Becoming a Nazi: A Model for Narrative Networks

This article illustrates a strategy for representing and analyzing narratives as networks. The strategy that we use considers narrative sequences as networks. Elements are treated as nodes which are connected by narrative clauses, represented by arcs. By representing complex event sequences as networks, inducing 'narrative networks', it is possible to observe and measure new structural features of narratives. The narratives we focus on are autobiographical accounts of becoming, and being, a Nazi. The substantive idea that we develop in this article is that the observable narrative structure of life stories can provide insight into the process of identity formation. We illustrate our approach to narrative networks by analyzing a single story that, in conjunction with the analysis of other stories, yields a set of insights into becoming and being

Ascription into Achievement: Models of Career Systems at Lloyds Bank, 1890-1970

Optimal matching algorithms are used to model the transformation of career systems in a large British bank (Lloyds) from 1890 to 1970. The authors first model the breakdown of the traditional ascriptive, status-based system, and then identify a more dynamic, achievement-based system as its replacement. By relating the structure of careers to organizational growth and social change, the authors explore how the modern achievement career came about. More broadly, they argue that optimal matching enables one to see clearly the multiple time frames that are necessarily intercalated into career systems and hence provides new insights into the discontinuous and contingent nature of organizational change

Chains of Affection: The Structure of Adolescent Romantic and Sexual Networks

This article describes the structure of the adolescent romantic and sexual network in a population of over 800 adolescents residing in a midsized town in the midwestern United States. Precise images and measures of network structure are derived from reports of relationships that occurred over a period of 18 months between 1993 and 1995. The study offers a comparison of the structural characteristics of the observed network to simulated networks conditioned on the distribution of ties; the observed structure reveals networks characterized by longer contact chains and fewer cycles than expected. This article identifies the micromechanisms that generate networks with structural features similar to the observed network. Implications for disease transmission dynamics and social policy are explored

Hearing about a Job: A Model of Differential Information Flow and Job Matching

Washington, funded by the University Initiatives Fund. We gratefully acknowledge useful comments and suggestions from members of the CSSS Seminar, and programming assistance from Peter Hoff. Which people end up in which jobs is not merely a matter of the individual and human capital characteristics of workers and the requirements and rewards of jobs, but is also a function of the process by which persons and jobs are matched with one another (Granovetter 1981; Sørensen and Kalleberg 1981). A poorly understood component of the matching process is how workers and employers find information about each other. We propose a framework for analyzing the dynamics of labor market behavior that emphasizes both the two-sided nature of the matching problem and the potential effects of different information structures. The basic framework for describing labor markets is flexible, and can be used to represent common types of labor markets including spot markets for labor and systems characterized by competition over vacancies. Through simulation, we use this framework to explicitly vary the structure of information flow between workers and employers, thereby allowing us to explore how different recruitment strategies influence labor market performance in different institutional environments. Preliminary results suggest that full information is the most efficient and egalitarian information regime. However, in key respects, information that flows through socially structured networks produces macro-level and individual-level outcomes quite similar to those observed in the full information regime, although with lower mobility rates. In contrast, unstructured limited information produces more egalitarian outcomes than either full information or social networks, by giving workers equally bad opportunities

Class Formation and Localism in an Emerging Bureaucracy: British Bank Workers, 1880-1960

This article uses a case study of the spatial and career mobility of bank workers from Lloyds, a leading British bank, to explore the relationship between class formation and spatial mobility. The article argues against the idea that the large-scale concentration and bureaucratization of the British banking industry in the early years of the twentieth century saw the emergence of a mobile middle-class spiralist or cosmopolitan. We use archival data from Lloyds Bank to argue that the emergence of Lloyds as a large-scale national bank involved a compromise with localized interests rather than a detachment of the bank from local concerns. We use data on the career histories of a representative sample of male bank employees to argue that spatial mobility was organized largely within regions and helped to consolidate the prospects of rural bank workers. We argue that London emerged as a distinctive 'hub' for banking careers, with significant amounts of movement to and from London from all regions. We therefore demonstrate how localized and rural cultures were sedimented within a large, national bureaucracy, and that a genuine 'spiralist' structure did not emerge. Copyright Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2001.

Association Between Condom Use at Sexual Debut and Subsequent Sexual Trajectories: A Longitudinal Study Using Biomarkers

Objectives. We compared subsequent sexual behaviors and risk of sexually transmitted infections among adolescents who did and did not use a condom at their sexual debut

Chains of affection: The structure of adolescent romantic and sexual networks

This article describes the structure of the adolescent romantic and sexual network in a population of over 800 adolescents residing in a midsized town in the midwestern United States. Precise images and measures of network structure are derived from reports of relationships that occurred over a period of 18 months between 1993 and 1995. The study offers a comparison of the structural characteristics of the observed network to simulated networks conditioned on the distribution of ties; the observed structure reveals networks characterized by longer contact chains and fewer cycles than expected. This article identifies the micromechanisms that generate networks with structural features similar to the observed network. Implications for disease transmission dynamics and social policy are explored

Likelihoods for fixed rank nomination networks

Many studies that gather social network data use survey methods that lead to censored, missing or otherwise incomplete information. For example, the popular fixed rank nomination (FRN) scheme, often used in studies of schools and businesses, asks study participants to nominate and rank at most a small number of contacts or friends, leaving the existence other relations uncertain. However, most statistical models are formulated in terms of completely observed binary networks. Statistical analyses of FRN data with such models ignore the censored and ranked nature of the data and could potentially result in misleading statistical inference. To investigate this possibility, we compare parameter estimates obtained from a likelihood for complete binary networks to those from a likelihood that is derived from the FRN scheme, and therefore recognizes the ranked and censored nature of the data. We show analytically and via simulation that the binary likelihood can provide misleading inference, at least for certain model parameters that relate network ties to characteristics of individuals and pairs of individuals. We also compare these different likelihoods in a data analysis of several adolescent social networks. For some of these networks, the parameter estimates from the binary and FRN likelihoods lead to different conclusions, indicating the importance of analyzing FRN data with a method that accounts for the FRN survey design