Strong and Weak Ties in Education
Participation in the American education system produces a complex network of relationships among students, teachers, and administrators. In the short- and long-term, these relationships impact students’ educational trajectories, and thus the efficacy of the educational process. To better understand these implications, one can assess the influence of strong and weak tie relationships in American high schools. From a quantitative perspective of education, which measures grades and college acceptances, different relationship strengths impact the education decisions made by students in the long-term. From a more qualitative and holistic analysis of educational efficacy, relationship strengths have been linked to how well students truly learn. Strong and weak ties in peer-to-peer relationships impact a student’s quantitative outcome and the learning value of their experience in the American education system.
The strength of relationships in student-student relationships significantly affects long-term educational outcomes, and moderately impacts short-term ones. To study this, Patacchini and Rainone tracked educational outcomes in comparison with students’ friendships. They sourced data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, AddHealth, which tracked students through grades 7-12. During the study, participants nominated up to five of their closest friends. A strong tie results from multiple nominations of an individual from one student over the study’s multiple samplings. Likewise, a weak tie is a single nomination. Researchers compared this information with education metrics to determine short- and long-term impacts.
In the short-term, relationship strengths had a moderate impact on educational performance. Students with strong ties to high performing students, such as those with high scores or consistent class attendance, tend to perform stronger than students with weak ties to high performing students. This is consistent with the clustering, high density effect evident in many networks as similar students cluster together. As such, strong ties to certain students can positively impact performance. Relatedly, the study also found that any relationship, regardless of strength, impacts grades in the short-term. The most significant impact on educational outcomes was found in the long-term study. Students with strong ties, or consistent relationships over multiple years, were more likely to have successful education outcomes like graduating high school or enrolling in college. Students whose relationships were more fleeting, or weak, were less likely to be successful. This finding is notable because it suggests that the strength of a students’ interactions is more relatively impactful than the educational performance of with whom a student is interacting. This is evident in the study’s graphic included below. Overall, strong and weak ties impact the short- and long-term outcomes of a student’s experience in the American education system.
The discussion of strong-weak ties and education is also interesting to consider from a more holistic perspective. By this, one means how relationship strengths impact the value of learning, or if a student is learning the maximum potential. B. Carolan studies how relationship strength influences the quality of the flow of information among learners. By analyzing student behaviors and networks, Carolan determined that students often learn from weak ties than strong ties. They attribute this to the effects of dense network clusters as explored in the works of Kadushin and Granovetter. By nature, one is likely to learn more from weak ties since those individuals are part of different network clusters and therefore encounter different information. In contrast, one is likely to encounter the same information as their strong tie, and therefore one often has less to learn from a strong relationship.
These two studies analyze how relationship strengths impact education. It is interesting to consider how the study’s results provide different strategies for ways to improve the education system. According to Patacchini and Rainone, strong ties among students should be encouraged to boost performance. However, Carolan might disagree encouraging interactions among weak ties as the potential for exposure to new information is greater. Each research reveals how strong and weak ties do not provide a one-size-fits-all solution to optimizing a network. One must balance the strength and quality of relationships to optimize the productivity and outcome of a network.
Sources:
https://www.iza.org/conference_files/social_networks_2013/patacchini_e1356.pdf
https://cdn.tc-library.org/Edlab/EdLab_Strongties.pdf
https://www.cin.ufpe.br/~rbcp/taia/Kadushin_Concepts.pdf