School friendship networks, homophily and multiculturalism: evidence from European countries

Abstract

This paper investigates the determinants of school friendship networks among adolescents, proposing a model of network formation and estimating it using a sample of about 10,000 secondary school students in four countries: England, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. We test the idea that networks arise according to homophily along many characteristics (gender, school achievement and ethnic and cultural backgrounds), and assess the relative importance of each factor. In addition to gender, we find that country of origin, generational status and religion predict friendship for foreign-born students. For individuals born in the survey country, ties depend on a broader set of factors, including socioeconomic status and school achievement. In sum, homophilic preferences go considerably beyond ethnicity. Multiculturalism, which gives prominence to ethnic backgrounds, risks emphasising the differences in that dimension at the expense of affinity in others. Keywords Friendship • Homophily • Immigration • Networks • Social cohesion JEL Classification D85 • J15 • Z13 Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 2nd Florence-Konstanz workshop on Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences (University of Florence) and the 2nd International CILS4EU User Conference (Utrecht University). We thank participants at these meetings, Paolo Brunori, Editor Klaus F. Zimmermann and two anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions. Aldo Rustichini thanks the National Science Foundation for the grant SES 1728056, "Rules based policies, and Intelligence in Strateic Behavior"

Why Do Homogeneous Friendships Persist in a Diverse Population? Making Sense of Homophily

“…Homophily, the tendency for friendships to develop among homogeneous individuals (Lazarsfeld & Merton, 1954), is one of the robust findings in social network studies (McPherson et al, 2001). It applies not only for salient aspects such as gender (Laniado et al, 2016), race (Campigotto et al, 2021), ethnicity (Wölfer & Hewstone, 2018), and weight (Simpkins et al, 2013), but also for less salient ones such as values (Dehghani et al, 2016), personality (Ilmarinen et al, 2017), academic performance (Smirnov & Thurner, 2017), and genes (Christakis & Fowler, 2014). Multiple studies that were conducted in various contexts (Hofstra et al, 2017;Mazur & Richards, 2011) and across cultures (French et al, 2012;Leszczensky & Pink, 2017;Smith et al, 2016) have yielded the same conclusion: homophily is a universal phenomenon.…”

Social Participation of German Students with and without a Migration Background

“…In this context, an explanation can be seen through the homophily effect (preference for individuals with similar or comparable characteristics; see e.g., Graham et al, 2009;Leszczensky & Pink, 2015;Hoffmann et al, 2021). However, the current literature also shows that preferences in the context of the homophily effect clearly go beyond ethnicity, as Campigotto et al (2021) describe in their study. According to the authors' research, gender, among other things, but also cultural characteristics seem to be important here.…”

Dictating play to the left wing: Does soccer make you more Democratic?

“…There is a great deal of variation between women's rights across US states, most noticeable in recent times with the overturning of Roe v Wade ( 81 ); therefore, it is interesting that these effects are equal. For example, states that hosted the women's tournament may have been perceived to be exceptionally progressive, attracting more liberal voters via migration, who move closer to individuals similar to them via the concept of homophily ( 16 , 17 ). Alternatively, hosting women's sporting contests that are found to be more inclusive ( 28 ) may facilitate an increase in liberal attitudes, as found by Dahl et al ( 64 ), which may manifest in the ballot booth.…”

“…Theoretically, homophily—where people seek out or are attracted to individuals similar to themselves—may be one method how this may arise ( 16 ). Specifically, the mechanism could be via cluster migration ( 17 ), where migrants may be attracted to areas where soccer is popular, or where people have a strong interest in soccer to pursue opportunities to either play or watch the sport.…”