Intergenerational Closure and Academic Achievement in High School: A New Evaluation of Coleman’s Conjecture

Sociology of Education 2009, Vol. 82 (July): 267–286 267 Beginning with an analysis of the High School & Beyond survey in the early 1980s, James S. Coleman and his colleagues developed an important sociological literature on differences in achievement between public and private high schools (for overviews of the research, see Marsden 2005; Schneider 2000). In contrast to public schools, Coleman and his colleagues argued that the functional communities that surround Catholic schools provide social resources that help to compel students’ motivation, maintain effective school organization, and increase students’ learning (for the specific empirical research, see Coleman and Hoffer 1987; Coleman, Hoffer, and Kilgore 1982; Hoffer, Greeley, and Coleman 1985). A primary resource at the disposal of these functional communities is the set of extant social ties that results from common affiliation with the Catholic church. Here, parents establish relationships for reasons other than the rearing of their children. These social bonds then allow networks of well-connected parents to win what Coleman depicted as a uniquely modern battle: