The contribution of school and neighborhood context to stability of adolescent friendship networks

Citation

Ford, Jodi L. & Browning, Christopher R. (2010). The contribution of school and neighborhood context to stability of adolescent friendship networks. International Network for Social Network Analysis. Riva del Garda, Italy.

Abstract

Adolescent friendships are vital to our social development, but little is known about the role of contextual disadvantage in shaping friendship networks over time. This study addresses these gaps and examines the extent to which school social disorganization, school network structure and school social processes contribute to changes in structure and closeness of adolescent friendship networks. We use secondary data from Add Health, Wave I-Wave II linked with the 1994-1995 Adolescent Health and Academic Achievement Study (AHAA). The sample includes public high school students in 9th-11th grade at Wave I. Data sources include school district administrative data and school administrator and student surveys. School social disorganization measures parallel those in the literature on neighborhood social disorganization and include concentrated poverty, racial/ethnic heterogeneity and teacher/student mobility. Measures of school network structure include relative density, mutuality and proportion of out-of-school friendship nominations. School social processes include aggregate mean measures of school attachment/closeness and school safety. Lastly, measures of our dependent variables, (1) change in adolescent friendship structure include level of change in ego send and receive network size, density and best friends and (2) change in adolescent friendship closeness include level of change in network time spent together between Waves I and II. Analyses include development of network measures and multilevel modeling to examine the effects of school context on friendship network change. Our presentation includes discussion of findings and the importance of considering context in studies of network stability.

Reference Type

Conference proceeding

Book Title

International Network for Social Network Analysis

Author(s)

Ford, Jodi L.
Browning, Christopher R.

Year Published

2010

City of Publication

Riva del Garda, Italy

Reference ID

7479