A Dynamic Analysis of Interethnic Relationships in High School

• In Event: 519 - Section on Race, Class and Gender Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 02. Attitudes and Identities Among Youth and Young Adults

Abstract

This paper focuses on inter-ethnic relationships between high school students. We investigate friendships as well as negative (dislike, hate) relationships, defining and analyzing two different aspects of ethnicity: ethnic self-identification, and ethnicity perceived by peers. Friendships and negative ties are modelled using dynamic random-coefficient multilevel stochastic actor-oriented models, that allows for change over time in perceptions about each other’s ethnicity. Moreover, our models take into account that not only ethnicity affects relationships, but friendships and negative ties can also influence how students categorize each other. or the analysis, we use a two-wave sample of 12 small Hungarian school classes consisting of two ethnic groups: Roma and non-Roma Hungarian. Our theory is based on the social identity approach, and focuses on strategies members of the lower status social group can use in order to improve their self-esteem. While there are not many significant results in the friendship networks, non-Roma students show a tendency to dislike those they perceive as Roma, regardless of these students’ self-identifications. At the same time, there is growing level of enmity within the Roma group. These results highlight the importance of focusing on negative ties as well as on both aspects of ethnicity.

Authors

• Balint Neray, Università della Svizzera italiana

• Zsofia Boda

• Tom A.B. Snijders, University of Groningen