_{^{The link between social disadvantage and low educational attainment has been persistent over the past few decades and is a particular, unwelcome feature of Scottish Education (OECD, 2004).  Addressing this problem has been the focus of a range of different policy initiatives that can, arguably, claim only limited success. In the UK recent research exploring this issue has challenged the dominance of ‘school effectiveness’ and indicated the importance of out of school factors in explaining educational attainment (Ball, S 2010; Gorard, S 2010; Lupton, R 2004 ). In examining the lives of young people outside school researchers have drawn heavily on the explanatory power of social capital theory as illuminated by the work of Bourdieux, Coleman and Putnam. Often this work has challenged the imposition of ‘middle class’ values and aspirations on disadvantaged young people, a process that demands their individual adaptation and fails to sufficiently address crucial structural factors (see Archer et al., 2010). A further feature of this research has been an emphasis on the social relationships and networks that young people have access to and the role that these play in their realising of ‘valued’ educational opportunities. Heath et al, (2010) for example focused on the importance of social networks and the transmission of social capital as being crucial to educational attainment and entry into higher education in particular.  In this research we narrow the focus further by examining the role of social networks in the educational attainment of a small group of high attaining pupils in a school experiencing a high level of social disadvantage and from which only a small percentage of pupils proceed to higher education. Three research questions have framed the development of this work:}}

_{^{·       What is the landscape of the young people’s social networks?}}

_{^{·       In what ways do young people draw on these networks in planning their futures?}}

_{^{·       What contribution do these social networks make to young people’s educational attainment?}}

_{^{To explore these questions the research team has drawn on very different sources of data.  Firstly it made use of the fact that mobile phones are now ubiquitous across all sectors of society.  Not only are they powerful enough to allow a rich user experience in accessing the internet, but their functionality can be used to monitor user activity; the applications they use and the people they communicate with.  The research made use of mobile phones as a valuable tool for social analysis. The data this strand of the research generated was combined with data gathered by a substantial period of qualitative research.  The potential contribution of new mobile technologies to educational research provides a further dimension to this research.}}

Archer, L; Hollingworth, S & Mendick, H (2010) 'Urban Youth and Schooling' Open University Press, Mcgraw-Hill Education: England. Ball, S. (2010) 'New Class Inequalities in Education: why education policy maybe looking in the wrong place! Education Policy, Civil Society and Social Class', International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 30 (3/4), 155-166. Gorard, S. (2010). Serious doubts about school effectiveness, British Educational Research Journal, 36,5, 745‐766. Heath, S; Fuller, A & Johnston, B (2010) ‘Young people, social capital and network-based educational decision-making’ British Journal of Sociology of Education Volume 31, Issue 4 July 2010 , pages 395 - 411 Lupton, R (2004) Schools in disadvantaged areas: recognising context and raising quality. CASEpaper, 76. Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK