From relationships to opportunities: What we learned about social capital mobilization

For decades, those of us working in youth development have understood that relationships are central to how young people thrive. It is through close relationships with adults, caregivers, mentors and peers that youth discover who they are, cultivate abilities to shape their own lives and learn how to engage with and contribute to the world around them. A young person’s web of relationships provides access to new opportunities and lasting connections and links them to valuable resources that can foster youth thriving. However, while we’ve long known that relationships matter, much less has been studied about how youth mobilize their social capital and how youth-serving organizations support them in doing so.

That’s the question we set out to answer in our recent study, published in the Journal of Youth Development. Our team wanted to know: How is social capital mobilized among young people within youth-serving organizations, and what role do youth-serving organizations and practitioners play in young people’s social-capital mobilization?

[Related: From curiosity to action — Learn to engage youth in YPAR]

Our findings offer valuable insights into the resources young people gain and leverage through their relationships. Practitioners working in schools, afterschool programs, mentoring organizations or workforce development settings may use these insights to better support youth.

What do we mean by social capital?

When we talk about social capital, we mean the resources that come from positive, meaningful relationships that help young people in accomplishing their life, academic and career goals.

This might look like guidance from a teacher, encouragement from a coach, access to new information from a mentor or network opportunities facilitated through a youth program. Access to relationships is important, but we found that access alone may not be enough. Young people also need the skills, confidence and support to mobilize those connections.

Four ways youth mobilize connections

Courtesy of Erica Van Steenis

Erica Van Steenis

To dig into this, we held focus groups with 74 youth, program alumni and staff across six education and workforce programs. By listening closely to their experiences, we adapted Mario Small’s Institutional Space Framework to identify four distinct ways social capital is mobilized:

1. Youth-driven mobilization happens when young people take the initiative themselves. For example, a student might form a study group to improve their grades or reach out to new career contacts on LinkedIn.
2. Connection-driven mobilization occurs when peers or staff help make connections. A mentor might introduce a participant to someone in their professional circle, or a peer might share a job posting that aligns with a friend’s interests.
3. Organization-connected mobilization involves structures or tools that programs provide. Think of resume templates, networking scripts or online platforms like Slack that make it easier for young people to reach out.
4. Organization-driven mobilization is when the program itself directly brokers opportunities. This could mean guaranteeing interviews with employer partners, providing stipends or arranging internships that youth would not otherwise access.

[Related: Is the youth development field confident enough about its contributions to learning to disrupt K-12 education?]

Together, these four domains highlight that mobilization is not just about youth initiative. It’s also about how organizations and practitioners create the conditions that make mobilization possible.

Implications for Practice

Courtesy of Ashley Boat

Ashley Boat

Based on what we heard, we see several takeaways for practitioners:

1. Assess your program’s approach. Youth-serving organizations can use lessons from the adapted institutional space framework as a complement to program assessments. Specifically, practitioners can reflect on their program offerings and how different types of social-capital mobilization work together. Practitioners can ask: which of the four domains are strongest in our setting? Which could we strengthen?
2. Train and empower staff as connectors. Staff often have networks that can benefit young people, yet may not think to leverage them as part of their role. One important role practitioners can play is drawing on their own social capital and network connections to give young people access to other supportive adults, peers and near peers that have access to valuable resources and information.
3. Tailor strategies to youth needs. Practitioners can also reflect on how young people within their programs currently engage in social-capital mobilization processes and how their organization’s practices are (or are not) supporting that process. Some young people thrive when taking initiative, while others may feel intimidated. Programs can offer more structured supports like tailoring strategies to accommodate young people’s needs (e.g. practitioners can consider how they can support youth in becoming more confident in using youth-driven mobilization strategies).
4. Foster a culture of paying-it-forward. Alumni who return as mentors or staff often create a cycle of support, modeling for participants how to use their social capital to lift others. Youth-serving organizations can encourage youth to think about the role that they play in other’s networks and how they can network with peers, educators and potential employers.
5. Recognize social capital as an equity strategy. All young people have social capital that can be mobilized as a valuable asset in their lives. Youth-serving organizations and practitioners can reflect on the role they play in not only supporting young people’s social-capital mobilization but also empowering young people’s collective and social change efforts to build a more equitable society. For youth from historically marginalized communities, mobilizing social capital can be a powerful way to counter systemic barriers.

Why this work matters

Courtesy of Miray D. Seward

Miray D. Seward

At the heart of our study is a simple but powerful idea: relationships matter most when young people can activate them. As researchers and practitioners, we believe youth-serving organizations are uniquely positioned to help young people gain not just access to networks but also the skills, confidence and opportunities to mobilize them. When young people and adults work in partnership, social capital can be a powerful resource. Young people bring goals and networks of their own, while practitioners and youth-serving organizations can help create structures that make mobilization easier, open their networks and share tools that support youth in seizing opportunities.

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Dr. Erica Van Steenis is a community-based researcher whose work focuses on designing equitable learning systems that strengthen practitioner practice and promote positive youth development. She earned her Ph.D. in Learning Sciences and Human Development from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Ashley Boat, Ph.D. is an applied researcher who studies how relationships and community connections shape young people’s development and opportunities.

Miray Seward is the director of research and evaluation at the American Camp Association and was previously a research scientist at Search Institute. Her work has focused on supporting youth development professionals and youth in out-of-school contexts. Dr. Seward received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology — Applied Developmental Science from the University of Virginia.