Is Social Capital and Network Theory Deficit in Nature?

So I had one of my dissertation committee members read over my proposed research summary. He said he was going to play devils advocate and suggested that my topic had a tone of "deficit thinking". I told him I am not assuming that just getting a poor kid sitting next to a middle-high income kid in the classroom is going to make things all better. I don't want to make the assumption that poor kids don't have assets, resources and capital to bring to the table, because I have noticed that many poor students have resiliency skills they acquired from life experiences that other kids just don't have. But I do think there is certain capital that has power and certain capital that does not contain the same level of power. I realized that social capital and network theory alone is not going to do justice to my topic. There are issues of race, class, and unequal distribution of power (hence critical race theory) that generate the structures that these networks are working within. I will be blunt; what happened at Johnston and what is happening at Reagan is racist and classist. The simple fact a school that has a high concentration of students in poverty and a high percentage of minority students does not have the basic college preparatory courses that other schools have is WRONG! The unequal access to resources among different high school context is an issue of race and class. A classmate of mine made me realize we are so focused on inequities of the children, that the children have deficits, when in fact it is the school context and structure that has the deficits. So how do students acquire resources/capital and build networks that lead to opportunities within a structure that is racist, classist and has apparent structural deficits?

Question about case studies

A few books and articles I have been reading give specific case studies or examples of social capital and networks. I am still making attempts to hypothesize how the theory applies to my topic in the theoretical section of my proposal, but are you recommending that I also use some of the case studies and examples the author's use to help the readers understand how the theory is applied?

I found a good book w/ several case studies that critiques Putnam's theories of social capital in his Bowling Alone book:
Arneil, B. (2006). Diverse Communities, The Problem with Social Capital. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.

I checked it out from the library, so please don't recall my copy. But it may reflect some of the criticism's Dr. Rhodes had of Putnam's work.

According to Arneil Putnam is part of an American school of civic thought that sees civic society as a critical component of a robust American democracy. Putnam and Coleman view that civic life in U.S. has declined or collapsed. Arneil criticizes that Putnam and Coleman look at the amount of connectedness in American society, but pay little attention to the nature of the connections. Arneil views how communities are formed and the kinds of connections they form are critical to the meaning of community. Arneil proposes that the nature of the connections in any community is what determines its capacity for social justice.

Also Arneil criticizes that Putnam and Coleman see capital as an asset, unproblematic, as positive, and only sees the outcomes of capital. Community is seen as an entity that allows individuals to more effectively achieve shared objectivness. According to Arneil the problem is that groups who historically have been oppressed (women and minorities) work towards building social capital but see others benefit from the rewards.