• Focus on the relationship between personal network ethnic composition and the use of multiple ethnic identifications.
• Explores the notion that m ultiple ethnic identifications arise from participation in multiple spheres of social interaction, as reflected in a person’s social network.
•Hypothesis: people with ethnically heterogeneous personal networks (see Figure
1) are more likely to have multiple ethnic IDs than people with ethnically homogeneous networks (see Figure 2).
•Location: New York, NY
•101 respondents from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic,
Colombia, and Mexico.
•Data collection:
• Personal network survey using
Egonet (McCarty 2003) - 45 alters, data on network composition and structure.
• Factorial survey (Rossi & Noch 1982) to assess ethnic identification switching.
• Ethnic identification survey to elicit list of all the ethnic categories resps identified with.
• Network visualization interviews
A diversity index (IQV) was computed using the categories of the variable “Alter
Country of Birth”
(k)
. Egonet was used to calculate the proportion of alters who belonged to each of six ethnic/nationality categories (p).
IQV = 1 – Σ p2 / (1 – 1/k)
Pearson Correlation Coefficients, N = 101
Prob > |r| under H0: Rho=0
No. of Ethnic IDs
Used
No. of Times
Switched
Ethnic ID
Ethnic Identifications: Latina, Dominicana, Hispana,
Cibaeña, Capitaleña, Caribeña, Morenita,
Dominicana- Americana, Española, Americana
Figure 1. Ethnically heterogeneous network of a
Dominican woman in this study. Alters from the
US, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and others.
Spearman Correlation Coefficients, N = 101
Prob > |r| under H0: Rho=0
Dominant Ethnicity
Represented in Ego Nets
(> 70% of network)
No. of Ethnic IDs
Used
No. of Times Switched
Ethnic ID
American
0.23708
0.0170
0.07004
0.4864
Dominican
-0.10466
0.2976
- 0.28216
0.0043
Mexican
0.11295
0.2607
0.14442
0.1496
Puerto Rican
0.00779
0.9383
0.01974
0.8447
Other
0.04046
0.6879
0.32773
0.0008
Colombian
-0.07956
0.4290
0.14904
0.1369
Table 1. Correlations between dominant ethnicity in respondent’s networks and their use of multiple ethnic identifications
Network Ethnic
Diversity (IQV)
0.27273
0.11233
0.0058
0.2634
Table 2. Correlations between network ethnic diversity and respondents’ use of multiple ethnic identifications
• Hypothesis confirmed – the number of ethnic IDs used was positively correlated with network ethnic diversity (.0058).
• People having networks where Dominicans are the majority are less likely to switch between ethnic IDs (.0043).
• People having networks where “Other” ethnicities predominate are more likely to switch between multiple ethnic IDs (.0008).
• People having networks where Americans predominate use a greater variety of ethnic IDs (.0170).
Ethnic Identifications: Mexicana, Latina,
Tlapanecos, Hispana
Figure 2. Ethnically homogeneous network of a
Mexican woman in this study. Most alters in her network are Mexican.
This project was funded by a NSF Dissertation
Improvement grant and by the National Science
Foundation Award No. BCS-0417429 to Chris
McCarty and Jose Luis Molina .
Agresti, A. and B. F. Agresti (1977) “Statistical analysis of qualitative variation.” Pgs 204-237 in K. F. Schuessler (ed.) Sociological
Methodology 1978. SanFrancisco: Jossey-Bass.
McCarty, C. (2003) “Egonet: Software for the Collection of Egocentric
Network Data.” MDLogix.
Rossi, P.H. and S.L. Noch (1982) “Measuring Social Judgments: The Factorial
Survey Approach. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.