James S. Coleman

James S. Coleman, born May 12, 1926 in Bedford, Indiana, died March 25, 1995 in Chicago, was an American sociologist. He was a sociological theorist, who studied the sociology of education, public policy, and was one of the earliest users of the term "social capital". His Foundations of Social Theory stands as one of the most important sociological contributions of the late-20th century.

Coleman received his bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University in 1949, and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1955, where he stood under the influence of Paul Lazarsfeld. He achieved renown with two studies on problem solving: An Introduction to Mathematical Sociology (1964) and Mathematics of Collective Action (1973). He taught at Stanford University, the University of Chicago, at Johns Hopkins University (1959-1973), and then again at Chicago, where he directed the National Opinion Research Center. In 1991 Coleman was elected President of the American Sociological Association.

Coleman is widely cited in the field of sociology of education. In the 1960s, he and several other scholars were commissioned to write a report on educational equality in America. It was one of the largest studies in history, with more than 150,000 students in the sample. The result was a massive report of over 700 pages. That 1966 report — titled "Equality of Educational Opportunity" (or often simply called the "Coleman Report") — fueled debate about "school effects" that has continued since. This piece was commonly misinterpreted as evidence, or an argument, that schools have little effect on student achievement. A better reading of the Coleman Report is that relative to student background and socioeconomic status, measured differences in school resources (ie. per pupil spending) matter little in determining educational outcomes. Hanushek (1998) Another controversial finding of the Coleman Report was that, on average, black schools were funded on a nearly equal basis by the 1960s. (This was probably due to the fact that many Southern states vastly raised their spending on black schools in the 1950s, in the hopes of avoiding compliance with the Brown v. Board of Education decision.)

This research also suggested that socially disadvantaged black students profited from schooling in racially-mixed classrooms. This was a catalyst for the implementation of desegregation busing systems, ferrying black students to integrated schools. Following up on this, in 1975 Coleman published the results of further research, this time into the effects of school bussing systems intended to bring lower-class black students into higher-class mixed race schools. His conclusion was that white parents moved their children out of such schools in large numbers; this is known as "white flight". His 1966 article had explained that black students would only benefit from integrated schooling if there was a majority of white students in the classroom; the mass bussing system had failed.

One of the most important points he made was about social capital and how it is related to trust.

In addition, Coleman was a pioneer in the construction of mathematical models in sociology, especially through his book, Introduction to Mathematical Sociology. Related to this was his major treatise Foundations of Social Theory that made a major contribution to contemporary efforts to produce a more rigorous form of theorizing in sociology.

Selected works

Union Democracy (1956, with Seymour Martin Lipset)
The Adolescent Society (1961)
Introduction to Mathematical Sociology (1964)
Equality of Educational Opportunity (1966)
Youth: Transition to Adulthood (1973)
High School Achievement (1982)
Individual Interests and Collective Action (1986)
Social Theory, Social Research, and a Theory of Action, article in American Journal of Sociology 91: 1309-1335 (1986).
Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital, article in American Journal of Sociology 94, pp. 95-120 (1988).
Foundations of Social Theory (1990)

External links

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

James_S._Coleman ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

History of "James S. Coleman"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.