Prof. Jochem Tolsma, Radboud University Nijmegen, Mi., 06.07.2016, 12.00-14.00, HS 33 [30.06.16]
Title: "Using network data to disentangle four different 'effects of ethnicity': Bullying and friendship in secondary schools in Austria"
Location of the guest lecture (HS33)
We have the special pleasure to welcome Prof. Dr. Jochem Tolsma, who will talk about the great potential of network data.
We welcome all interested students and faculty to attend the guest lecture!
Abstract
School classes have become more and more ethnically diverse the last decades, thereby shaping opportunities to make both interethnic friends and foes. Positive contact experiences early in life circumvent negative stereotyping and prejudices. Negative experiences may lead to ethnic hostility and ethnic conflict. Scientific knowledge on how and why ethnic diversity affects interethnic relations within the school context may thus be important for educational professionals and policy makers striving for cohesive classes and societies.
The aim of the present study is therefore to investigate the extent to which and why the ethnic composition of the class is related to inter- and intra-ethnic bullying and inter- and intra-ethnic friendships. In our explanatory model, we will disentangle four different ‘effects of ethnicity’:
- Ego-ethnicity effect: the impact of the ethnicity of the pupil who bullies or befriends;
- Alter-ethnicity effect: the impact of the ethnicity of the pupil who is being bullied or befriended;
- Dyad-ethnicity effect: the impact of the ethnic mix of two pupils constituting the bully or friendship dyad;
- Context-ethnicity effect: the impact of the level of ethnic diversity within the class.
Our expectations are derived from the literature on interethnic relations, bullying and friendships. To disentangle the four ethnicity effects we need network data and suitable methods. We will use full network data of the national intervention evaluation study in Austria (ViSC) in which pupils from over 100 secondary school classes have been interviewed on several occasions. Multi-level p2-models are used to test our hypotheses on the first wave of this dataset. The SIENA (Simulation Investigation for Empirical Network Analysis) method is employed to investigate bullying and friendship networks over time.
About
Jochem Tolsma is Associate Professor at the Sociology Department of Radboud University Nijmegen. His research interests include the causes and consequences of ethnic segregation between neighbourhoods, classrooms and core discussion networks. He employs a wide array of research methods (e.g. in depth interviews, experiments, multi-level and spatial regression techniques, SIENA, ABM) to deduce and test hypotheses. His work appeared in journals such as the Annual Review of Sociology, the European Sociological Review and Social Networks.
