Preference or opportunity? Why do we find more friendship segregation in more heterogeneous schools?

Details Preference or opportunity? Why do we find more friendship segregation in more heterogeneous schools? Preference or opportunity? Why do we find more friendship segregation in more heterogeneous schools?

2009-01-19

arxiv.org/abs/0901.2825v1

Physics

Physics and Society

20 pages, 3 figures. Paper presented at 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA). Boston, August 4,

Scientific paper

Research on friendship networks in schools suggests that heterogeneity increases homophily preferences. We argue that this may be a misleading interpretation of the coefficients of the exponential random graph models (p*) that are used to model the network data. If students wish to avoid having no friends at all, then minority students may appear to be willing to integrate more with the majority in a more homogeneous school, even if the preference for having same ethnicity friends has the same strength in all schools. We use a random utility model of network formation to study in computational experiments the effects of the preferences that drive network choices. We generate simulated networks for different school compositions but with the same parameter for a preference for homophily. We estimate with a p* model on these simulated data the coefficients for the effect of same ethnicity on (simulated) friendship choice. The tests confirm that p* coefficients for the effect of same ethnicity are much larger in populations with a large minority, although actual homophily preferences are the same across all simulated school compositions.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Preference or opportunity? Why do we find more friendship segregation in more heterogeneous schools? does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Preference or opportunity? Why do we find more friendship segregation in more heterogeneous schools?, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Preference or opportunity? Why do we find more friendship segregation in more heterogeneous schools? will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-566626