Residential Segregation and Interracial Friendship in Schools

Abstract

This paper uses social network and spatial data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine the effect of racial residential segregation on school friendship segregation in the U.S. The use of hierarchical models allows us to simultaneously estimate the effect of race, within-school spatial segregation, and school diversity on friendship choice using the Add Health data. We use these results to predict the decline in friendship segregation that would occur if across-and within-school residential segregation were eliminated in U.S. metropolitan areas. The results suggest that about a third of the level of racial friendship segregation in schools is attributable to residential segregation. Most of this effect is due to geographic segregation across schools rather than residential segregation within schools.

Cross-ethnic friendships: Are they really rare? Evidence from secondary schools around London

“…A great deal of previous empirical work found a direct positive link between the number of potential cross-ethnic friends in schools or classrooms and the frequency of cross-ethnic friendships (Damico & Sparks, 1986;Hallinan & Teixeira, 1987, Howes & Wu, 1990Quillian & Campbell, 2003). Yet, opportunities for cross-ethnic friendships alone may not be sufficient for the actual development of crossethnic friendships (Mouw & Entwisle, 2006;Sigelman, Bledsoe, Welch, & Combs, 1996). It has been suggested that homophily, the tendency to choose friends with similar characteristics, also affects friendship formation.…”

A New Twist on an Old Approach: A Random-Interaction Approach for Estimating Rates of Inter-Group Interaction

“…Though groups are able to form along many different dimensions of social life, race and ethnicity represent two of the more salient dimensions for fostering group identity. Patterns of friendship networks among adolescents (Hallinan and Williams 1989;Moody 2001;Moody and White 2003;Mouw and Entwisle 2006;Quillian and Campbell 2003), the formation of work teams within organizations (Hinds et al 2000;Ruef et al 2003), and inter-group marriage (Alba and Golden 1986;Gray 1987;Jones 1991;South and Messner 1986) have all been examined with a focus on the rate of intra-and inter-racial interactions. With violence being a ubiquitous feature of urban centers, and given the significant change in the demographic composition of cities over the last half century, it is not surprising that rates and patterns of intra-and inter-personal violence have also garnered much attention.…”

Preference effects on friendship choice: Evidence from an online field experiment

“…This example illustrates the importance of "structural constraint" in friendship choice, which has long been recognized in sociology. Social structures, such as schools, neighborhoods, organizations, or metropolitan areas (Feld, 1981;Kornrich, 2009;Kossinets and Watts, 2009;McPherson and Smith-Lovin, 1987;Mouw and Entwisle, 2006;Tilly, 1999;Wimmer and Lewis, 2010) "govern social relations among their incumbents" (Blau, 1974: 616). Because such social structures create social boundaries between individuals and segregate them into limited social circles, within which social interactions such as friendship take place, social structures are said to impose opportunity constraints on social interactions, i.e., limit possibilities for social interactions within shared social circles.…”

“…Because of this potential confounding, past research has been careful in controlling for structural constraints in studying friendship choice. For instance, researchers have adapted dyad analysis to eliminate the confounding effect of group size (Hallinan and Teixeira, 1987;Moody, 2001;Quillian and Campbell, 2003;Mouw and Entwisle, 2006); controlled individual-level structural variations, such as shared school activities (Moody, 2001) and school segregation (Mouw and Entwisle, 2006); and used exponential random graph models to take balancing reciprocity into consideration (Goodreau, 2007, Goodreau et al, 2009, Wimmer and Lewis, 2010. Furthermore, separating out the effects of structural constraints has been discussed extensively as a methodological challenge (Cheng and Xie, 2012;Currarini et al, 2010;Feld, 1981;McPherson and Smith-Lovin, 1987;Hallinan and Williams, 1989;McPherson et al, 2001;Moody, 2001;Mayer and Puller, 2008;Quillan and Campbell, 2003;Mouw and Entwisle, 2006;Wimmer and Lewis, 2010;Zeng and Xie, 2008).…”

“…As we discussed above, individuals in actual social settings are segregated into limited social circles by social structures, such as schools, neighborhoods, organizations, metropolitan areas (Feld, 1981;Kornrich, 2009;Kossinets and Watts, 2009;McPherson and Smith-Lovin, 1987;Mouw and Entwisle, 2006;Tilly, 1998;Wimmer and Lewis, 2010), in which their exposure to potential friends is constrained. Hence, observed friendship choices are subjected to the confounding of personal preferences and constrained exposure.…”