TY  - JOUR
AU  - Algan, Yann
AU  - Cahuc, Pierre
AU  - Shleifer, Andrei
TI  - Teaching Practices and Social Capital
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17527
PY  - 2011
Y2  - October 2011
DO  - 10.3386/w17527
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17527
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17527.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Yann Algan
Department of Economics
Sciences Po
75007 Paris, France
28 rue des Saints-Pères 75007 Paris
France
E-Mail: yann.algan@sciences-po.org

Pïerre Cahuc
Sciences Po, Paris
E-Mail: pierre.cahuc@sciencespo.fr

Andrei Shleifer
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Littauer Center M-9
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-5046
Fax: 617/496-1708
E-Mail: ashleifer@harvard.edu
AB  - We use several data sets to consider the effect of teaching practices on student beliefs, as well as on organization of firms and institutions. In cross-country data, we show that teaching practices (such as copying from the board versus working on projects together) are strongly related to various dimensions of social capital, from beliefs in cooperation to institutional outcomes. We then use micro-data to investigate the influence of teaching practices on student beliefs about cooperation both with each other and with teachers, and students' involvement in civic life. A two-stage least square strategy provides evidence that teaching practices have an independent sizeable effect on student social capital. The relationship between teaching practices and student test performance is nonlinear.  The evidence supports the idea that progressive education promotes social capital.
ER  -