Friendship Networks and Socioeconomic Outcomes

在不利环境中长大的儿童在以后的生活中面临着教育和经济成功的重大障碍。然而，长期以来的研究表明，弱势青年受到同龄人的影响，并从与来自不同社会和经济背景的儿童的互动中受益。该项目将研究促进学童之间跨越社会经济界限的友谊的条件，以及友谊模式对长期教育成就和经济成功的影响。这项研究将考虑：帮助儿童克服不利背景的特质是否也促进了跨越社会经济界限的友谊，这些友谊是否反过来对生活轨迹产生持久的影响？这项研究的发现将帮助决策者找到帮助来自弱势背景的年轻人成年后获得更大经济成功的途径。本研究将利用全国青少年对成人健康的纵向研究（Add Health）来调查弱势青少年的友谊网络及其影响，该研究是一项具有全国代表性的超过20,000名青少年的纵向研究。这项研究将结合模拟分析和网络分析来研究跨越社会经济界限的友谊如何影响长期的教育、收入和职业结果。这项研究的一个关键贡献将是更好地理解学生和同龄人的成绩为何以及如何相关。该研究旨在理清三种影响：学生友谊的直接影响，对其他学生的间接或“涟漪效应”，以及社区和学校构成的情境影响。该研究将有助于社会学理论的分层，社会网络分析和统计研究的内生性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Children who grow up in disadvantaged environments face substantial barriers to educational and economic success later in life. However, research has long shown that disadvantaged youth are influenced by their peers and benefit from interacting with children who come from different social and economic backgrounds. This project will study the conditions that promote friendships that cross socioeconomic boundaries among school children, and the implications of friendship patterns for longer-term educational achievement and economic success. The study will consider: Do the attributes that help children overcome disadvantaged backgrounds also promote friendships across socio-economic boundaries, and do these friendships in turn have a lasting impact on life trajectories? Findings from the study will help decision-makers to identify pathways that help youth from disadvantaged backgrounds to find greater economic success as adults.This study will investigate the friendship networks of disadvantaged youth and their effects using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), a nationally representative longitudinal study of over 20,000 adolescents. The study will use a combination of simulation analysis and network analysis to study how friendships that cross-socioeconomic boundaries shape longer-term educational, income, and occupational outcomes. One key contribution of the study will be a better understanding of why and how student and peer outcomes are related. The study aims to disentangle three kinds of influence: direct effects of students’ friendships, indirect or “ripple effects” on other students, and contextual effects of neighborhood and school composition. The study will contribute to sociological theories of stratification, social network analysis, and statistical research on endogeneity.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.