Language forms the bedrock of children’s academic success. Children’s language outcomes are directly related to gradational measures of social class: Children with more highly educated parents tend to outperform children with less educated parents on measures of language productivity and complexity. However, much remains unknown about the relationship of children’s language outcomes with relational measures of social class, such as social capital.
Social capital is situated in relations of trust and shared expectations between parents and children, among families, and between parents and school staff. Given that social capital is associated with positive child outcomes and is highly malleable, it is critical to understand its role in children’s language outcomes. Therefore, we use structural equation modeling to examine relationships among parents’ language, parents’ social capital, and children’s language. This work sets the stage for continued collaborative investigation on the parental social networks of children with typical language development versus the parental social networks of children with atypical language development.