Comparing Community Structure to Characteristics in Online Collegiate Social Networks

We study the structure of social networks of students by examining the graphs of Facebook "friendships" at five American universities at a single point in time. We investigate each single-institution network's community structure and employ graphical and quantitative tools, including standardized pair-counting methods, to measure the correlations between the network communities and a set of self-identified user characteristics (residence, class year, major, and high school). We review the basic properties and statistics of the pair-counting indices employed and recall, in simplified notation, a useful analytical formula for the z-score of the Rand coefficient. Our study illustrates how to examine different instances of social networks constructed in similar environments, emphasizes the array of social forces that combine to form "communities," and leads to comparative observations about online social lives that can be used to infer comparisons about offline social structures. In our illustration of this methodology, we calculate the relative contributions of different characteristics to the community structure of individual universities and subsequently compare these relative contributions at different universities, measuring for example the importance of common high school affiliation to large state universities and the varying degrees of influence common major can have on the social structure at different universities. The heterogeneity of communities that we observe indicates that these networks typically have multiple organizing factors rather than a single dominant one.Comment: Version 3 (17 pages, 5 multi-part figures), accepted in SIAM Revie

Centrality in children's best friend networks: the role of social behaviour

Centrality is an indicator of an individual's relative importance within a social group. Predictors of centrality in best friendship networks were examined in 146 children (70 boys, 76 girls, Mage= 9.95). Children completed measures of social confidence, social desirability, friendship quality, school liking, and loneliness, and nominated their best friends from within their class at two time points, 3 months apart. Multigroup path analysis revealed gender differences in the antecedents of centrality. Social confidence, social desirability, and friendship quality predicted changes in the indicators of centrality in best friend networks over time. In boys’ social behaviour positively predicted changes in centrality whereas in girls’ social behaviour negatively predicted changes in centrality. Together, these findings suggest that some aspects of social behaviour are influential for centrality in best friend groups

Density or Distinction? The Roles of Data Structure and Group Detection Methods in Describing Adolescent Peer Groups

Despite cross-disciplinary interest in social influence among adolescent peer groups, significant variations in collecting and analyzing peer network data have not been explored, so it is difficult to disentangle substantive and methodological differences in peer influence studies. We analyze two types of network data (self-reported friendships and multi-informant reports of children who “hang around together a lot”) with three methods of identifying group structures (two graph theoretic approaches and principal components analysis) to explore substantive differences in results. We then link these differences back to underlying features of the networks, allowing greater insight into the general problem of identifying groups in network data. We find that different analytic approaches applied to the same network data produced moderately concordant group solutions, with higher concordances for multi-informant data. The same analytic approaches applied to different relational data (on the same nodes) produced weaker concordance, suggesting that the underlying data structure may be more salient than analytic approach in accounting for different results across studies. Behavioral similarity among group members was greatest for approaches that rest directly on density of direct ties

Topics in social network analysis and network science

This chapter introduces statistical methods used in the analysis of social networks and in the rapidly evolving parallel-field of network science. Although several instances of social network analysis in health services research have appeared recently, the majority involve only the most basic methods and thus scratch the surface of what might be accomplished. Cutting-edge methods using relevant examples and illustrations in health services research are provided

Delinquency and the Structure of Adolescent Peer Groups

Gangs and group-level processes were once central phenomena for criminological theory and research. By the mid-1970s, however, gang research primarily was displaced by studies of individual behavior using randomized self-report surveys, a shift that also removed groups from the theoretical foreground. In this project, we return to the group level to test competing theoretical claims about delinquent group structure. We use network-based clustering methods to identify 897 friendship groups in two ninth-grade cohorts of 27 Pennsylvania and Iowa schools. We then relate group-level measures of delinquency and drinking to network measures of group size, friendship reciprocity, transitivity, structural cohesion, stability, average popularity, and network centrality. We find significant negative correlations between group delinquency and all of our network measures, suggesting that delinquent groups are less solidary and less central to school networks than nondelinquent groups. Additional analyses, on the one hand, reveal that these correlations are explained primarily by other group characteristics, such as gender composition and socioeconomic status. Drinking behaviors, on the other hand, show net positive associations with most of the network measures, suggesting that drinking groups have a higher status and are more internally cohesive than nondrinking groups. Our findings shed light on a long-standing criminological debate by suggesting that any structural differences between delinquent and nondelinquent groups are likely attributable to other characteristics coincidental with delinquency. In contrast, drinking groups seem to provide peer contexts of greater social capital and cohesion

A Business School Living Learning Community: A Complexity Theory Study of Collaborative Engagement Using Network Analysis

As funding for institutions of higher education becomes tighter, state and federal entities have turned to student retention and graduation rates as measures of success to determine levels of financial support. A concept, supported by student development theories, used to increase retention and graduation rates is creating living learning communities (LLCs). Researchers previously concluded that student participation in an LLC positively affects student academic performance, engagement, and retention. The purpose of this study was to investigate how networks developed in a living learning community and what, if any, network variables contributed to academic performance. Specifically, dynamic network analysis using ORA software provided network statistics to determine how network density, component statistics, and cliques developed over the course of the semester. Additionally, ORA software determined social, advice, and study network Newman groupings to study how clusters of students developed during the semester. Finally, a regression analysis using JMP software and ORA derived network measures was accomplished to determine what network variables contributed to positive academic performance. Results found students who are well connected are likely to have better GPAs and consequently higher retention rates than students who are not well connected in the network. It was also interesting to note that residence hall living configurations restricted networking among LLC participants. Specifically, networking did not seem to take place between resident hall occupants who lived on different floors in the residence hall. Practitioners should schedule and promote and students should participate in activities that further network development

“Like with like” or “do like?” Modeling peer effects in the classroom

Objective: The authors discuss the role of peer networks in shaping the decision to enroll at university. Using panel data from Italy, they apply innovative statistical methods to study a sample of students as they complete high school and decide whether or not to attend university. Methods: The authors use simultaneous autoregressive (SAR) models to analyze a four-wave panel database of Italian students. They explore the role of endogenous, exogenous, and correlated peer effects in relation to the decision about whether or not to enroll at university. Results: The findings suggest that endogenous peer effects exert a significant influence on the probability of enrolling after controlling for homophilous preferences and a range of variables. Exogenous peer effects do not appear to influence this outcome. Sensitivity tests suggest that the results of the estimation are robust to selection. Conclusions: This article contributes to an emerging body of literature on the use of SAR models to study peer effects, illustrating its considerable potential in the study of educational outcomes

Relational Integration as The Analysis of Friendship, Negative Ties and Ethnic Identity Among Adolescents = Kapcsolati integráció. Serdülőkori barátság, negatív kötelékek és rassz szerinti identitás elemzése

Theoretical contributions: - It establishes a relational framework in which the notion of dependence is introduced making it possible to connect the different levels of social scientific inquiry. - It introduces social identity theory within the relational framework in order to examine racial identity formation more precisely. - It describes and operationalise a dual identity concept, as it takes not only selfidentification but also perceived identity into account. - It provides arguments of the socially constructed and context-dependent nature of race from a relational viewpoint. - Finally, it provides further arguments that individuals’ racial membership is not fixed, but instead, it can be different across social contexts and change over time. Empirical contributions: - It provides evidence that adolescents, in general, are constantly looking for possible friends, among which only a few become stable ones. - It finds that racial heterogeneity of the friendship dyad reduces the stability of the friendship, but social status can mitigate the effect of race on friendship retention. That is: individuals with low SES are more likely to terminate friendship relations. - It reveals relational segregation operates through negative ties more strongly than through friendship. - Further results show that different aspects of race influence friendships and negative ties differently, and inconsistencies in someone's racial categorization play a crucial role in social rejection. - It finds, moreover, that that in inter-racial relationship formation, perceptions have even more important role than self-identifications which highlights the importance of studying racial identity in a relational framework. - The big picture suggests that instead of integration, the examined groups follow a path towards a state where majority students exclude minority students, who, at the same time, also develop a rejection towards their own group