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“Trivial” Topics and Rich Ties: The Relationship Between Discussion Topic, Alter Role, and Resource Availability Using the “Important Matters” Name Generator

By on November 10, 2014 in Articles

Matthew E. Brashears

Sociological Science, November 10, 2014
DOI 10.15195/v1.a27

Abstract
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This paper uses a nationally representative dataset of discussion relationships to determine what Americans consider to be an important matter, whether some topics are predominantly discussed with certain types of associates, and if the topic of discussion or the role of the discussant predicts the availability of social support. Results indicate that some topics are pursued or avoided with particular types of alters, and that the role of the discussant, but not the topic of discussion, predicts the availability of support from our discussion partners. This implies that some differences in measured network structure may be due to variations in topics discussed, but that topic says little about the supportiveness of the tie once we are dealing with important matters discussants.
 Matthew E. Brashears: Cornell University  E-mail: meb299@cornell.edu

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Brashears, Matthew E. 2014. “‘Trivial’ Topics and Rich Ties: The Relationship Between Discussion Topic, Alter Role, and Resource Availability Using the ‘Important Matters’ Name Generator.” Sociological Science 1: 493-511.
  • Received: June 30, 2014
  • Accepted: August 7, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Delia Baldassarri
  • DOI: 10.15195/v1.a27

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Secrets and Misperceptions: The Creation of Self-Fulfilling Illusions

By on November 3, 2014 in Articles

Sarah K. Cowan

Sociological Science, November 3, 2014
DOI 10.15195/v1.a26

Abstract
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This study examines who hears what secrets, comparing two similar secrets — one which is highly stigmatized and one which is less so. Using a unique survey representative of American adults and intake forms from a medical clinic, I document marked differences in who hears these secrets. People who are sympathetic to the stigmatizing secret are more likely to hear of it than those who may react negatively. This is a consequence not just of people selectively disclosing their own secrets but selectively sharing others’ as well. As a result, people in the same social network will be exposed to and influenced by different information about those they know and hence experience that network differently. When people effectively exist in networks tailored by others to not offend then the information they hear tends to be that of which they already approve. Were they to hear secrets they disapprove of then their attitudes might change but they are less likely to hear those secrets. As such, the patterns of secret-hearing contribute to a stasis in public opinion.
 Sarah K. Cowan: New York University  E-mail: sarahkcowan@nyu.edu

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Cowan, Sarah K. 2014. “Secrets and Misperceptions: The Creation of Self-Fulfilling Illusions” Sociological Science 1: 466-492.
  • Received: July 22, 2014
  • Accepted: August 31, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v1.a26

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The Community College Effect Revisited: The Importance of Attending to Heterogeneity and Complex Counterfactuals

By on October 27, 2014 in Articles

Jennie E. Brand, Fabian T. Pfeffer, Sara Goldrick-Rab

Sociological Science, October 27, 2014
DOI 10.15195/v1.a25

Abstract
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Community colleges are controversial educational institutions, often said to simultaneously expand college opportunities and diminish baccalaureate attainment. We assess the seemingly contradictory functions of community colleges by attending to effect heterogeneity and alternative counterfactual conditions. Using data on postsecondary outcomes of high school graduates of Chicago Public Schools, we find that enrolling at a community college penalizes more advantaged students who otherwise would have attended four-year colleges, particularly highly selective schools; however, these students represent a relatively small portion of the community college population, and these estimates are almost certainly biased. On the other hand, enrolling at a community college has a modest positive effect on bachelor’s degree completion for disadvantaged students who otherwise would not have attended college; these students represent the majority of community college-goers. We conclude that discussions among scholars, policymakers, and practitioners should move beyond considering the pros and cons of community college attendance for students in general to attending to the implications of community college attendance for targeted groups of students.
Jennie E. Brand: University of California – Los Angeles. E-mail: brand@soc.ucla.edu

Fabian T. Pfeffer: University of Michigan. E-mail: fpfeffer@umich.edu

Sara Goldrick-Rab: University of Wisconsin – Madison. Email: srab@education.wisc.edu 

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Brand, Jennie E., Fabian T. Pfeffer, and Sara Goldrick-Rab 2014. “The Community College Effect Revisited: The Importance of Attending to Heterogeneity and Complex Counterfactuals.” Sociological Science 1: 448-465.
  • Received: August 22, 2014
  • Accepted: September 16, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen,  Stephen L. Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v1.a25

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Explaining Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference: Political Backlash and Generational Succession, 1987-2012

By on October 13, 2014 in Articles

Michael Hout, Claude S. Fischer

Sociological Science, October 13, 2014
DOI 10.15195/v1.a24

Abstract
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Twenty percent of American adults claimed no religious preference in 2012, compared to 7 percent twenty-five years earlier. Previous research identified a political backlash against the religious right and generational change as major factors in explaining the trend. That research found that religious beliefs had not changed, ruling out secularization as a cause. In this paper we employ new data and more powerful analytical tools to: (1) update the time series, (2) present further evidence of correlations between political backlash, generational succession, and religious identification, (3) show how valuing personal autonomy generally and autonomy in the sphere of sex and drugs specifically explain generational differences, and (4) use GSS panel data to show that the causal direction in the rise of the “Nones” likely runs from political identity as a liberal or conservative to religious identity, reversing a long-standing convention in social science research. Our new analysis joins the threads of earlier explanations into a general account of how political conflict over cultural issues spurred an increase in non-affiliation.
Michael Hout: New York University.  E-mail: mikehout@nyu.edu

Claude S. Fischer: University of California, Berkeley. E-mail: fischer1@berkeley.edu

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Hout, Michael, and Claude S. Fischer. 2014. “Explaining Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference: Political Backlash and Generational Succession, 1987–2012.” Sociological Science 1: 423-447.
  • Received: July 8, 2014
  • Accepted: July 16, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v1.a24

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Mexican Ancestry, Immigrant Generation, and Educational Attainment in the United States

By on September 29, 2014 in Articles

Stephen L. Morgan, Dafna Gelbgiser

Sociological Science, September 29, 2014
DOI 10.15195/v1.a23

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After introducing alternative perspectives on assimilation and acculturation, we use the 2002-2012 waves of the Education Longitudinal Study to model differences in educational attainment for students sampled as high school sophomores in 2002.  We focus on patterns observed for the growing Mexican immigrant population, analyzing separately the trajectories of 1st, 1.5th, 2nd, and 3rd+ generation Mexican immigrant students, in comparison to 3rd+ generation students who self-identify as non-Hispanic whites and students who self-identify as non-Hispanic blacks or African Americans.  The results suggest that the dissonant acculturation mechanism associated with the segmented assimilation perspective is mostly unhelpful for explaining patterns of educational attainment, especially for the crucial groups of 1.5th and 2nd generation Mexican immigrant students.  Instead, standard measures of family background can account for large portions of group differences in bachelor’s degree attainment, with or without additional adjustments for behavioral commitment to schooling, occupational plans, and educational expectations.  The broad structure of inequality in the United States, as well as the rising costs of bachelor’s degrees, should be the primary source of concern when considering the prospects for the incorporation of the children of recent Mexican immigrants into the mainstream.

Stephen L. Morgan: Johns Hopkins University and Cornell University.  E-mail: stephen.morgan@jhu.edu

Dafna Gelbgiser: Cornell University. Email: dg432@cornell.edu


Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Morgan, Stephen L. and Dafna Gelbgiser 2014. “Mexican Ancestry, Immigrant Generation, and Educational Attainment in the United States.”Sociological Science 1: 397-422
  • Received: June 19, 2014
  • Accepted: July 14, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v1.a23

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The Handover in Hong Kong: Impact on Business Formation

By on September 15, 2014 in Articles

Glenn R. Carroll, Mi Feng, Jeroen G. Kuilman

Sociological Science, September 15, 2014
DOI 10.15195/v1.a22

Abstract
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Although the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China was a major political transformation, its impact on new business formation has not been fully scrutinized. Theory suggests contradictory forces may operate before, during, and after such a transformation: either a decline due to uncertainty or an increase due to opportunities created. To determine which force dominated, we first decomposed the analysis by the size of major affected social groups, then analyzed the expected impact. This led us to predict an aggregate depression of business formation, although this effect likely showed great variation and attenuated over time. Our empirical assessment relied on detailed monthly records of business registrations from 1975 to 2013, using GARCH time series modeling to analyze total registrations as well as the proportions for local and non-local businesses. Controlling for macro socioeconomic conditions, we find the registration rate dropped significantly throughout the post-handover era, implying a dominance of uncertainty. Further, new registrations displayed higher volatility following the 1984 announcement of the handover, reflecting shifting public sentiment in the interim about Hong Kong’s economic prospects. We also find a post-handover preference for forming non-local firms with higher asset mobility; this preference diminishes with time.

Glenn Carroll: Stanford University. E-mail: gcarroll@stanford.edu

Mi Feng: Peking University. Email: fengmi@gmail.com

Jereon G. Kuilman: Tilburg University. Email: j.g.kuilman@tilburguniversity.edu


Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Carroll, Glenn R., Mi Feng, and Jeroen G. Kuilman 2014. “The Handover in Hong Kong: Impact on Business Formation.” Sociological Science 1: 366-396.
  • Received: January 13, 2014
  • Accepted: May 2, 2014
  • Editors: Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v1.a22

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Age Trajectories of Poverty During Childhood and High School Graduation

By on September 1, 2014 in Articles

Dohoon Lee

Sociological Science, September 1, 2014
DOI 10.15195/v1.a21

Abstract
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This article examines distinct trajectories of childhood exposure to poverty and provides estimates of their effect on high school graduation. The analysis incorporates three key insights from the life course and human capital formation literatures: (1) the temporal dimensions of exposure to poverty, that is, timing, duration, stability, and sequencing, are confounded with one another; (2) age-varying exposure to poverty not only affects, but also is affected by, other factors that vary with age; and (3) the effect of poverty trajectories is heterogeneous across racial and ethnic groups. Results from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth show that any extended exposures to poverty substantially lower children’s odds of graduating from high school. Persistent, early, and middle-to-late childhood exposures to poverty reduce the odds of high school graduation by 77 percent, 55 percent, and 58 percent, respectively, compared to no childhood exposure to poverty. The findings thus suggest that the impact of poverty trajectories is insensitive to observed age-varying confounders. These impacts are more pronounced for white children than for black and Hispanic children.

Dohoon Lee:New York University. E-mail: dl111@nyu.edu

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Lee, Dohoon. 2014. “Age trajectories of poverty during childhood and high school graduation.” Sociological Science 1: 344-365.
  • Received: May 22, 2014
  • Accepted: June 12, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen L. Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v1.a21

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An Ecology of Social Categories

By on August 18, 2014 in Articles

Elizabeth G. Pontikes, Michael T. Hannan

Sociological Science, August 18, 2014
DOI 10.15195/v1.a20

Abstrac
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This article proposes that meaningful social classification emerges from an ecological dynamic that operates in two planes: feature space and label space. It takes a dynamic view of classification, allowing objects’ movements in both spaces to change the meaning of social categories. The first part of the theory argues that agents assign labels to objects based on perceptions of their similarities to existing members of a category. The second part of the theory shows that an object’s perceived similarity to members of other categories reduces its typicality in a focal category. This means that for categories with a high degree of overlap with other categories in label space (lenient categories), the link between feature-based similarities and labeling weakens. The findings suggest that social classification will likely evolve to contain both constraining and lenient categories. The theory implies that this process is self-reinforcing, so that constraining categories become more constraining, whereas lenient categories become more lenient.

Elizabeth G. Pontikes: University of Chicago. E-mail: elizabeth.pontikes@chicagobooth.edu.

Michael T. Hannan: Stanford University. Email: hannan@stanford.edu.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Pontkes, Elizabeth G. and Michael T. Hannan. 2014. “An Ecology of Social Categories.” Sociological Science 1: 311-343.
  • Received: April 15, 2014
  • Accepted: May 28, 2014
  • Editors: Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v1.a20

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Comparing Data Characteristics and Results of an Online Factorial Survey between a Population-Based and a Crowdsource-Recruited Sample

By on August 4, 2014 in Articles

Jill Weinberg, Jeremy Freese, David McElhattan

Sociological Science, August 4, 2014
DOI 10.15195/v1.a19

Abstract
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Compared to older kinds of sample surveys, online platforms provide a fast and low-cost platform for factorial surveys, as well as a more demographically diverse alternative to student samples. Two distinct strategies have emerged for recruitment: using panels based on population-based samples versus recruiting people actively seeking to complete online tasks for money. The latter is much cheaper but prompts various concerns about data quality and generalizability. We compare results of three vignette experiments conducted using the leading online panel that uses a population-based paradigm (Knowledge Networks, now GfK) and the leading platform for crowdsource recruitment (Amazon Mechanical Turk). Our data show that, while demographic differences exist, most notably in age, the actual results of our experiments are very similar, especially once these demographic differences have been taken into account. Indicators of data quality were actually slightly better among the crowdsource subjects. Although more evidence is plainly needed, our results support the accumulating evidence for the promise of crowdsource recruitment for online experiments, including factorial surveys.

Jill D. Weinberg: Northwestern University: American Bar Foundation. E-mail: jweinberg@abfn.org

Jeremy Freese: Northwestern University. Email: jfreese@northwestern.edu

David McElhattan: Northwestern University. Email: DavidMcElhattan2017@northwestern.edu

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Weinberg, Jill D., Jeremy Freese, and David McElhattan 2014. “Comparing Data Characteristics and Results of an Online Factorial Survey between a Population-Based and a Crowdsource-Recruited Sample.” Sociological Science 1: 292-310.
  • Received: April 23, 2014
  • Accepted: May 22, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Delia Baldassarri
  • DOI: 10.15195/v1.a19

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Market Transition Theory Revisited: Changing Regimes of Housing Inequality in China, 1988-2002

By on July 21, 2014 in Articles

Xi Song, Yu Xie

Sociological Science, July 21, 2014
DOI 10.15195/v1.a18

Abstract
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This paper revisits the market transition theory of Nee (1989), using housing as an alternative to income as a measure of socioeconomic attainment. We argue that housing space is a better outcome variable by which to evaluate Nee’s market transition theory because it is a more consistent measure of socioeconomic success than income before and after the economic reform. Using three waves of a national household survey in 1988, 1995, and 2002, we compare temporal changes in the role of market and redistributive determinants for income and housing space. In support of a weak form of the theory, our results show that market determinants replaced redistributive determinants over time as the most significant predictors of housing space. In contrast, parallel analyses of income show mixed results for market and redistributive determinants.

Xi Song: Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles. E-mail: songxi@ucla.edu

Yu Xie: Department of Sociology, University of Michigan and Peking University. Email: yuxie@umich.edu

  • Citation: Song, Xi and Yu Xie 2014. “Market Transition Theory Revisited: Changing Regimes of Housing Inequality in China, 1988-2002.” Sociological Science 1: 277-291.
  • Received: May 7, 2014
  • Accepted: June 3, 2014
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v1.a18

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