Burt (1997) stated that social capital predicts that returns to education depend on an individual's location in the social structure. Thus a collegiate student athlete is perceived as being in a prime location in the university's hierarchal social structure. Since social capital imminently leads to social connections as well as social cohesion, Green and Brock (2005) found that participation in formal organizations is a marker of social capital. Numerous factors are involved in the generation of social capital within collegiate athletics. The stratification of certain variables such as race, gender, achievement (GPA) has been scarcely studied within student athletes. The purpose of this study is to determine potential predictors of social capital within collegiate student athletes. Specifically, here, we sought to address the relationship that team success has upon the social capital levels of each athlete.
Method
Student-athletes (N=1600) were randomly selected from 23 institutions across three BCS conferences. A total of 548 student-athletes responded for a response rate of 34.3%. The Social Capital Assessment Tool (Krishna & Shrader, 1999) was adapted to assess the overall social capital in the collegiate experience. A student adjustment measure (Baker & Siryk, 1999) was used to control for each student's generate social networks and adaptation, a measure synonymous with social capital (Putnam, 2000). Further, winning percentages were recorded for the previous year's teams, the current year's team, and the two year aggregate.
Analysis/Results
Data were entered into a hierarchical regression analysis where the final block included the three measures of team success entered stepwise to allow for the analysis to establish any significant presence. Results indicated that team success of the current year did significantly predict the athlete's level of social capital (R2Δ=.03, p<.01). Notably, race also contributed to an athlete's social capital where race status was dummy coded into non-White minorities and White student-athletes (ß=.16, p<.05).
Conclusions
Current findings indicate that the relationship between involvement with athletics and social benefits, such as social capital, is an intricate one that merits further research regarding antecedents to a student-athlete's experience.