OppNet's AiLun Ku Responds to Harvard Study on Economic Connectedness

AiLun Ku, The Opportunity Network's President and CEO, highlights the New York Times' August 1, 2022 coverage of a new study in the article, "Vast New Study Shows a Key to Reducing Poverty: More Friendships Between Rich and Poor."

The study was conducted by a team of researchers at Opportunity Insights that examined the roots of inequality and contributors to social mobility. The team found that "economic connectedness" was key to building social capital among children from low-income communities. The Times article shows charts depicting how cross-class friendship—economic connectedness—had a stronger impact than school quality, family structure, job availability or a community's racial composition.

AiLun Ku, offers her take on the study's findings, noting that:

"As an organization dedicated to closing the opportunity gap for students of color from low-income communities, OppNet embraces scholarship that explores and confirms what we know to be true: all young people, given opportunities, connections, and support, have the power to thrive in the college landscape and professional world."

The Times' reporters summarized the study results this way:

"These cross-class friendships—what the researchers called economic connectedness—had a stronger impact than school quality, family structure, job availability or a community's racial composition. The people you know, the study suggests, open up opportunities, and the growing class divide in the United States closes them off."

AiLun Ku observes that, "In addition to what researchers are calling 'economic connectedness,' these relationships normalize access to opportunities."

Ku also notes the views of Robert Putnam, another Harvard researcher mentioned in the article, on the importance of social capital:

"[Social capital] is a big deal because I think what we lack in America today, and what's been dropping catastrophically over the last 50 years, is what I call 'bridging social capital'—informal ties that lead us to people who are unlike us," said Robert Putnam, the political scientist at Harvard. "And it's a really big deal because it provides a number of avenues or clues by which we might begin to move this country in a better direction."

Ku points out, "This is where the social sector often comes in and plays a pivotal role. Organizations like OppNet step in to provide solutions, programs, and stopgaps to slow and reverse this decline of social capital bridging. OppNet has been doing this for 20 years. We do this through our intensive six-year Fellows program that serves over one thousand students from low-income households. We also do this through our capacity-building programs, by training community-based organizations, public high schools, higher education institutions, and employers to mobilize and grow the social capital for more than 40,000 across the nation."

The Times also quoted Catie Concoide, a high school counselor at Angelo Rodriguez High School in Fairfield, CA, and an alumna, who mentioned the school's 'culture of success:'

"Kids get identified by their extracurriculars, more than race or economic status. There's athletes, the band kids, the kids who are interested in anime. It just seemed like a culture of success. The four-year push was huge at Rod, and it still is to this day."

Ku adds: "All of OppNet's engagement approaches and programming is designed to maximize college and career success for students by emphasizing personal and professional networks and social capital to navigate and thrive in the college landscape and professional world."

OppNet's AiLun Ku Responds to Harvard Study on Cross-Class Friendships