Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

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college. The main source of social capital for students was the networks provided by their
counselors for students to gain information, support and guidance regarding preparation
and application to college. These networks are not only important for Black students on
the high school level, but are also important throughout theiryears in higher education.
Recently, Palmer and Gasman (2008) conducted a qualitative study where the role of
social capital in promoting academic success for African American men at HBCUs was
investigated. It was asserted that four elements were imperative to the functioning of
social capital in the persistence and academic success of these students—faculty,
administrators, peers and mentors.
Studies have shown that social capital “positively relates to academic success” (Palmer and
Gasman, 2008) but few studies have explored these positive effects at a minority serving
institution. Furthermore, no study to date has explored the effects of social capital on
Black male engineering students in higher education as we are doing in this study. The
goal of this study is to provide a comprehensive account of social capital in engineering
education and its effects on academic achievement and support for Black male engineering
undergraduates, one of the most underrepresented groups in the field of engineering.
Research Questions
We hypothesize that building on social capital is critical to enhancing the academic success
of Black male engineering undergraduates and seek to address the following questions—
1. In what ways does social capital directly affect students’ academic achievement?
2. What forms of capital provide students with higher levels of academic support?
3. Are students with more reported social capital performing at higher levels in the
engineering program than their counterparts with less reported capital?
4. What is the impact of the environment in which the capital is obtained?
Theoretical Framework
Social capital theory is a factor that has most recently been used to understand the
persistence and retention of students. This theory was originally used by economists to
describe class divisions. Bourdieu (1983) viewed social capital from a Marxist perspective,
as an ‘attribute of the elites’. He saw social capital as a system of networks that were
possessed by the elites that allowed them to gain an advantage as the dominant class.
These networks were among the privileged and so helped them to maintain their status.
However, Coleman (1988) used the functions of social capital to brew its definition. He
viewed social capital as a compilation of entities that underpin social structures. Through
these entities, the possibility of achieving certain goals, which would be nearly impossible
if not for the presence of such structures, becomes a reality. Coleman (1988) describes
three forms of social capital: obligations and expectations, information channels, and
social norms.
The first form of social capital, obligations and expectations, is the process in which
individuals in the social network do for one another, or help each other (Coleman, 1988).
The second form of social capital, information channels, is the process by which
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011