Innovations in Social Network Methods for Examining the Role of Peer Processes in Youth Development

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Social network methods provide rich opportunities to characterize peer social structure and to understand the role of peer processes in youth development. In particular, social network methods can be combined with qualitative approaches in mixed methods studies, can be used to longitudinally to understand selection and influence processes, and can be applied to understand group memberships. The goal of this symposium is to highlight new methodological contributions to the study of youth social networks. Additionally, this symposium will also show how these new methods can be used to make substantive advances to the literature regarding the role of peer processes in youth development.

This symposium showcases four papers that use innovative social network methods to examine the role of peer processes in youth development. The first paper uses a sequential mixed methods design that integrates social network analyses, in-depth qualitative interviews, and coding of online posts to examine the communication strategies of adolescents in a Facebook group. The second paper applies a novel multivariate network science approach to simultaneously examine the influence of same-ethnic and cross-ethnic friends on adolescents’ perceptions of school belonging. The third paper uses a newly-developed longitudinal two-mode, multivariate network analysis to understand the interplay between adolescent friendship, activity co-participation, and race/ethnicity. Finally, the fourth paper demonstrates that a commonly used program for identifying peer groups in developmental research (SCM 4.0) yields a high rate of false positives and presents an alternative approach for identifying peer groups from social cognitive mapping data.

Sub Unit

• Social Relationships

Chair

• Jennifer Watling Neal, Michigan State University

Individual Presentations

• Mixing Network Analysis and Qualitative Approaches in Identifying Adolescents’ Online Communication Strategies - Presenting Author: Mariah Kornbluh, University of Oregon; Non-Presenting Author: Sherry Bell, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

• Belonging in Diverse Contexts: Sociability among Same-Ethnic and Cross-Ethnic Peers - Non-Presenting Author: Johannes Ashwin Rambaran, Universiteit Utrecht; Presenting Author: Adam J. Hoffman, Cornell University; Non-Presenting Author: Deborah Rivas-Drake, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor; Non-Presenting Author: David Schaefer, University of California - Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Adriana J. Umaña-Taylor, Harvard University; Non-Presenting Author: Allison M Ryan, University of Michigan

• The Co-Evolution of Friendship and Activity Contexts and their Consequences for Ethnoracial Segregation - Presenting Author: David Schaefer, University of California - Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Adriana J. Umaña-Taylor, Harvard University; Non-Presenting Author: Deborah Rivas-Drake, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor; Non-Presenting Author: Allison M Ryan, University of Michigan; Non-Presenting Author: Johannes Ashwin Rambaran, Universiteit Utrecht; Non-Presenting Author: Thoa Khuu, University of California Irvine

• False Positives Using Social Cognitive Mapping to Identify Children’s Peer Groups - Presenting Author: Zachary P. Neal, Michigan State University; Non-Presenting Author: Jennifer Watling Neal, Michigan State University; Non-Presenting Author: Rachel Domagalski, Michigan State University