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While many studies have examined friendship formation among children in conventional contexts, comparatively fewer have examined how the process is shaped by neighborhood violence. The literature on violence and gangs has identified coping strategies that likely affect friendships, but most children in violent neighborhoods are not gang members, and not all friendship relations involve gangs. We examine the friendship-formation process based on in-depth interviews with 72 students, parents, and teachers in two elementary schools in violent Chicago neighborhoods. All students were African American boys and girls ages 11 to 15. We find that while conventional studies depict friendship formation among children as largely affective in nature, the process among the students we observed was, instead, primarily strategic. The children’s strategies were not singular but heterogeneous and malleable in nature. We identify and document five distinct strategies: protection seeking, avoidance, testing, cultivating questioners, and kin reliance. Girls were as affected as boys were, and they also reported additional preoccupations associated with sexual violence. We discuss implications for theories of friendship formation, violence, and neighborhood effects.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Anjanette M. Chan Tack: Department of Sociology, University of Chicago
Email: amc75@uchicago.edu

Mario L. Small: Department of Sociology, Harvard University
Email: mariosmall@fas.harvard.edu

Acknowledgements: This research was supported by the MacArthur Foundation, the University of Chicago, the National Opinion Research Center, and Harvard University. We thank Karen Davis and Lara Perez-Felkner for fieldwork, interview work, and other research assistance instrumental to this project and David Harding for comments and criticisms. Direct correspondence to Mario L. Small, 33 Kirkland St, Department of Sociology, Cambridge, MA 02138 or mariosmall@fas.harvard.edu.

Citation: Chan Tack, Anjanette M., and Mario L. Small. 2017. “Making Friends in Violent Neighborhoods: Strategies among Elementary School Children.” Sociological Science 4: 224-248.
Received: January 12, 2017
Accepted: February 8, 2017
Editors: Jesper B. Sørensen, Gabriel Rossman
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a10

Fast or Slow: Sociological Implications of Measuring Dual-Process Cognition

By Parker Webservices on February 27, 2017 in Articles

Rick Moore

Sociological Science, February 27, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a9

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Dual-process theories of cognition within sociology have received increasing attention from both supporters and critics. One limitation in this debate, however, is the common absence of empirical evidence to back dual-process claims. Here, I provide such evidence for dual-process cognition using measures of response latency in formal data collected in conjunction with an ethnographic study of atheists and evangelicals. I use timed responses to help make sense of evangelicals’ language that frames “religion” as negative but “Christ-following” as positive. The data suggests that despite these Christians expressing a concept of the self that rejects “religion,” deep dispositions remain associating religion as a positive entity, not a negative one. I further argue that the significance of dual-process theories to sociology is in untangling such complex webs of identity discourse by distinguishing between immediate responses primarily due to fast cognition and those that are further mediated by slower, more deliberate cognition.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Rick Moore: Department of Sociology, University of Chicago
Email: rickmoore@uchicago.edu

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank John Levi Martin, Terry McDonnell, Gabe Ignatow, and the editors of Sociological Science for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (Award number SES-1333672).

Citation: Moore, Rick. 2017. “Fast or Slow: Sociological Implications of Measuring Dual-Process Cognition.” Sociological Science 4: 196-223.
Received: October 20, 2016
Accepted: January 28, 2017
Editors: Jesper B. Sørensen, Gabriel Rossman
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a9

Deciding to Wait: Partnership Status, Economic Conditions, and Pregnancy during the Great Recession

By Parker Webservices on February 20, 2017 in Articles

Christine Percheski, Rachel Tolbert Kimbro

Sociological Science, February 20, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a8

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The Great Recession was associated with reduced fertility in the United States. Many questions about the dynamics underlying this reduction remain unanswered, however, including whether reduced fertility rates were driven by decreases in intended or unplanned pregnancies. Using restricted data from the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth (N = 4,630), we exploit variation in state economic indicators to assess the impact of economic conditions on the likelihood of an intended pregnancy, an unplanned pregnancy, or no pregnancy for adult women without a college education. We focus on variations by partnership and marital status. Overall, we find that worse economic conditions were predictive of a lower risk of unplanned pregnancy. Women’s odds of intended pregnancy did not, however, respond uniformly to economic conditions but varied by marital status. When economic conditions were poor, married women had lower odds of intended pregnancy, whereas cohabiting women had greater odds of intended pregnancy.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Christine Percheski: Department of Sociology and Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University
Email: c-percheski@northwestern.edu

Rachel Tolbert Kimbro: Department of Sociology, Rice University
Email: rtkimbro@rice.edu

Acknowledgements: The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty Emerging Scholars Family Complexity Small Grant program.

Citation: Percheski, Christine, and Rachel Tolbert Kimbro. 2017. “Deciding to Wait: Partnership Status, Economic Conditions, and Pregnancy during the Great Recession.” Sociological Science 4: 176-195.
Received: September 23, 2016
Accepted: January 9, 2017
Editors: Jesper B. Sørensen, Sarah Soule
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a8

The Decoupling of Sex and Marriage: Cohort Trends in Who Did and Did Not Delay Sex until Marriage for U.S. Women Born 1938–1985

By Parker Webservices on February 13, 2017 in Articles

Lawrence L. Wu, Steven P. Martin, Paula England

Sociological Science, February 13, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a7

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In this study, we examine cohort trends in who did and did not delay sex until marriage for U.S. women born between 1938 and 1985 using Cycles 3–7 of the National Survey of Family Growth. We find that roughly half of women born in the late 1930s and early 1940s were already sexually active prior to marriage. Especially rapid increases in not delaying sex until marriage occurred for women born between 1942–43 and 1954–55, with subsequent cohorts experiencing less rapid increases and with premarital sex reaching a plateau of roughly 85 to 90 percent for those born after 1962. Our continuous-time competing-risk models illustrate the methodological dangers of using single-decrement procedures for questions such as who did and did not delay sex until marriage. More generally, our findings suggest that the decoupling of sex and marriage was underway well before the so-called “sexual revolution” of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Lawrence L. Wu: Department of Sociology, New York University
Email: lawrence.wu@nyu.edu

Steven P. Martin: Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population, The Urban Institute
Email: smartin@urban.org

Paula England: Department of Sociology, New York University
Email: pengland@nyu.edu

Acknowledgements: Research funding from NICHD (R01 HD 29550) and NIA (R03 AG 49374) is gratefully acknowledged. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2014 Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, CA. We thank James Raymo and the Sociological Science reviewers for helpful comments and Jessie Ford for excellent research assistance. Direct all correspondence to Lawrence L. Wu, Department of Sociology, Puck Building, 295 Lafayette Street, 4th floor, New York University, New York, NY 10012-9605, lawrence.wu@nyu.edu.

Citation:Wu, Lawrence L., Steven P. Martin, and Paula England. 2017. “The Decoupling of Sex and Marriage: Cohort Trends in Who Did and Did Not Delay Sex until Marriage for U.S. Women Born 1938–1985.” Sociological Science 4: 151-175.
Received: November 4, 2016
Accepted: December 23, 2016
Editors: Jesper B. Sørensen, Sarah Soule
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a7

Degrees of Difference: Gender Segregation of U.S. Doctorates by Field and Program Prestige

By Parker Webservices on February 6, 2017 in Articles

Kim A. Weeden, Sarah Thébaud, Dafna Gelbgiser

Sociological Science, February 6, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a6

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Women earn nearly half of doctoral degrees in research fields, yet doctoral education in the United States remains deeply segregated by gender. We argue that in addition to the oft-noted segregation of men and women by field of study, men and women may also be segregated across programs that differ in their prestige. Using data on all doctorates awarded in the United States from 2003 to 2014, field-specific program rankings, and field-level measures of math and verbal skills, we show that (1) “net” field segregation is very high and strongly associated with field-level math skills; (2) “net” prestige segregation is weaker than field segregation but still a nontrivial form of segregation in doctoral education; (3) women are underrepresented among graduates of the highest-and to a lesser extent, the lowest-prestige programs; and (4) the strength and pattern of prestige segregation varies substantially across fields, but little of this variation is associated with field skills.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Kim A. Weeden: Department of Sociology, Cornell University
Email: kw74@cornell.edu

Sarah Thébaud: Department of Sociology, University of California – Santa Barbara
Email: sthebaud@gmail.com

Dafna Gelbgiser: Center for the Study of Inequality, Cornell University
Email: dg432@cornell.edu

Acknowledgements: We thank Maria Charles, Tom DiPrete, Jesper Sørensen, and Ezra Zuckerman for comments on an earlier draft of this article. Dr. Gelbgiser’s postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University’s Center for the Study of Inequality is supported by a generous grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies.

Citation: Weeden, Kim A., Sarah Thébaud, and Dafna Gelbgiser. 2017. “Degrees of Difference: Gender Segregation of U.S. Doctorates by Field and Program Prestige.” Sociological Science 4: 123-150.
Received: November 19, 2016
Accepted: December 2, 2016
Editors: Sarah Soule
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a6

Temporal Issues in Replication: The Stability of Centrality-Based Advantage

By Parker Webservices on January 30, 2017 in Articles

Yuan Shi, Olav Sorenson, David M. Waguespack

Sociological Science, January 30, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a5

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The results of archival studies may depend on when researchers analyze data for at least two reasons: (1) databases change over time and (2) the sampling frame, in terms of the period covered, may reflect different environmental conditions. We examined these issues through the replication of Hochberg, Ljungqvist, and Lu’s (2007) research on the centrality of venture capital firms and their performance. We demonstrate (1) that one can reproduce the results in the original article if one uses data downloaded at roughly the same time as the original researchers did, (2) that these results remain fairly robust to even a decade of database updating, but (3) that the results depend sensitively on the sampling frame. Centrality only has a positive relationship to fund performance during boom periods.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Yuan Shi: Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
Email: yuanshi@rhsmith.umd.edu

Olav Sorenson: Yale School of Management, Yale University
Email: olav.sorenson@yale.edu

David M. Waguespack: Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
Email: dwaguesp@rhsmith.umd.edu

Citation: Shi, Yuan, Olav Sorenson, and David M. Waguespack. 2017. “The Stability of Centrality-Based Competitive Advantage.” Sociological Science 4: 107-122.
Received: October 17, 2016
Accepted: December 6, 2016
Editors: Delia Baldassarri
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a5

The Perils of Proclaiming an Authentic Organizational Identity

By Parker Webservices on January 23, 2017 in Articles

Balázs Kovács, Glenn R. Carroll, David W. Lehman

Sociological Science, January 23, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a4

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An emerging body of research consistently demonstrates that individuals in developed consumer markets value authenticity. But how individuals respond to organizations that tout their identities as authentic is not so well understood. We argue that organizational attempts at explicitly proclaiming their own identity as authentic will generally be regarded by individuals with skepticism and devaluation. Across two studies with different research designs, we find consistent empirical evidence that individuals devalue organizations making identity self-claims of authenticity. The first study analyzed authenticity claims made in the texts of menus from 1,393 restaurants in Los Angeles and their corresponding 450,492 online consumer reviews recorded from 2009 to 2016. The second study used a controlled, minimalistic experimental setting with fictitious restaurant menus that examined reactions to generic authenticity self-claims. The findings illuminate how individuals respond to organizational identity claims about authenticity and raise interesting questions about other types of identity claims.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Balázs Kovács: School of Managment, Yale University
Email: balazs.kovacs@yale.edu

Glenn R. Carroll: Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
Email: gcarroll@stanford.edu

David W. Lehman: McIntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia
Email: lehman@virginia.edu

Acknowledgements: For comments on earlier drafts of this article, we appreciate the insights of James Burroughs, Oliver Hahl, Özgecan Koçak, Omar Lizardo, Nicole Montgomery, Kieran O’Connor, Lihua Wang, and Ezra Zuckerman. Participants at the 2016 Authenticity Workshop at the University of Virginia, the Organizational Ecology conference in Barcelona in 2014, and the Stanford GSB’s Macro Lunch group also made valuable suggestions.

Citation: Kovács, Balázs, Glenn R. Carroll, and David W. Lehman. 2017. “The Perils of Proclaiming an Authentic Organizational Identity.” Sociological Science 4: 80-106.
Received: October 30, 2016
Accepted: November 29, 2016
Editors: Delia Baldassarri
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a4

Rebuilding Walls: Market Transition and Social Mobility in the Post-Socialist Societies of Europe

By Parker Webservices on January 16, 2017 in Articles

Michelle Jackson, Geoffrey Evans

Sociological Science, January 16, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a3

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We ask whether the transition from socialism to the market is consequential for social mobility, and, by implication, the permeability of class structures. While the short-term effects of market transition on patterns of social mobility have been documented for a small number of countries, we are able to examine the long-term effects of market transition for a group of 13 central and eastern European (CEE) countries. Only in the longer term can we properly appreciate the settled effects of transition on the distribution of resources, the organization of class and economic structures, and the transmission of inequalities across generations. We use data drawn from nationally representative cross-national surveys of CEE countries to compare patterns of social mobility in the early 1990s with those in the late 2000s. We find a significant decline in relative social mobility between the two periods and show that this decline is a consistent feature of mobility patterns across the region. We argue that changes in the institutions that regulate the transfer of capital across generations are likely to explain why the move from socialism to the market is associated with declining levels of social fluidity.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Michelle Jackson: Department of Sociology, Stanford University
Email: mvjsoc@stanford.edu

Geoffrey Evans: Nuffield College, University of Oxford
Email: geoffrey.evans@nuffield.ox.ac.uk

Acknowledgements: We thank John Goldthorpe, David Grusky, Ruud Luijkx, Kenneth MacDonald, the Sociological Science reviewers, and Kim Weeden for their very helpful comments and advice.

Citation: Jackson, Michelle V., and Geoffrey Evans. 2017. “Rebuilding Walls: Market Transition and Social Mobility in the Post-Socialist Societies of Europe.” Sociological Science 4: 54-79.
Received: July 11, 2016
Accepted: November 7, 2016
Editors: Kim Weeden
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a3

Essential or Expendable Supports? Assessing the Relationship between School Climate and Student Outcomes

By Parker Webservices on January 10, 2017 in Articles

Joshua Klugman

Sociological Science, January 10, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a2

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Sociologists of education argue that school organizational practices and climates influence students’ academic outcomes. The predominant measure of school climates are aggregated student and teacher survey reports, which are diffusing into official educational statistics. Unfortunately, most studies are unable to rigorously assess the causal effects of these measures of school organization. This study does so by examining the effects of school climate experienced in grades 4–8 by different cohorts of students in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Improvement in school climates has small positive associations with students’ eighth grade test scores and null to minimal associations with students’ chances of on-time ninth grade promotion and high school graduation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Joshua Klugman: Department of Sociology, Temple University
Email: klugman@temple.edu

Acknowledgements: The author thanks Elaine Allensworth, Kaleen Healey, Paul Moore, Eliza Moeller, Stephen Morgan, Shanette Porter, Lauren Sartain, and Penny Bender Sebring for valuable comments on previous drafts of this article. The author is also grateful to the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research for letting him conduct his analyses on their server.

Conflicts of Interest Disclosure: While working on this study, the author was employed by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (which developed the survey measures discussed here) and for part of the time was funded by the Lewis-Sebring Family Foundation. Cofounder Charles Lewis sits on the board of the nonprofit organization UChicago-Impact, a sister organization of the Consortium that sells its services administering the school climate measures used in this study (branded as the “5Essentials”). Cofounder Penny Sebring is a director of the Consortium and, before the advent of UChicago-Impact, has authored studies arguing the school climate measures are beneficial for school improvement. Sebring was given an early draft of this study, but the author had final say over analyses and conclusions. The views expressed in this study are those of the author and the author alone.

Data Availability and Replication: Because of data security issues, only Consortium staff have access to this study’s data. Syntax files producing these analyses are available at
http://sites.temple.edu/klugman/curriculum-vitae/essential-supports/.

Citation: Klugman, Joshua. 2016. “Essential or Expendable Supports? Assessing the Relationship between School Climate and Student Outcomes.” Sociological Science 4: 31-53.
Received: September 10, 2016
Accepted: October 1, 2016
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen Morgan
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a2

Important Matters in Political Context

By Parker Webservices on January 3, 2017 in Articles

Byungkyu Lee, Peter Bearman

Sociological Science, January 3, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a1

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The 2004 General Social Survey (GSS) reported significant increases in social isolation and significant decreases in ego network size relative to previous periods. These results have been repeatedly challenged. Critics have argued that malfeasant interviewers, coding errors, or training effects lie behind these results. While each critique has some merit, none precisely identify the cause of decreased ego network size. In this article, we show that it matters that the 2004 GSS—unlike other GSS surveys—was fielded during a highly polarized election period. We find that the difference in network size between nonpartisan and partisan voters in the 2004 GSS is larger than in all other GSS surveys. We further discover that core discussion network size decreases precipitously in the period immediately around the first (2004) presidential debate, suggesting that the debate frames “important matters” as political matters. This political priming effect is stronger where geographic polarization is weaker and among those who are politically interested and talk about politics more often. Combined, these findings identify the specific mechanism for the reported decline in network size, indicate that inferences about increased social isolation in America arising from the 2004 GSS are unwarranted, and suggest the emergence of increased political isolation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Byungkyu Lee: Department of Sociology, Columbia University
Email: bl2474@columbia.edu

Peter Bearman: INCITE, Columbia University
Email: psb17@columbia.edu

Acknowledgements: We benefitted from comments from Delia Baldassarri, Philipp Brandt, Hannah Bruckner, Wooseok Jung, Shamus Khan, Dohoon Lee, Kinga Makovi, James Moody, Chris Muller, Barum Park, Adam Reich, Eun Kyong Shin, Yunkyu Sohn, and Robb Willer. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 9th International Network of Analytical Sociology conference. Support from the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE) at Columbia University is gratefully acknowledged. Please direct all correspondence to Peter Bearman (psb17@columbia.edu). Replication materials to reproduce all Figures and Tables are available at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/bk.