Social interaction distance and stratification

There have been calls from several sources recently for a renewal of class analysis that would encompass social and cultural, as well as economic elements. This paper explores a tradition in stratification that is founded on this idea: relational or social distance approaches to mapping hierarchy and inequality which theorize stratification as a social space. The idea of 'social space' is not treated as a metaphor of hierarchy nor is the nature of the structure determined a priori. Rather, the space is identified by mapping social interactions. Exploring the nature of social space involves mapping the network of social interaction--patterns of friendship, partnership and cultural similarity--which gives rise to relations of social closeness and distance. Differential association has long been seen as the basis of hierarchy, but the usual approach is first to define a structure composed of a set of groups and then to investigate social interaction between them. Social distance approaches reverse this, using patterns of interaction to determine the nature of the structure. Differential association can be seen as a way of defining proximity within a social space, from the distances between social groups, or between social groups and social objects (such as lifestyle items). The paper demonstrates how the very different starting point of social distance approaches also leads to strikingly different theoretical conclusions about the nature of stratification and inequality.     

The Combined Effect of Women's Neighborhood Resources and Collective Efficacy on IPV

This study integrates gender stratification and social disorganization theories to examine neighborhood effects on intimate partner violence (IPV). Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, multilevel models assessed the influences of women's neighborhood‐level socioeconomic resources relative to men's and collective efficacy on a woman's risk of IPV victimization by her spouse or cohabiting partner. The findings indicate that women's relative neighborhood resources protect against IPV victimization only in neighborhoods with sufficiently high collective efficacy. Likewise, the results show that collective efficacy protects against IPV victimization only when women have at least a modicum of control over neighborhood resources compared to men. The findings emphasize the importance of considering group resources along with neighborhood social organization to better understand IPV. More broadly, this study demonstrates how a group's position in a neighborhood social hierarchy helps determine the extent to which its members benefit from neighborhood social control.     

Friendship Talk as Identity Work: Defining the Self Through Friend Relationships

This paper places friendships at the center of individuals' identity work, examining how individuals construct self‐identities through their talk about friend relationships and networks. We conceptualize this “friendship talk” as a subcategory of identity talk. From interviews with emerging adults, we find three strategies of friendship talk: envisioning self through others, betterment distancing, and situating with networks. These strategies demonstrate unique ways identity construction occurs through talk about friends. Individuals verbally connect with and separate from friends while constructing desired selves and moral identities. We suggest that friendship talk strategies may be generic social processes that apply beyond emerging adulthood.     

REPRODUCING NATION,REDESIGNING POSITIONING: RUSSIAN AND pALESTINIAN STUDENTS INTERPRET UNIVERSITY KNOWLEDGE

This paper discusses the reproduction of hegemony and social hierarchy through education. It brings together two case studies of marginal groups at a university—Russian Jewish immigrants and Palestinian Israeli women—who make sense of their position in social hierarchies and power relations through constant interpretative work on the various dimensions of university knowledge. The article reveals how marginal actors’ interpretations of knowledge simultaneously are guided by students’ positioning vis-à-vis the dominant collective and also articulate and redesign positioning. The two groups redesign their marginalities vis-à-vis the Israeli-Jewish collective by transforming knowledge to identity. In so doing, these groups reproduce national borders of Israeli social hierarchy, while working to change the meaning of these borders for their group's positioning.     

Relationship patterns in the 19th century: The friendship network in a German boys’ school class from 1880 to 1881 revisited

The article presents a friendship network from 1880 to 1881 in a school class, which goes back to the exceptional mixed-methods study of the German primary school teacher Johannes Delitsch. The re-analysis of the historic network gives insights into what characteristics defined the friendship networks in school classes in Germany at the end of the 19th century. ERGMs of the so far unmarked data show structural patterns of friendship networks similar to today (reciprocity, transitive triadic closure). Moreover we test the influence of the class ranking order (Lokationsprinzip), which allocates the pupils in the class room according to their school performance. This ranking order produces a hierarchy in the popularity of pupils, through hierarchy–congruent friendship ties going upwards in the hierarchy. In this respect, concerning the effect of school achievement on popularity, we find a strong stratification, which is not always prevalent today.     

Modernization and the Status of the Aged in China: Decline or Equalization?*

Most models of modernization propose that the status of the aged declines with technological and economic development. These models usually conceptualize the lowered status of the aged as a residual or latent consequence of modernization. Rarely do they address age stratification as a political issue, and they fail to differentiate between subgroups of the aged. We compare accounts of the cultural and structural context of the aged before and after China's socialist revolution, giving particular attention to the role of the family, the state, and technological factors in social change. Technological development and urbanization have not been extensive, and a decline in the traditional authority of the aged has paralleled educational advances and a demographic transition. Government family policies and China's labor-intensive economy facilitate the interdependence of age groups and sex roles. These observations suggest current models of the status of the aged should be revised to incorporate conceptualizations of age and sexual stratification and the role of governmental policies in directing social change.     

Powerblindness

In the land of the blind, the one‐eyed man may be king. But positions of power may produce their own forms of blindness. This paper reviews multiple theoretical approaches to the concept of powerblindness and categorizes these literatures into five forms through which powerblindness operates: powerblind identity (failure to notice that one belongs to a privileged group), powerblind egalitarianism (belief that all groups are equal in power), powerblind hierarchy (emphasis on one's own subordinate position), powerblind exception (the claim that one is less privileged than others in one's group), and powerblind justification (belief that present‐day hierarchy is merited or inevitable). The paper identifies studies offering evidence for each, drawing on social‐psychological experiments, survey data, and qualitative research, suggesting that power and knowledge do not necessarily go hand in hand – some forms of knowledge about the social order may be more visible to people with less power than to people with more.     

The Effects of Ethnic Minority Adolescents' Ethnic Self‐Identification on Friendship Selection

This study investigated the effects of ethnic minority adolescents' ethnic self‐identification (host country, dual, or heritage country) on friendship choices among ethnic majority and minority peers. Hypotheses were derived from similarity–attraction and social identity theory and tested using longitudinal social network data from 1,004 middle school students (five schools) in Germany. Results showed that ethnic minority adolescents' ethnic self‐identification affected friendship selection beyond ethnic homophily. While host country and dual identification was beneficial with respect to friendships with both ethnic majority and minority peers, heritage country identification was detrimental to relations with both of them.     

Sport and Social Inequalities

This article reviews recent research on the relationship between sport and social inequalities, focusing on gender, race, nation and social mobility. Through an engagement with these areas of research, we highlight how sport reflects and reinforces broader hierarchical structures; how it serves as a site for both inclusion and exclusion, but in ways that work unevenly; and how sport is ultimately a site for social reproduction of hierarchy and social stratification. We argue that the gender, racial and national hierarchies that sport is embedded within interact to largely prevent sport from being a site for social mobility, despite popular myths to the contrary.     

Adolescent Internalizing Symptoms and the “Tightknittedness” of Friendship Groups

Adolescents with depression have lower peer status overall, but tend to befriend each other. We examined the “tightknittedness” of their friendship groups by testing whether adolescent friendship groups’ average levels of or variability in internalizing symptoms predict group cohesiveness. We used four waves (9th–12th grades) of survey and social network data on 3,013 friendship groups from the PROmoting School‐Community‐University Partnerships to Enhance Resilience study. Friendship groups with higher average depressive symptoms were less cohesive; groups with higher average anxiety symptoms had greater reciprocity. Groups with greater variability in depressive symptoms had greater density; variability in anxiety symptoms was not consistently associated with cohesion. The friendship groups of depressed adolescents appear less cohesive than the “typical” adolescent friendship group.     

Reciprocity,transitivity, and the mysterious three-cycle

Reciprocity and transitivity are the two most important structural mechanisms underlying friendship network evolution. While on their own they are understood in great detail, the relation between them is rarely studied systematically. Are friendships outside of social groups more or less likely to be reciprocated than friendships embedded in a group? Using a theoretical framework that focusses on the situations in which friends interact and the social structures that stabilise one-sided friendships, I propose that the tendency towards reciprocation of friendships within transitive groups is usually lower than outside of transitive groups. In a meta-analysis of two datasets including 29 friendship networks using stochastic actor-oriented models (SAOMs), the interaction between reciprocity and transitivity is analysed. Supporting the theoretical reasoning, the interaction is consistently negative. Second, the tendency against forming three-cycles in friendship networks, which was consistently found in previous studies, is shown to be spurious and a result of neglecting to control for the tendency against reciprocation in transitive groups. The tendency against three-cycles is commonly seen as an indicator that unreciprocated friendships indicate local hierarchy differences between individuals; this proposition has to be re-evaluated in light of the findings of this study. Future studies that analyse the evolution of friendship networks should consider modelling reciprocation in transitive triplets and potentially omit modelling three-cycles.     

The Influences Affecting and the Influential Effects of Multiracials: Multiracialism and Stratification

Early research on multiracials documents the existence of a newly emergent population, those who identify with more than one race or what is commonly now known as multiracials. Contemporary research on multiracialism has a new focus on the stratification that multiracials experience and how multiracials may be influencing a new racial hierarchy. This paper discusses some of the primary issues of multiracialism and stratification including colorism, the racial hierarchy, social class, gender and sexual orientation, and multiracial as a celebrity‐like status. As the multiracial population grows, so must the field of multiracialism grows to include critical issues and questions regarding stratification.     

The structure of educational research: The role of multivocality in promoting cohesion in an article interlock network

Researchers interested in the social and intellectual features of scholarly knowledge have emphasized the importance of small-scale, informally organized groups of people interested in the same or closely related research problems. The structure of these social networks, in large part, influences the way which research problems are identified, studied and transformed into policy. Building on popular concerns about the state of the educational research field, this study examines what its structure implies about the field's ability to integrate ideas and practices. Using data about which articles readers access from the online database of the Teachers College Record, one of the field's more popular journals, it is shown that the article interlock network exhibits a structure that fits parameters of both small-world and structurally cohesive models. Furthermore, this study unpacks the network's community structure to show that those articles that serve as the core through which much of the network is connected possess a multivocal identity; an ambiguous identity that appeals to multiple audiences simultaneously. Results are suggestive of mechanisms that could be used to promote greater cohesion across the network's distinct communities.     

Parental leave benefit in Austria. Stratified take-up in a conservative country

Since 2000, parental leave benefit legislation has shifted from an employment-related benefit to a nearly universal and then to a mixed system of five different benefit rates of income-related and flat-rate models with four different maximum lengths, and with a longer spell if two partners share childcare leave in Austria. The diversification leads to the questions: what determines parents' choice of a certain model, and what are the implications of such a diverse system for social and gender equality? The parents' choice depends on income, employment status, region, and relationship status and thus is restrained. The models further social and gendered stratification, as they still serve a conservative male breadwinner family as well as a modernised dual breadwinner one and, to a lesser degree, an adult worker. In contrast, low-income (single) parents receive more individualised treatment and have to engage in employment sooner than other groups.     

What cultural hierarchy? Cultural tastes,status and inequality

Research on cultural stratification often draws on Bourdieu's misrecognition model to interpret socioeconomic gradients in cultural tastes and participation. In this model, an assumed cultural hierarchy leads individuals to adopt cultural tastes and behaviours whose status is congruent with that of their socioeconomic position (SEP). Yet, this assumed cultural hierarchy remains opaque. In this paper, we derive and test three empirical implications of the cultural hierarchy: (1) cultural activities have different status (recognition); (2) individuals in high and low SEPs have similar perceptions of the status of cultural activities (necessary condition for misrecognition); and (3) individuals prefer and engage in cultural activities whose status matches that of their SEP (status congruence). We collected survey data in Denmark and find that cultural activities differ in terms of perceived status (e.g., opera has higher perceived status than flea market), status perceptions are similar in high- and low-SEP groups and individuals prefer activities whose status matches that of their SEP. These results are consistent with the idea that a cultural hierarchy exists that sustains SEP gradients in cultural tastes and participation.     

Limited opportunities: Adolescents’ access to social capital in secondary schools in three European countries

While previous research indicates that students benefit from their peers’ resources, little is known about access to social capital in the school context. Therefore, this study examines differential access to social capital – measured by friends’ socioeconomic status (SES), the number of books they have at home, and their reading habits – in secondary schools in Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Relying on a large-scale dataset, I investigate the association between socioeconomic status, minority status, and social capital using complete friendship network information. I argue that social capital access is connected to a two-stage process consisting of school sorting and friendship selection. To differentiate between these two processes, I apply within-between random effects (REWB). The models show that friendship selection is much less relevant for access to social capital than school sorting. Results indicate that while high-SES students have better access to social capital across dimensions, access patterns for minority students are more nuanced.     

The Uses of the Past and European Integration: Austria between Lisbon,Ireland, and EURO 08

This article examines Austrian national identity negotiations through a qualitative analysis of the country's ideologically heterogeneous media, with a focus on Austria's most widely read paper (and its popular readers’ letters pages) between April and August 2008. This turbulent period coincided with widening opposition to the EU's Lisbon reform treaty, Austria's co-hosting of the European football championship, and the collapse of the country's coalition government. This analysis of media coverage and readers’ letters focuses on the rhetorical strategies underpinning various discursive constructions of Austria's place within the EU. The following key findings are discussed: projections of perceived social ills and resulting anxieties onto the EU; the interpretative uses of the past—historical episodes selected from Austrian and other national contexts—to make sense of and politicize the present; constructions of ‘European ideals’ in juxtaposition to perceived ‘European realities’; and competing models of national identity in relation to the European ‘network state.’     

Disclosure of Transgender Identity and Status in the Context of Friendship

This study focuses on understanding disclosure of transgender identity within the context of friendship. Participants were 536 individuals who self-identified as transgender or gender variant. Participants completed an online questionnaire regarding friendship experiences. Thematic analysis focused on understanding experiences of identity disclosure to friends. Participants reported positive and negative experiences associated with the identity disclosure process, with responses falling into five distinct categories: positive or affirming responses, negative responses, a variation of responses, an impact on the friendship status, and emotional responses from friends. Within these five theme categories, distinct subcategories were apparent including responses that reflected support, physical violence, gaining or losing friends, and friends being unsurprised or not caring about the disclosure. These findings point to the ways in which the friendship experiences for transgender individuals are complex and unique. Clinical implications for understanding the needs of clients regarding disclosure of transgender identity and status to friends are discussed.     

The Integration of Racial and Ethnic Minorities into White Congregations

Drawing from the homophily principle and organizational ecology theory, I follow previous literature and predict racial minorities will have lower levels of belonging and commitment when attending predominantly white congregations. Going beyond this literature, I incorporate contemporary racial stratification literature and propose integration into white congregations would vary by racial group as a result of the differing symbolic group positioning of minorities in America's racial hierarchy. Results from multilevel models using a national dataset generally support my hypotheses. The findings from this study reveal distinctions between minority racial groups within predominantly white congregations. Thus, the homophily principle and organizational ecology are not sufficient when studying race within congregations, as it is not enough to rely solely on the numeric representation of racial groups in congregations without taking into account the social positioning of these groups. These results, their implications, and potential directions for future studies are further discussed.