What’s in a relationship? An examination of social capital, race and class in mentoring relationships
Abstract
After 25 years of intense scrutiny, social capital remains an important yet highly debated concept in social science research. This research uses data from youth and mentors in several chapters of Big Brothers/Big Sisters to assess the importance of different mentoring relationship characteristics in creating positive outcomes among youths. The literature on social capital suggests that key characteristics are: (1. the amount of time spent between individuals, (2. racial similarity, (3. level of trust, (4. social class difference, and (5. intergenerational closure. I examine the effects of these social capital measures on academic and deviant behavioral outcomes and run models using propensity score weights to address selection bias. The results indicate that both the amount of time spent in a relationship and the level of trust consistently have positive effects for youths. Counter to what some theory suggests, race-matching and closure between parent and mentor have limited effects, and social class difference between individuals has no significant effect on any of the examined outcomes. These findings have important implications for future work on social capital and adolescent relationships in general.
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The amount of time mentors and mentees spent together predicted increases in academic outcomes and declines in drug use in BBBS America.
“Moreover, the amount of time mentors and mentees spent together predicted increases in academic outcomes and declines in drug use in BBBS America [45].”
From Unpacking Community-Based Youth Mentoring Relationships: An Integrative Review (2021) · cites this paper as [45]
These proximal benefits did not translate into differences in terms of consistent outcomes.
“However, these proximal benefits did not translate into differences in terms of consistent outcomes [12,13,33,34,45,70,171].”
From Unpacking Community-Based Youth Mentoring Relationships: An Integrative Review (2021) · cites this paper as [45]
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konfound: Command to quantify robustness of causal inferences
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- Authors
- Gaddis, S. M.
- Affiliations
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- Corresponding author
- Gaddis, S. M.
- ORCID
- Gaddis, S. M.
- Venue
- Social Forces
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2012-05-23
- Volume
- 90
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1237-1269
- ISSN
- 0037-7732 (ISSN-L)
- 1534-7605
- OpenAlex
- W2168157331
- Cited by
- 84
- References
- 83
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 4.83
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Social Forces (publishedVersion)
- Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mentoring and Academic Development
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social Capital and Networks
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Youth Development and Social Support
- Keywords
- social capital, mentoring relationships, Big Brothers Big Sisters, youth mentoring, racial similarity, social class, trust, time spent together, educational outcomes, deviance, adolescent relationships, selection bias
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