When the Sorting Hat Sorts Randomly: A Natural Experiment on Culture

Ricart-Huguet, Joan; Paluck, Elizabeth Levy

doi:10.1561/100.00020045

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…The goal, in the spirit of many process-tracing studies, was not a representative sample but to ‘obtain information about specific events and processes’ (Tansey 2007: 768–9). I complement the interviews with primary materials that include university documents and reports and with a large-N student and alumni survey that are the core of a quantitative article on the effects of hall cultures (Ricart-Huguet & Paluck 2023), rather than on their origins as is the case of this article.…”

Section: Historical Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A few alumni resided in halls other than the one they were randomly assigned for various reasons, from accommodation for disabilities to successful pressure of some elite parents on the University (interview 29 with Deputy Dean Kateega). However, survey data suggests that only 3% of the 1970–2000 alumni changed hall, including those with legitimate reasons (Ricart-Huguet & Paluck 2023). (An oft-told story is that the son of dictator Idi Amin was the only student with a single room and a TV.)…”

Section: Cultural Formation (1970s)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is exactly what I study in a companion article, where I survey recent students and alumni to understand the extent to which exposure to a new culture influences young adults. I find that random assignment to a new culture influences students’ identity, levels of interpersonal trust, generosity and activism but not their academic performance, political preferences and ideology, among other outcomes (Ricart-Huguet & Paluck 2023). Overall, the influence of hall culture on interpersonal outcomes (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Why do different cultures form and persist? Learning from the case of Makerere University

Ricart-Huguet

2022

J. Mod. Afr. Stud.

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Culture is a central concept in the social sciences. It is also difficult to examine rigorously. I study the oldest university in East Africa and a cradle of political elites, Makerere University, where halls of residence developed distinct cultures in the 1970s such that some hall cultures are activist (e.g. Lumumba Hall) while others are respectful to authorities (e.g. Livingstone Hall) even though assignment to halls has been random since 1970. I leverage this unique setting to understand how culture forms and affects the values and behaviours of young adults. Participant observation, interviews and archives suggest that cultural differences arose from critical junctures that biased group (hall) composition and from intergroup (inter-hall) competition. Hall governments promote cultural and institutional persistence through the intergenerational transmission of norms and practices, thereby highlighting the role of political hierarchy in reproducing culture.

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Section: Historical Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Cultural Formation (1970s)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Why do different cultures form and persist? Learning from the case of Makerere University

Ricart-Huguet

2022

J. Mod. Afr. Stud.

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Does Peer Socialization Within Cohorts Foster Political Attitudes? A Longitudinal Study of Elite Business Students

Lindskog,

Gustafsson,

Voytiv

2024

Polit Behav

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The association between higher education and political attitudes is well-recognized, and research suggests that socialization amongst peers is one of the most probable mechanisms explaining a possible attitudinal change. However, identifying a socialization effect is difficult due to self-selection mechanisms and limitations in data availability. This article empirically investigates the underlying peer socialization by employing a longitudinal network study of undergraduate students in Swedish and Finnish top-ranked business schools (N = 2651). The study tests the hypotheses that (1) attitudes within a cohort converge over time, and (2) socially embedded students experience more attitudinal change during their studies than students who do not engage with their peers. The paper leverages the Covid-19 pandemic as an exogenous shock that severely affected the networking dynamics of specific cohorts since it moved their education off campus. It is thereby among the first studies to directly test the relationship between socializing behaviors within higher education and political attitudes using both subjective and objective measurements. Contrary to previous conjectures, the findings challenge a general socialization mechanism to foster political attitudes. Instead, they point toward the importance of self-selection mechanisms in studies of higher education and for the specific student composition.

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An ecology of meaning: An integrative framework for understanding human motivations

Heine,

Folk,

Guan

et al. 2024

Advances in Motivation Science

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When the Sorting Hat Sorts Randomly: A Natural Experiment on Culture

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Why do different cultures form and persist? Learning from the case of Makerere University

Why do different cultures form and persist? Learning from the case of Makerere University

Does Peer Socialization Within Cohorts Foster Political Attitudes? A Longitudinal Study of Elite Business Students

An ecology of meaning: An integrative framework for understanding human motivations

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