Mapping the Invisible

In education, improvement is often framed as a matter of better curriculum, stronger instruction, or more rigorous accountability. What if the real story of school improvement, or any change process for that matter, lies not solely in what people do—but in how they are connected?

Through years of work using social network analysis, professor and associate dean Kara Finnigan has been mapping the invisible web of relationships inside schools and districts and across communities. The findings point to a powerful—and often overlooked—truth: meaningful change depends not just on expertise or effort, but on the strength and structure of the relationships that connect people to one another.

Social network analysis, which is used in many fields, although less common in education research, is a powerful method for understanding relationships. This method shifts attention from individuals to the connections between them, showing how information, influence, and resources flow through or across organizations. It demonstrates that an individual's position within a network—such as being highly connected or serving as a bridge between groups—can significantly shape whether new ideas and reforms spread or stall. This approach provides both conceptual and practical tools for analyzing leadership, collaboration, and decision-making in schools and districts as well as for analyzing policy implementation.

"Who do you turn to? Who do you go to for advice? For best practices? And importantly, who do you trust when you have a problem?" Questions like these form the backbone of network analysis which uses matrix algebra and graph theory to measure particular social structures. Through network visualization—for example, with dots representing people and lines representing relationships—her studies reveal how information, support, and trust flow.

What those maps reveal can be surprising. In many school systems, particularly those that have historically come under pressure under state accountability systems, educators are connected, but not always in ways that help them jointly work toward change. Teachers and leaders may exchange information, attend meetings, and share resources. But deeper, trust-based relationships are often missing. Through qualitative interviews, she found that both internal and external pressures and blame had deteriorated trust.

Over nearly a decade of studies in several districts, Finnigan and her colleague Alan J. Daly at UC-San Diego found a common pattern: the district leadership network was sparse and highly centralized, with most communication and knowledge-sharing concentrated within the central office rather than distributed across schools. Principals were positioned on the periphery of the network, limiting collaboration, joint learning, and the spread of effective practices. And, finally, the reciprocal exchange of ideas and practices between central office leaders and principals was rare.

While centralized structures can efficiently transmit routine, technical information, they are poorly suited for sharing complex knowledge and supporting the kind of deep, system-wide change required for school improvement.

Complex change—such as improving literacy instruction or rethinking classroom practice—requires more than transactional exchanges. It depends on relationships where people feel safe to ask questions, admit uncertainty, and learn from one another. Without that foundation, even well-designed reforms can stall.

In any organization, the informal, underlying relationships can facilitate or hinder the overall work of its members. Some of Finnigan's work has focused on the ways that groups are connected through individuals who are able to link different groups. These are called brokers, and they are important to the structure of relationships.

Compounding the problem is turnover. Each departure disrupts existing relationships. High levels of churn disrupt networks, frequently causing loss of trust, institutional knowledge, stability, and productivity across schools and districts. Finnigan's research found that churn weakened both professional and emotional connections among leaders while leaving others isolated and limiting collaboration.

This churn is not simply a matter of individual choices: it reflects broader systemic pressures. High-stakes accountability, resource constraints, and the challenges of working in under-resourced communities all contribute to instability. Yet, too often, the response focuses on fixing individuals rather than addressing the conditions that make stability—and strong relationships—so difficult to maintain. "It is difficult but not impossible to build ties when there is little trust," says Finnigan, "but this requires deep attention to the culture of the organization and opportunities for organizational members, like teachers, principals, or central office staff, to share knowledge and build connections. Unfortunately, the pressure and burnout of educators and leaders in the current climate makes these practices more challenging than ever."

Although there is no single solution to address the fragmented relationships that exist in many contexts, there are promising directions. Stabilizing school environments is one critical step. Reducing turnover and creating conditions where educators can build trusting and collaborative relationships can strengthen the foundation for their work.

Leadership also plays a key role. Leaders who foster trust, follow through on commitments, and create opportunities for meaningful interaction can help build stronger networks. At the same time, the informal brokers can help bridge divides and spread knowledge across a system.

The goal is to create a network where information and trust can flow—where no one is isolated, and where relationships support, rather than hinder, the work of improvement.

Ultimately, this research challenges a common assumption: that schools fail because of what educators are or are not doing. Instead, it points to a more complex reality, one where the structure of relationships, shaped by broader systems and policies, plays a decisive role.

"We put a lot of pressure on schools to improve," Finnigan reflects, "without understanding the conditions that work against that."

That insight points to a larger takeaway: schools do not operate in isolation. They are embedded within broader social, economic, and policy contexts that shape what is possible inside their walls.

"When we talk about improving schools, we often ignore the systems around them," Finnigan says. "Housing, health, transportation, employment—these all affect what happens in schools. And schools are often left out of those broader conversations."

Both regional and cross-sector approaches to policy are another pillar of Finnigan's work and the topic of her book, Striving in Common: A Regional Equity Framework for Urban Schools, written with Jennifer Jellison Holme from UT-Austin. Their research draws on examples from cities like St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis, showing how decades of policy decisions have resulted in competition for funding, students, and resources between districts in these larger metropolitan areas. These dynamics reinforce racial and economic segregation, leaving urban schools with fewer resources and greater challenges. Addressing these metropolitan inequities, along with collaborating across sectors, are key to creating more equitable opportunities for students.

This perspective informs Finnigan's most recent research in Detroit, where she and her collaborators Sarah Lenhoff (Wayne State University), Huriya Jabbar (University of Southern California), and DeMarcus Jenkins (University of Pennsylvania) are applying social network analysis as part of their multi-year project studying the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative in the Corktown neighborhood and its impact on housing, neighborhoods, and schooling. This study examines two types of networks. The first is the networks of families in Corktown, where researchers want to understand how this housing initiative affects social cohesion. As neighborhoods are reshaped and residents relocate, longstanding social ties, particularly for the Black and Latinx families who have lived in the area for a long time, can be disrupted, potentially altering the networks of support those families rely on. The second focuses on the larger structure of individuals and organizations involved in the planning and implementation of the initiative, with a focus on both Corktown residents themselves, and education-related organizations and their role during each of these stages.

By making those conditions visible, social network analysis offers both a new lens for understanding communities and new insights for building stronger paths toward positive change. This type of analysis reveals the connective tissue that allows people and ideas to move, take root, and grow, and helps to uncover ways that policy and practice reinforce or disrupt inequities in terms of who has access to resources and information. Finnigan notes that when people are part of networks defined by trust, reciprocity, and shared purpose, they are better positioned to navigate complexity and sustain meaningful change.

Finnigan's work invites a shift in how we think about educational policy and practice—not as a series of isolated actions, but as an effort to build the relationships and conditions that make complex change possible in the first place. By mapping the invisible, her research leverages social network analysis to bring about equity-oriented systems change.