Building social capital throughout the K-12 experience is a game-changer for students who know how. Having a network of supporters makes a huge difference for students when they graduate and look to their next steps with college, career, and life goals. From professional guidance to personal advice, when students have people who they can rely on for help, their chances of success increase significantly. Generally speaking, though, the students who end up with a strong network didn’t get help from their K-12 programing. They often build their network based on family connections, including their parents' Rolodex. Social capital attainment ends up being one more divide between students with resources and those with lesser means. 

There’s hope on the horizon as schools begin to implement work-based learning solutions, internships, and workforce development strategies. We find that when schools become focused on developing industry partners and getting students prepared for postsecondary experiences, beyond just graduating from high school, social capital emerges naturally. That said, these five strategies can help schools become far more intentional about helping students create their network. 

Teaching the Concept Directly 

The first strategy for helping students to build their social capital is to teach them about the concept and how it works through direct instruction. These lessons can be taught as early as elementary school whereby teachers and counselors can provide information about the importance of having a network, how networking works, and what it takes to add people to their network. Assignments and activities can be used for students to recognize who they already have in their network and the kinds of people they might want to add to their network in the future. Simple journal entries and SMART goals can help. The key is not to assume that all students understand what it means to build social capital. 

Practicing Interpersonal Skills

It’s important to provide students with practice in the development of interpersonal and durable skills that are critical to meeting people and communicating effectively with them. This might naturally fit into any unit or lesson, including collaborative structures for learning, presenting ideas often, and quality peer-to-peer and student-to-adult interactions. These can also be created as stand-alone lessons on the concept of interpersonal skills and how to acquire them. The point is that students need more than content knowledge and subject matter expertise to be ready for the challenges of life after high school. 

Participating in Activities Outside of Academics

One way that students build their network is to get involved in extracurricular activities, sports, and non-academic experiences related to school. Many schools pride themselves on the breadth and depth of these experiences, including leadership opportunities like becoming the captain of a team or earning distinctions like National Honors Society. Schools that are working toward using these experiences as a partial solution to building students’ social capital are not just ensuring that their offerings are strong but, rather, also using mechanisms to track student participation so that every student (or nearly every student) is involved in something outside of academics. As students log their experiences, educators can monitor the students who haven’t entered an experience or who haven’t logged enough time. Not only are these activities a healthy aspect of a quality educational experience, they create a network that lasts a lifetime. 

Developing a Mentor Program

Mentoring programs are popular, especially for struggling students who need academic and emotional support. That said, mentoring programs that connect students’ interests and future plans to industry partners through guest presentations and other events can help students to build their network within a particular career cluster. Students who have work-based learning (WBL) or internship requirements are naturally building relationships on-the-job or through job-shadowing. As schools build systems for every student to log hours toward their WBL credits/credentials, one of many solid outcomes is the people they meet who they might not have otherwise encountered. These are often the folks they turn to for guidance with post-secondary paths, such as college or career choices. 

Documenting Their Network 

One final strategy for helping students build and sustain their social capital is to create a system whereby they document who is in their network, why that person is important, and how and when they might reach out to that person for support in the future. This can be done in a simple resume format, as an assignment during an advisory period, or through reflection and journaling. Students might even set goals regarding who they want in their network and how they might be introduced to influencers on the path that they design for themselves after graduation. Having a documented network can boost confidence and place real value on the need to continue building a network after students have been taught why it’s so important and how they can create relationships beyond the confines of family and school.

Conclusion 

While building social capital is not typically the goal of the K-12 system, it has become more top-of-mind as schools introduce plans for a more robust college and career readiness program. Building a network is not only something that students can learn to do in school, it’s a skill that they can take with them to reach their full potential. Anyone who has used their network for help or to help others knows the value in building relationships and leveraging those connections for success in life and work. 

If you want to talk about social capital strategies for K-12 students, ways to track WBL and extracurricular activities, or anything else related to better systems for college and career readiness, you can book time here.