The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind

by Raghuram G. Rajan

The study tried to understand how well children were learning, attempting to identify factors such as funding, teachers, fellow students, or family that influence educational outcomes. The conventional wisdom emphasised the criticality of a school’s physical facilities and its funding. These were not unimportant, Coleman found, but far more influential in contributing to learning were the school’s student body diversity as well as a student’s home life. Coleman argued that children, especially from poorer backgrounds, performed better if the school brought together students from very different social and economic backgrounds, for a student’s learning was a ‘function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher’. As important as what happened in school was what happened at home, where the family’s educational background was the most important factor in bolstering what was taught in school. Both James Coleman and James Heckman emphasize the importance of family education and environment for a child’s subsequent learning. Smart, well-educated parents will likely give their children the necessary head start and continuing support that researchers believe is important for learning. Furthermore, Coleman’s work suggests that the better the caliber of other students in school, the better an entering student’s learning experience. So keeping other things constant, the more that other children in the school come from homes with smart, well-educated parents...

Peers at school & home affect outcome