The Relationship Between Networks and Voluntary groups: A Proposal for Replication of the General Social Survey Voluntary Organization and Network Modules

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The project replicates in the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS) two modules -- the 1985 Social Network Module and the Voluntary Association Module (formerly a part of the core GSS items, but lasted asked of a full sample in 1987) as well as link them through a series of new items that supplement these modules. The primary purpose of the replication is to test theoretical ideals, including current questions about civic engagement in both associations and in networks. For example, how do people come to join voluntary groups? How do people become friends and associates? Past research completed in ten communities in Nebraska suggest that the competition of social groups for members and the social networks among individuals govern the rate of growth and decline, the position in social and geographical space, and the social composition of voluntary organization. Previous work has also revealed a powerful association between social network contacts with other individuals and membership in groups and associations. Questions in the two modules have never been asked together on the GSS, even though current theoretical understanding of network and group processes is fundamentally intertwined. These data will allow the PIs to test a key question from a general theory of association: How are the network connections between individuals and the affiliations of individuals to voluntary groups related? More specifically, what proportion of significant social relationships are formed as a result of initial contact in social associations, work groups, and the like, and, conversely, what proportion of connections with such groups and associations occur by virtue of prior connection with a significant other? This project will constitute the first test with national data of the hypotheses about networks and groups from the ecological theory of affiliation. In addition to answering theoretically important questions, the project will generate an important reassessment of civic engagement and community embeddedness almost 20 years after the last major study of these issues on a high quality national probability sample. The data set generated will provide a major resource for other scholars who study voluntary associations, civic engagement, social capital and/or social networks. Information gathered in the context of this study will provide a hypernetwork sample of voluntary associations, which will generate the first true national probability sample of these groups. This sampling frame will be useful for a follow-up study of the groups themselves, and of network ties formed within them.