local policymakers:

• It is important to think strategically about who you place in formal leadership positions, especially subject-specific positions. These positions are markers of particular expertise, and people do turn to these leaders for guidance about instruction.

In assigning teachers to grade levels, it is not simply about how well they work with that age group of students, but also whether these are the teachers you want interacting with one another about instruction. Make teaching assignments to support the spread of instructional advice so as to maximize the development of new knowledge over time.

• The careful design and redesign of organizational routines to facilitate instructional interactions is essential; they structure who talks to whom about instruction. But they have to be carefully designed so as to support purposeful dialogue about instruction and they have to be maintained over the long haul. This takes time and effort but it is a wise investment.

Megan Hopkins is an Assistant Professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

James P. Spillane is the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Professor of Learning and Organizational Change at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy.

Tracy M. Sweet is an Assistant Professor in the Measurement, Statistics & Evaluation Program in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology at the University of Maryland.