"Man acts in spite of the fact that he thinks." (Mannheim 1929, quoted in Mayhew 1983).

"We are a moving average of our associates." (McPherson, 1997)

INTRODUCTION

Social network analysis has become one of the core methods in sociological analysis. It also has become a standard strategy in such diverse fields as anthropology, communications, political science, and psychology. Here are some examples of network analysis that we will read about: friendships in grade school, the social structure of a monastery, how voluntary associations grow and decline, how societies are constrained by their trade relations, how interlocking corporate directorates affect our economy, why the development of elites is inevitable in society, why you are at most three handshakes away from the President of the United States, how people get jobs, how social movements get started, why physicians prescribe the drugs they do, the social structure of gibbons, and how people find illegal abortionists.

We will also get some practical experience in network analysis by analyzing network data with the best network software package UCINET. There are several underexploited datasets that are available, including the General Social Survey network data, some cross-national data on networks, a dataset I created with several grants from the National Science Foundation, and lots of example datasets. The basic idea of the course is to get people thinking about social structure from the structuralist point of view. Along the way, we will be exposed to a fairly radical view of what the enterprise of sociology is about.

REQUIREMENTS

First, an open mind about the relationship between reality and theory. Second, an interest in social structure. Third, a willingness to work hard and contribute to the class by attending, reading, and discussing the work. Fourth, an interest in writing a paper on any topic of network analysis, from method to theory to application. There will be no quizzes or exams. There will be homework to be turned in, which we will discuss in class. The homework will not be graded (except possibly as a result of its absence), but my evaluation of your contribution to the quality of class participation will count in your final grade. The paper is due on the regularly scheduled day of finals. We will schedule milestones for the papers, including proposals, outlines, and so forth. In addition, you will be expected to write a single page each week, discussing a topic in the readings that you found worthy of thinking about. Maybe you agreed or disagreed with something in the readings, or maybe it led you to some wild hypothesis. I want to use these writings to keep up with how you are reacting to the readings, and what you find interesting. We will be doing reading from quite a few sources, as outlined below. My intention is to provide copies of the papers to be read in the sociology library on the fourth floor. You may either buy or borrow the other materials, although my experience is that buying books is a good thing. A schedule of readings follows:
 

Week 1 (Jan 16): Organization of the course and introduction to some general concepts.

You should use the internet to access the INSNA site. The address is: http://thecore.socy.sc.edu/insna.html

Week 2 (Jan 23): The Edge of the Envelope

Mayhew, Bruce H. "Structuralism versus individualism: Part 1, shadowboxing in the dark." Social Forces 59:335-375. 1980.

Mayhew, Bruce H. "Structuralism versus individualism: Part II, ideological and other obfuscations." Social Forces 59:627-648. 1981.

Weeks 3 and 4 (Jan 30 and Feb 6): Formal Methods and Models.

Knoke, David, and J. H. Kuklinski. Network Analysis. Sage.

UCINET IV: A Handbook.

Burt, R.S. 1984. "Network items and the General Social Survey." Social Networks 6:293-339.

Burt, R.S. 1985. "General social survey network items." Connections 8:119- 123.

Burt, R.S. 1991. "Kinds of relations in American discussion networks." In Structures of Power and Constraint: Papers in Honor of Peter M. Blau. C. Calhoun, M.W. Meyer, and W.R. Scott (eds) New York: Cambridge University Press.

Marsden, Peter V. 1987. "Core discussion networks of Americans." American Sociological Review 52: 122-131.
 

Georg Simmel, "The Problem of Sociology." pp. 22-35 in Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms, ed. Donald N. Levine (Chicago, 1971).

Bavelas, A. "A mathematical model for group structure." Human Organization7:16-30.

De Sola Pool, I. and Kochen, M. 1978. "Contacts and Influence." Social Networks 1:5-51.

Simon, Herbert A. "A formal theory of interaction in small groups." American Sociological Review 17:202-211. 1952.
 

Related readings:

Bott, E. Family and Social Network. New York: Free Press. 1957.

Moreno, J.L. Who Shall Survive? Washington, D.C., Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Co. 1934. (reprinted New York 1953 by Beacon House)

Nadel, S. F. The Theory of Social Structure. London: Cohen and West, 1957.
 

Milgram, S. 1967. "The small world problem." Psychology Today 1:62-67.

J. Travers and S. Milgram. "An experimental study of the small world problem." Sociometry 32:425-443. 1969.

Granovetter, M. "The strength of weak ties." American Journal of Sociology78:1360-1380. 1973.

Breiger, Ronald L. 1974. "The duality of persons and groups." Social Forces53:181-189.

Burt, R. S. 1977. "Positions in multiple network systems, part one: a general conception of stratification and prestige in a system of actors cast in a social topology." Social Forces 56:106-131.

Wellman, Barry. "Structural analysis: from method and metaphor to theory and substance." in Wellman, B. and S.D. Berkowitz (eds.) Social Structures: A Network Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1988.

Related readings:

Mitchell, J. C. (Ed.) Social Networks in Urban Situations. Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press. 1969.

Granovetter, M. Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1974.

Lee, N.H. The Search for an Abortionist. Chicago: Chicago Press. 1969.
 

Weeks 7 and 8: The Mayhew-Blau connection

Mayhew, B.H. and R.L. Levinger. 1976. "On the emergence of oligarchy in human interaction." American Journal of Sociology 81:1017-1049.

Mayhew, B.H. and R.L. Levinger. 1976. "Size and the density of interaction in human aggregates." American Journal of Sociology 82:86-110.

Mayhew, B.H. and P.T. Schollaert. 1980. "The concentration of wealth: a sociological model." Sociological Focus 13:1-35.

Mayhew, B.H. and P.T. Schollaert. 1981. "A structural theory of rank differentiation." Chapter 10 in Blau, Peter M. (Ed.) Continuities in Structural Inquiry. London: Sage.

Mayhew, B. H. 1983. "Hierarchical differentiation in imperatively coordinated associations." pp. 153-229 in Research in the Sociology of Organizations S. Bacharach (Ed.) Greenwich:JAI Press Inc.

Blau, P.M. 1977. "A macrosociological theory of social structure." American Journal of Sociology 83:26-54.

Blau, Peter M. 1989. "Structures of social positions and structures of social relations." Chapter 3 in Jonathan Turner (ed.), Theory Building in Sociology, Newbury Park, CA:Sage.

Turner, Johathan H. "A Theory of Social Structure: An Assessment of Blau's Strategy."

Related reading:

Blau, P.M. 1977. Inequality and Heterogeneity: A Primitive Theory of Social Structure. New York: Free Press.

Blau, P.M. and J. Schwartz. 1984. Crosscutting social circles: Testing a Macrostructural Theory of Intergroup Relations. New York: Academic Press.

Weeks 9 and 10: The McPherson Connection.
 

McPherson, J.M. 1982. "Hypernetwork sampling: duality and differentiation among voluntary associations. Social Networks 3:225-249.

McPherson, J.M. 1983. "An ecology of affiliation." American Sociological Review 48: 519-532.

--------------------- and Lynn Smith-Lovin. 1982. "Women and weak ties: Differences by sex in the size of voluntary associations." American Journal of Sociology 87: 883-904.

------------------------------------------- 1986. "Sex segregation in voluntary associations." American Sociological Review 51: 61-79.

------------------------------------------- 1987. "Homophily in voluntary organizations: status distance and the composition of face to face groups." American Sociological Review 52: 370-379.

McPherson, J.M. and J. Ranger-Moore. 1991. "Evolution on a Dancing Landscape: Organizations and Networks in Dynamic Blau Space." Social Forces70:19-42.

McPherson, J.M., Pamela Popielarz, and Sonja Drobnic. 1992. "Social networks and organizational dynamics." American Sociological Review.

Popielarz, Pamela and Miller McPherson. 1995. "On the Edge: Niche Position and the Duration of Voluntary Memberships." American Journal of Sociology.

McPherson, J.M. and Thomas Rotolo. 1996. "Testing a Dynamic Model of Social Composition: Diversity and Change in Voluntary Groups." American Sociological Review
 

Carley, Kathleen. 1991. "A theory of group stability." American Sociological Review56:331-354.

Carley, Kathleen. 1991. "Mental Maps." Social Forces

Krackhardt, D. 1987. "Cognitive social structures." Social Networks 9:109-134.
 

Week 12 (Apr 24): Network Autocorrelation and Network Effects.
 

Erbring, L. and A.A. Young. 1979. "Individuals and Social structure: Contextual effects as endogenous feedback." Sociological Methods and Research. 7:396-430.

French, J.R.Y. Jr. 1956. "A formal theory of social power." The Psychological Review. 63:181-194.

Friedkin, N. 1986. "A formal theory of social power." Journal of Mathematical Sociology. 12:103-126.

Friedkin, N. E. 1990. "Social networks in structural equation models." Social Psychology Quarterly 53:316-328.

Week 13 (May 1): Neglected Topics--depending on interests developed during the semester.