A Social Capital Framework for the Study of Institutional Agents & Their Role in the Empowerment of Students/Youth

Ricardo D. Stanton-Salazar
May 25, 2010 Center for Urban Education USC

UCLA, Prof. D. Solrzano

Institutional Agents
1997, A Social Capital Framework for Understanding The Socialization of Racial Minority Children and Youths." Harvard Educational Review, 67, 1.

Intellectual Agenda (I)

How can the tools of social network analysis, combined with theories of social capital and class reproduction, 1) inform our understanding of how class, race, ethnicity, & gender the social mobility and educational experiences of working-class, minority youth

Intellectual Agenda (II)

2) those countervailing processes that enable some working-class youth and students to experience success within the school system and social mobility... college degree politically-progressive professional class

Intellectual Agenda (III)

How can the tools of social network analysis, combined with theories of social capital, inform how we can programmatically intervene in the lives of working-class minority students.?

Purpose of Manuscript/Essay
1) To elaborate the concept of institutional agentsthose individuals, well positioned in schools, universities, and in other institutions and organizations, who have the capacity and commitment to provide youth/students with:
valued resources and opportunities (linked to school success and social mobility) & with connections to other key and resourceful agents and networks

Institutional Agent (Lin, 2001)

1) position in social hierarchy of an institutionaccess to resources attached to that position (e.g., school principal, Dean of School of Ed): positional resources
\\

2) personal resources individuals with high degree of human, cultural, & social capital Resources & institutional support can either be positional or personal

The Structure & Resourcefulness of an Institutional Agents Network

IA/EAs have access to 2 kinds of resources: positional resources personal resources

Positional Resources

Social Capital = Institutional Support, embedded in social relations with IAs

Forms of Institutional Support Transmission of Key Funds of Knowledge Network Development Evaluation, Advice & Guidance Bridging Institutional Brokering Coordinating Guided Cultural Exposure Institutional Agent: Roles Knowledge Agent Networking Coach Advisor Bridging Agent Institutional Broker
(an amplification of bridging agent)

Coordinator
(an amplification of institutional broker)

Cultural Guide

Social Capital = Institutional Support, embedded in social relations with IAs

Forms of Institutional Support Transmission of Key Funds of Knowledge Network Development Evaluation, Advice & Guidance Bridging Institutional Brokering Coordinating Guided Cultural Exposure Institutional Agent: Roles Knowledge Agent Networking Coach Advisor Bridging Agent Institutional Broker
(an amplification of bridging agent)

Coordinator
(an amplification of institutional broker)

Cultural Guide

Institutional Agent: Enactment of Multiple (often sim) Roles

Advisor Bridging Agent

Resource Agent personal resources Resource Agent positional resources

Institutional Broker

Cultural Guide

Advocate

Agent invites a student to attend a professional conference.

Coordinator Networking Coach Integrative Agent

Knowledge Agent

Multi-stranded & Multiplex Relationships

High School Calculus Teacher Knowledge Agent Networking Coach Advisor Institutional Broker Coordinator (an amplification of institutional broker) Guided Cultural Exposure

Purpose of Manuscript/Essay (2010)

2) Agenda: To extend, in theoretical terms, my definition of institutional agent [Kinds of IAs, class analysisunderstanding class inequality] Institutional Agent: (Upper middle-class, middle-class) Gate-keepers: (Settings diversified by class and race) Institutional Agent vs. Empowerment Agent:
(working-class students and youth)

Institutional Agents:
Along the Class Hierarchy

Social Reproduction: .upper strata: IAsidentified as those societal actors who act to maintain the advantages of other actors and groups who share similar attributes, high-status positions and social backgrounds

Gate-keeping agents
Agents are oriented toward rendering services and providing institutional support to those privileged by class or race, to those who exhibit cultural capital, and to those who demonstrate institutionalized symbols of merit and ability

Urban educators, fulfill their potential as an institutional agent when they 1) provide institutional support to low-status students, 2) enact the many roles subsumed under the concept of IA

Empowerment Agent
Advisor Bridging Agent

Resource Agent personal resources Resource Agent positional resources

Institutional Broker

Cultural Guide

Empowerment Agent

Advocate

Agent serves on agent acts When the institutional a campus with a critical consciousness, they committee looking at become ansuccess. They student empowerment agent; they question the system, envision identify resources that an alternate system, and enable would improve Latina and students to do the same. Latino student success.

Coordinator Networking Coach Integrative Agent

Knowledge Agent

The Motivational and Ideological Characteristics of an Empowerment Agent

1) awareness of social structural forces 2) critical awareness that the success dependent upon institutional support 3) willingness to not act on the established rules of social structure (e.g., recognizes the cultural resources of his/her students) 4) Self-identification as one of those agents responsible for advocating for low-status students 5) willingness to be identified by the larger community as an advocate 6) critical consciousness (Freire)

Organizational Settings/Cultures Oriented Toward Counter-stratification and Authentic Empowerment

Empowerment Theory: critical social work
(Gutierrez & Lewis, 1999)

Empowerment defined: as the active participatory process of gaining resources, competencies, and key forms of power necessary for gaining control over ones life and accomplishing important life goals
(Maton & Salem, 1995).

P-o-w-e-r

Power: includes ability to critically interrogate [societal, organizational] social structures:
bureaucratic/institutional policies, rules, procedures and normative practices, codes, regulations, and laws,-and --operate in ways that exclude, discriminate, or disempower members of a group or class;

Power: ability/resources to change these structures

Moving from institutional agent to empowerment agent

1) Social capital = institutional support via IAs 2) Enabling the [young] individual to develop a critical consciousness and a sociological discourse (Freire) .for interrogating and contesting different forms of oppression rooted in society [history], .deep structures that govern institutions: school, university educational systems Local to national governmental bodies the juvenile justice system (Ianni, 1989).

empowerment agents

empowerment
awareness of resources necessary to navigate the system transforming social network into social support system political and networking skill-set entering into different kinds of relationships developing effective coping strategies Ability to interrogate the sociopolitical contextenvisioning social change

Positive & Enlightened Network Orientation

[consciousness]: empowering another can be accomplished indirectly, through actors and resources embedded in their own social networks;