James Samuel Coleman

James Samuel Coleman (1926 to 1995) was an American sociologist whose research on schooling shaped educational theory and policy in the United States. Born in Indiana, he took a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at Purdue University before turning to sociology and earning his doctorate at Columbia University in 1955. He taught at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago. He directed the large study published in 1966 as Equality of Educational Opportunity, known as the Coleman Report, which changed how scholars and policy makers understood the role of schools in producing equality and achievement. His book The Adolescent Society (1961) is another of the most cited works in the sociology of education, and he was among the first to use the term social capital.