The purpose of this study is to discuss the possibilities and limitations of the social capital approach for preventing and solving the dropping out from secondary school by the means of the social resources embedded in the networks among family, school, and community. The conclusion of this study is that community-based and teacher-based forms of social capital could reduce the probability of dropping out. For at-risk students who has structural and functional deficiency of family, various forms of social capital are available, which are based on the social networks of the community such as youth-aid-organizations. In addition, the participation of parents or guardians in the schools should be encouraged, which could result in strengthening the social bond between parents and teachers. The school should actively seek to facilitate the trust and cooperation between at-risk students and the other students by fostering grouping activities such as extracurricular activities and cooperative learning. Furthermore, teachers's support and caring, which important source of social capital for at-risk students should be provided through the network between teachers and students. But this study shows that the approach of social capital has limitations in that networks has closure and inequality between groups such as students and parents according to their social class and geographical location. In addition, in the Korean context, it has failed to raise the problem of the internal process of schooling such as cramming education, uniform curriculum and evaluation, repressive school discipline, practices of punishment and surveillance.