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

By on January 10, 2017 in Articles

Joshua Klugman

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

Abstract
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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.

Creative Commons LicenseThis 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/.


Supplemental Material


  • 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


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Important Matters in Political Context

By on January 3, 2017 in Articles

Byungkyu Lee, Peter Bearman

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

Abstract
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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.

Creative Commons LicenseThis 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.


Supplemental Material


  • Citation: Lee, Byungkyu, and Peter Bearman. 2017. “Important Matters in Political Context.” Sociological Science 4: 1-30.
  • Received: October 23, 2016
  • Accepted: October 26, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v4.a1


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Social Distance and Knowledge Transformation: The Effects of Social Network Distance on Organizational Learning

By on December 15, 2016 in Articles

Brandy Aven, Evelyn Ying Zhang

Sociological Science, December 15, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a48

Abstract
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Organizations are increasingly adopting technologies to promote knowledge sharing across boundaries of specialized groups. Yet, prior research beginning with March (1991) suggests that such knowledge-sharing technologies actually inhibit organizational learning by reducing solution diversity. This line of reasoning stems from the prior literature’s assumption that the knowledge shared will be transferred from one member to another perfectly and without distortion. We challenge this assumption and argue, instead, that knowledge is often altered or transformed when it is shared between members and that the degree of this transformation increases as the social distance between the knowledge sender and receiver increases. Because the implementation of knowledge-sharing technologies encourages learning between members across greater social distances, it increases knowledge transformation. Thus, knowledge-sharing technologies present a new opportunity to diversify solutions and lead to innovation.

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

Brandy Aven: Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University
Email: aven@cmu.edu

Evelyn Ying Zhang: Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University
Email: yingzhang@cmu.edu

Acknowledgements: We are particularly grateful to Linda Argote for her extensive comments and suggestions. We also wish to thank all of the participants in the Strategy and Management Seminar Series at the Tuck School of Business, the Organizational Behavior and Theory Seminar at the Tepper School of Business, and the Carnegie School’s Organizational Learning Conference for the helpful suggestions and critiques. Please direct correspondence to Brandy Aven, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University.


  • Citation: Aven, Brandy, and Evelyn Ying Zhang. 2016. “Social Distance and Knowledge Transformation: The Effects of Social Network Distance on Organizational Learning.” Sociological Science 3: 1103-1131.
  • Received: September 8, 2016
  • Accepted: October 28, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a48


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Persistent Educational Advantage Across Three Generations: Empirical Evidence for Germany

By on December 12, 2016 in Articles

Andrea Ziefle

Sociological Science, December 12, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a47

Abstract
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This article uses survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) to analyze the persistence of educational attainment across three generations in Germany. I obtain evidence of a robust effect of grandparents’ education on respondents’ own educational attainment in West Germany, net of parental class, education, occupational status, family income, parents’ relationship history, and family size. I also test whether the grandparent effect results from resource compensation or cumulative advantage and find empirical support for both mechanisms. In comparison, the intergenerational association between grandparents’ and respondents’ education is considerably weaker in East Germany and is also mediated completely by parental education. There are hardly any gender differences in the role of grandparents for respondents’ educational attainment, except for the fact that resource compensation is found to be exclusively relevant for women’s attainment in both West Germany and in East Germany after German reunification and the associated transition to an open educational system.

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

Andrea Ziefle: School of Social Sciences (FB03), Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main
Email: aziefle@soz.uni-frankfurt.de

Acknowledgements: The data from the German Socio-Economic Panel survey have kindly been made available by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin. DIW bears no responsibility for the uses made of the data in the analyses reported in the present manuscript. This research has been supported by a research grant from the German Science Foundation (DFG) to the author for her project, “Family background and women’s changing life courses” (ZI 1495/1-1). I thank Markus Gangl for valuable comments on my work.


Supplemental Material


  • Citation: Ziefle, Andrea. 2016. “Persistent Educational Advantage Across Three Generations: Empirical Evidence for Germany.” Sociological Science 3: 1077-1102.
  • Received: September 14, 2016
  • Accepted: October 6, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a47


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Deporting the American Dream: Immigration Enforcement and Latino Foreclosures

By on December 8, 2016 in Articles

Jacob S. Rugh, Matthew Hall

Sociological Science, December 8, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a46

Abstract
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Over the past decade, Latinos have been buffeted by two major forces: a record number of immigrant deportations and the housing foreclosure crisis. Yet, prior work has not assessed the link between the two. We hypothesize that deportations exacerbate rates of foreclosure among Latinos by removing income earners from owner-occupied households. We employ a quasi-experimental approach that leverages variation in county applications for 287(g) immigration enforcement agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and data on foreclosure filings from 2005–2012. These models uncover a substantial association of enforcement with Hispanic foreclosure rates. The association is stronger in counties with more immigrant detentions and a larger share of undocumented persons in owner-occupied homes. The results imply that local immigration enforcement plays an important role in understanding why Latinos experienced foreclosures most often. The reduced home ownership and wealth that result illustrate how legal status and deportation perpetuate the racial stratification of Latinos.

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

Jacob S. Rugh: Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University
Email: jacob_rugh@byu.edu

Matthew Hall: Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University
Email: mhall@cornell.edu

Acknowledgements: We are very grateful to Jim Bachmeier for county unauthorized data and to Stephanie Potochnick, Juan Pedroza, and William Rosales for sharing 287(g) rejection FOIAs. We also thank Doug Massey, Jordan Matsudaira, Jody Vallejo, Scott Sanders, and Jon Jarvis for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.


Supplemental Material


  • Citation: Rugh, Jacob S., and Matthew Hall. 2016. “Deporting the American Dream: Immigration Enforcement and Latino Foreclosures.” Sociological Science 3: 1053-1076.
  • Received: September 26, 2016
  • Accepted: November 2, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a46


1

Consensus, Polarization, and Alignment in the Economics Profession

By on December 5, 2016 in Articles

Tod S. Van Gunten, John Levi Martin, Misha Teplitskiy

Sociological Science, December 5, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a45

Abstract
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Scholars interested in the political influence of the economics profession debate whether the discipline is unified by policy consensus or divided among competing schools or factions. We address this question by reanalyzing a unique recent survey of elite economists. We present a theoretical framework based on a formal sociological approach to the structure of belief systems and propose alignment, rather than consensus or polarization, as a model for the structure of belief in the economics profession. Moreover, we argue that social clustering in a heterogeneous network topology is a better model for disciplinary social structure than discrete factionalization. Results show that there is a robust latent ideological dimension related to economists’ departmental affiliations and political partisanship. Furthermore, we show that economists closer to one another in informal social networks also share more similar ideologies.

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

Tod S. Van Gunten: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Email: tvg@mpifg.de

John Levi Martin: Department of Sociology, University of Chicago
Email: jlmartin@uchicago.edu

Misha Teplitskiy: Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University
Email: mteplitskiy@fas.harvard.edu

Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Anil Kashyap, Brian Barry, and the Initiative on Global Markets at the Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago for providing data access.


  • Citation: Van Gunten, Tod S., John Levi Martin, and Misha Teplitskiy. 2016. “Consensus, Polarization, and Alignment in the Economics Profession.” Sociological Science 3: 1028-1052.
  • Received: October 8, 2016
  • Accepted: October 26, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Gabriel Rossman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a45


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Marrying Up by Marrying Down: Status Exchange between Social Origin and Education in the United States

By on November 28, 2016 in Articles

Christine R. Schwartz, Zhen Zeng, Yu Xie

Sociological Science, November 28, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a44

Abstract
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Intermarriage plays a key role in stratification systems. Spousal resemblance reinforces social boundaries within and across generations, and the rules of intermarriage govern the ways that social mobility may occur. We examine intermarriage across social origin and education boundaries in the United States using data from the 1968–2013 Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Our evidence points to a pattern of status exchange—that is, persons with high education from modest backgrounds tend to marry those with lower education from more privileged backgrounds. Our study contributes to an active methodological debate by pinpointing the conditions under which the results pivot from evidence against exchange to evidence for exchange and advances theory by showing that the rules of exchange are more consistent with the notion of diminishing marginal utility than the more general theory of compensating differentials.

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Christine R. Schwartz: Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Email: cschwart@ssc.wisc.edu

Zhen Zeng: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics
Email: Zhen.Zeng@ojp.usdoj.gov

Yu Xie: Department of Sociology, Princeton University; Center for Social Research, Peking University
Email: yuxie@princeton.edu

Acknowledgements: This research was carried out using the facilities of the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (R24 HD047873), the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan (R24HD041028), and the Office of Population Research at Princeton University (R24H0047879). An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2012 Population Association of America meetings in San Francisco, CA. We are grateful to Aaron Gullickson for helpful comments and advice.

Supplemental Material


  • Citation: Schwartz, Christine R., Zhen Zeng, and Yu Xie. 2016. “Marrying Up by Marrying Down: Status Exchange between Social Origin and Education in the United States.” Sociological Science 3: 1003-1027.
  • Received: September 30, 2016
  • Accepted: October 9, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a44


0

Increases in Sex with Same-Sex Partners and Bisexual Identity Across Cohorts of Women (but Not Men)

By on November 7, 2016 in Articles

Paula England, Emma Mishel, Mónica L. Caudillo

Sociological Science, November 7, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a42

Abstract

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We use data from the 2002–2013 National Surveys of Family Growth to examine change across U.S. cohorts born between 1966 and 1995 in whether individuals have had sex with same-sex partners only, or with both men and women, and in whether they have a bisexual or gay identity. Adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, immigrant status, and mother’s education, we find increases across cohorts in the proportion of women who report a bisexual identity, who report ever having had sex with both sexes, or who report having had sex with women only. By contrast, we find no cohort trend for men; roughly 5 percent of men in every cohort have ever had sex with a man, and the proportion claiming a gay or bisexual attraction changed little. We speculate that this gender difference is rooted in a broader pattern of asymmetry in gender change in which departures from traditional gender norms are more acceptable for women than men.

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

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

Emma Mishel: Department of Sociology, New York University
Email: Emmamishel@nyu.edu

Mónica L. Caudillo: Department of Sociology, New York University
Email: Monica.Caudillo@nyu.edu

Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Gary Gates for helpful comments.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: England, Paula, Emma Mishel, and Mónica L. Caudillo. 2016. “Increases in Sex with Same-Sex Partners and Bisexual Identity Across Cohorts of Women (but Not Men).” Sociological Science 3: 951-970.
  • Received: August 2, 2016
  • Accepted: September 25, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a42


0

Success-Breeds-Success in Collective Political Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment

By on October 31, 2016 in Articles

Arnout van de Rijt, Idil Afife Akin, Robb Willer, Matthew Feinberg

Sociological Science, October 31, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a41

Abstract
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Scholars have proposed that the emergence of political movements is highly pathdependent, such that early mobilization successes may lead to disproportionately greater eventual success. This article replicates a unique field experiment testing for positive feedback in internet petition signing (van de Rijt et al. 2014). The prior study found no significant effect of signatures bestowed by the experimenters on the signing rate of 200 online petitions posted to a political petitions website (http://www.change.org), but this may have lacked power because of its sample size and variation across petitions. We report on results of a new field experiment in which we posted 400 petitions differing only in tightly controlled ways to the same website, varying the number of experimentally bestowed signatures across a wider range than in the original experiment. Subsequent petition signing increased monotonically with the treatment, confirming the presence of positive feedback. These results support the existence of success-breeds-success dynamics in the mobilization of collective political behavior, confirming that early success can increase the attractiveness of collective action to potential supporters. However, while significant, the effect of prior signatures was small, suggesting that cumulative advantage effects resulting from popularity metrics may play a minor role in collective action outcomes.

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

Arnout van de Rijt: Department of Sociology, Utrecht University; Department of Sociology, Stony Brook University; Institute for Advanced Computational Science, Stony Brook University
Email: arnoutvanderijt@gmail.com

Idil Afife Akin: Department of Sociology, Stony Brook University
Email: idilakin@gmail.com

Robb Willer: Department of Sociology, Stanford University
Email: willer@stanford.edu

Matthew Feinberg: Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
Email: matthewfeinberg1@gmail.com

Acknowledgements: We thank the editors and consulting editors for helpful feedback on our initial manuscript, Crystal Redekopp and Michael Claffey for their organizational and technical support of the experiment, and the http://www.change.org team for allowing and hosting our experiment. This work was supported by National Science Foundation grant SES-1340122 (to A.v.d.R.).

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: van de Rijt, Arnout, Idil Afife Akin, Robb Willer, and Matthew Feinberg. 2016. “Success-Breeds-Success in Collective Political Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment.” Sociological Science 3: 940-950.
  • Received: August 17, 2016
  • Accepted: September 26, 2016
  • Editors: Delia Baldassarri
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a41


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Timing Matters: How Social Influence Affects Adoption Pre- and Post-Product Release

By on October 24, 2016 in Articles

Sara B. Soderstrom, Brian Uzzi, Derek D. Rucker, James H. Fowler, Daniel Diermeier

Sociological Science, October 24, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a40

Abstract
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1 Citation

Social influence is typically studied after a product is released. Yet, audience expectations and discussions begin before a product’s release. This observation suggests a need to understand adoption processes over a product’s life cycle. To explore pre- and postrelease social influence processes, this article uses survey data from Americans exposed to word of mouth for 309 Hollywood movies released over two and a half years. The data suggest pre- and postrelease social influences operate differently. Prerelease social influence displays a critical transition point with relation to adoption: before a critical value, any level of social influence is negligibly related to adoption, but after the critical value, the relationship between social influence and adoption is large and substantive. In contrast, postrelease social influence exhibits a positive linear relationship with adoption. Prerelease social influence is argued to require more exposures than postrelease social influence because of differences in the diagnosticity and accessibility of the information. To complement the survey data, computational models are used to test alternative hypotheses. Evidence from the computational models supports the proposed model of social influence.

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

Sara B. Soderstrom: Organizational Studies and Program in the Environment, University of Michigan
Email: capasb@umich.edu

Brian Uzzi: Management and Organizations, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
Email: uzzi@kellogg.northwestern.edu

Derek D. Rucker: Marketing, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
Email: d-rucker@kellogg.northwestern.edu

James H. Fowler: Political Science, University of California, San Diego
Email: fowler@ucsd.edu

Daniel Diermeier: Provost, The University of Chicago
Email: ddiermeier@uchicago.edu

Acknowledgements: This research was sponsored by the Northwestern University Institute on Complex Systems, the Army Research Laboratory under Cooperative Agreement Number W911NF-09-2-0053, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency grant BAA-11-64, Social Media in Strategic Communication. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Army Research Laboratory or the U.S. government.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Soderstrom, Sara B., Brian Uzzi, Derek D. Rucker, James H. Fowler and Daniel Diermeier. 2016. “Timing Matters: How Social Influence Affects Adoption Pre- and Post-product Release.” Sociological Science 3: 915-939.
  • Received: February 24, 2016
  • Accepted: August 21, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Gabriel Rossman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a40


1

Stylized Facts and Experimentation

By on October 12, 2016 in Articles

Charles Crabtree, Christopher J. Fariss

Sociological Science, October 12, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a39

Abstract
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In this comment, we clarify and extend Hirschman’s (2016) discussion of “stylized facts.” Our focus is on the relationship between stylized facts and experimentation. Given the continued increase in experimentation across the social sciences, we think that it is important to consider the exact role that experiments play in the production and testing of stylized facts. We make three related contributions here. First, we describe how experiments can both provide new evidence to support existing stylized facts as well as produce new stylized facts. Second, we argue that the stylized facts produced through experimentation differ from other stylized facts. Third, we extend Hirschman’s (2016) definition of “stylized facts” so that it distinguishes between those that describe correlation relationships and those that describe causal relationships.

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

Charles Crabtree: Department of Political Science, University of Michigan
Email: ccrabtr@umich.edu

Christopher J. Fariss: Department of Political Science, University of Michigan
Email: cjf0006@gmail.com

Acknowledgements: We thank Volha Chykina and Rose McDermott for their helpful comments.

  • Citation: Crabtree, Charles, and Christopher J. Fariss. 2016. “Stylized Facts and Experimentation.” Sociological Science 3: 910-914.
  • Received: August 12, 2016
  • Accepted: August 28, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a39


0

Predicting Altruistic Behavior and Assessing Homophily: Evidence from the Sisterhood

By on October 3, 2016 in Articles

Michael J. Vernarelli

Sociological Science, October 3, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a38

Abstract

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The persistence of altruism throughout the evolutionary process has been explained by some on the basis of assortation, which requires the ability to detect dispositional altruism in others and voluntary interaction, resulting in altruism homophily. Numerous studies have identified the ability to detect dispositional altruism in strangers, but few have investigated this ability and altruism homophily in social networks. The purpose of this study is to provide additional evidence with regard to the ability to detect dispositional altruism among individuals who have repeated interactions in a collegiate social organization and the extent of altruism homophily. The results indicate that individuals possess an ability to predict dispositional altruism as measured by behavior in the dictator game and that this ability is a function of social closeness. However, the study does not support the hypothesis of an assortation process that results in altruism homophily.

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

Michael J. Vernarelli: Department of Economics, Rochester Institute of Technology
Email: mjvgss@rit.edu

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Brent Simpson, Jeffrey Wagner, Audrey Smerbeck, John Edlund, and Gregory DeAngelo for their comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of the paper. Jesper Sørensen made suggestions that were incorporated in the final version of the manuscript. Yosef Boutakov and Matthew Kehoe assisted with data collection. Jonathan Stone assisted with data collection in the pilot study.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Vernarelli, Michael J. 2016. “Predicting Altruistic Behavior and Assessing Homophily: Evidence from the Sisterhood.” Sociological Science 3: 889-909.
  • Received: May 25, 2016
  • Accepted: June 30, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Gabriel Rossman
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a38


0

The Course of Law: State Intervention in Southern Lynch Mob Violence 1882–1930

By on September 26, 2016 in Articles

Kinga Makovi, Ryan Hagen, Peter Bearman

Sociological Science, September 26, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a37

Abstract
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Collective violence when framed by its perpetrators as “citizen” justice is inherently a challenge to state legitimacy. To properly account for such violence, it is necessary to consider an opportunity structure incorporating the actions of both vigilantes and agents of the state. The motivation and lethality of lynch mobs in the South cannot be understood without considering how the state reacted to the legitimacy challenges posed by lynching. We trace the shifting orientation of state agents to lynching attempts between the end of Reconstruction and the start of the Great Depression. Analyzing an inventory of more than 1,000 averted and completed lynching events in three Southern states, we model geographic and temporal patterns in the determinants of mob formation, state intervention, and intervention success. Opponents of lynching often pled with mobs to “let the law take its course.” This article examines the course followed by the law itself, as state actors moved between encouraging, accommodating, and in many instances averting mob violence.

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

Kinga Makovi: Department of Sociology, Columbia University
Email: km2730@columbia.edu

Ryan Hagen: Department of Sociology, Columbia University
Email: rah2168@columbia.edu

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

Acknowledgements: The authors thank Nathan Nunn, Eric Foner, Karen Barkey, Charles Seguin, Christopher Muller, members of the Organizations Workshop at the University of Chicago, and the XS workshop at Columbia University for their helpful comments.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Makovi, Kinga, Ryan Hagen and Peter Bearman. 2016. “The Course of Law: State Intervention in Southern Lynch Mob Violence 1882–1930.” Sociological Science 3: 860-888.
  • Received: June 23, 2016
  • Accepted: July 15, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a37


0

Are Firms That Discriminate More Likely to Go Out of Business?

By on September 19, 2016 in Articles

Devah Pager

Sociological Science, September 19, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a36

Abstract
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2 Citation

Economic theory has long maintained that employers pay a price for engaging in racial discrimination. According to Gary Becker’s seminal work on this topic and the rich literature that followed, racial preferences unrelated to productivity are costly and, in a competitive market, should drive discriminatory employers out of business. Though a dominant theoretical proposition in the field of economics, this argument has never before been subjected to direct empirical scrutiny. This research pairs an experimental audit study of racial discrimination in employment with an employer database capturing information on establishment survival, examining the relationship between observed discrimination and firm longevity. Results suggest that employers who engage in hiring discrimination are less likely to remain in business six years later.

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

Devah Pager: Department of Sociology & Public Policy, Harvard University
Email: devah_pager@harvard.edu

Acknowledgements: Direct all correspondence to Devah Pager, Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, devah_pager@harvard.edu. The author is thankful for feedback from David Neumark, Larry Katz, Jeff Liebman, Ilyana Kuziemko, Bruce Western, and Mitchell Duneier. This research was supported by grants from NSF (CAREER0547810) and NIH (1K01HD053694).

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Pager, Devah. 2016. “Are Firms That Discriminate More Likely to Go Out of Business?” Sociological Science 3: 849-859.
  • Received: June 29, 2016
  • Accepted: July 11, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a36


2

Modernization and Lynching in the New South

By on September 15, 2016 in Articles

Mattias Smångs

Sociological Science, September 15, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a35

Abstract
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This article evaluates an emerging body of historical scholarship that challenges prevailing views of the primacy of rural conditions in southern lynching by positing that it was symbiotically associated with the processes of modernization underway in the region in the decades around 1900. Statistical analyses of lynching data that differentiate among events according to communal participation, support, and ceremony in Georgia and Louisiana from 1882 to 1930 and local-level indices of modernization (urbanization, rural depopulation, industrialization, agricultural commercialization, and dissolution of traditional family roles) yield results that both support and contradict such a modernization thesis of lynching. The findings imply that the consequences of the social transformation in the South coinciding with the lynching era were not uniform throughout the region with regard to racial conflict and violence and that broad arguments proposing an intrinsic connection between modernization and lynchings therefore are overstated.

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

Mattias Smångs: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Fordham University
Email: msmangs@fordham.edu

Acknowledgements: I thank Peter Bearman, Janet Box-Steffensmeier, Christine Fountain, David Hacker, and Kenneth Sylvester for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Smångs, Mattias. 2016. “Modernization and Lynching in the New South.” Sociological Science 3: 825-848.
  • Received: June 1, 2016
  • Accepted: July 8, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Delia Baldassarri
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a35


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Growing Farther Apart: Racial and Ethnic Inequality in Household Wealth Across the Distribution

By on September 12, 2016 in Articles

Michelle Maroto

Sociological Science, September 12, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a34

Abstract
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This article investigates net worth disparities by race and ethnicity using pooled data from the 1998–2013 waves of the U.S. Survey of Consumer Finances. I apply unconditional quantile regression models to examine net worth throughout the wealth distribution and decomposition procedures to demonstrate how different factors related to demographics, human capital, financial attitudes, and credit market access contribute to racial wealth disparities. In the aggregate, non-Hispanic black households held $8,000 less in net worth than non-Hispanic white households at the 10th percentile, $204,000 less at the median, and $1,055,000 at the 90th percentile. Hispanic households faced similar disadvantages, holding $4,000 less in net worth at the 10th percentile, $208,000 less at the median, and $1,023,000 less at the 90th percentile. Disparities continued, but declined, after accounting for labor market disadvantages and credit market access, which again varied across the distribution. Decomposition models show that demographic and income differences mattered more for high-wealth households. These variables accounted for 43–55 percent of the gap for high-wealth households at the 90th percentile but only 10–28 percent at the 10th percentile. Among low-wealth households, differential access to credit markets and homeownership was associated with a larger proportion of the gap in net worth.

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

Michelle Maroto: Department of Sociology, University of Alberta
Email: maroto@ualberta.ca

Acknowledgements: This research was partially supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant (#430-2014-00092).

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Maroto, Michelle. 2016. “Growing Farther Apart: Racial and Ethnic Inequality in Household Wealth Across the Distribution.” Sociological Science 3: 801-824.
  • Received: May 11, 2016
  • Accepted: June 13, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Kim Weeden
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a34


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