Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Scaffolding for achievement? Institutional foundations of social capital / Bruce Fuller and Emily Hannum -- Social capital and immigrant children's achievement / Carl L. Bankston III and Min Zhou -- Family and non-family roots of social capital among Vietnamese and Mexican American children / Kimberly A. Goyette and Gilberto Q. Conchas -- Commentary: Uses and mususes of social capital in studying school attainment / Patricia Fern�andez Kelly -- Ethnic differences in parents' educational aspirations / Grace Kao -- Schooling alternatives, inequality, and mobility in Israel / Yossi Shavit, Hanna Ayalon and Michal Kurlaender -- Commentary: Is social capital the self-esteem of the 1990s? / Maryellen Schaub and David P. Baker -- Getting ahead in Kenya: social capital, shadow education, and achievement / Claudia Buchmann -- Commentary: Cultural and social capital in educational research / Raymond Sin-Kwok Wong -- Conclusions: Cross-cultural views of social capital, institutions, and stratification / Emily Hannum and Bruce Fuller.

One of the most seductive topics in recent years is the field of social capital - the webs of trust, mutual obligation, and cultural knowledge that flow through local information - that yield resources in human-scale associations of individuals. When we ask about the implications for children's learning and performance in the school institution, however, the construct quickly becomes slippery to hold. The 2001 volume provides five papers that offer empirical evidence on the nature and life of social capital across diverse ethnic groups and cultural settings. These fresh studies delve into the resources embedded in Latino and Asian-American peer groups, how immigrant parents' networks and norms variably push their children to achieve in school, and how teenagers' involvement in ethnic-rooted churches contribute social capital. The volume includes three commentaries, authored by David Baker, Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, and Raymond Wong, and a review chapter by the editors.

Description based on print version record.