This study examines the effect of “relational alignment” on school performance. Relational
alignment, a recently refined theoretical construct of social capital in the field of status attainment
research, is defined as the matching of parents' and adolescents' educational goal. Relational or
interpersonal alignment reflects the idea of matching in the aligned ambition in Ambitious Generation
as well as the importance of the web of expectations surrounding children suggested in the
Wisconsin model and the relational transmission of norms or expectations in Colman's conception of
social capital. This study used the data from the first wave of Korean Youth Panel Survey, which
surveyed a nationally represented ― except Jejudo ― sample of the second grade students attending
middle school in 2003 and analyzed with ordinary least square regression method. Results show that
alignment of parents' and students' educational goals influence students' school rank in a statistically
significant way. The effect of parents' education on students' school rank is also dependent on
relational alignment of educational goals between parents and adolescents. In other words, if parents
with high level of education want to transmit their human capital to their children, they have to
develop the relational alignment of educational goal with their children. Another finding in the
analyses indicates that social capital in school measured by closeness of relationship between students
and teachers is statistically significant only for the students who have lower level of father's
education. This finding is consistent with the argument that school is the alternative and probably the
only viable source of social capital for students with disadvantaged family background.