Reducing children's behavior problems through social capital: A causal assessment.

Behavior problems among young children have serious detrimental effects on short and long-term educational outcomes. An especially promising prevention strategy may be one that focuses on strengthening the relationships among families in schools, or social capital. However, empirical research on social capital has been constrained by conceptual and causal ambiguity.

Does Racial Isolation in School Lead to Long-Term Disadvantages? Labor Market Consequences of High School Racial Composition.

School racial composition has modest effects on test score gaps, but evidence of a longer-term impact is scarce. Perpetuation theory suggests that blacks who attend schools with higher proportions of white classmates may have better job outcomes. Multilevel analyses of two national longitudinal surveys reveal no effects of high school racial composition on occupational status, employment, or annual earnings for blacks or whites.

Differences between Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Families in Social Capital and Child Development: First-Year Findings from an Experimental Study.

Disadvantages faced by Hispanic children in the U.S., compared to non-Hispanic Whites, have been widely reported.

Whither the virtuous cycle? Past and future trends in black-white inequality in educational attainment.

The inequality in the relative years of education between blacks and whites has diminished dramatically over the 20th century. One possible explanation for this convergence is a virtuous cycle of parents passing on educational advantage, from one generation to the next, leading to an overall educational upgrading. In this paper we test the virtuous cycle hypothesis by estimating the three way interaction of cohort, race, and family background.