Race, Multirace, and Racial Heterogeneity of FriendsPosted in Media Archive, Papers/Presentations, Social Science, United States on 2009-10-07 02:28Z by Steven |
Race, Multirace, and Racial Heterogeneity of Friends
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, TBA
New York, New York City
2007-08-11
27 pages
Bethany Hashiguchi
Are biracial youth more likely to be in racially heterogeneous friendship networks than single race youth, and do they act as catalysts for decreased social distance? Using a sample of youth in grades 7-12 in 1994-1995 from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Youth, I study the effects of race and school context on racial diversity of friendship networks to answer these questions. I find that biracial and Hispanic youth are more likely to report heterogeneous friendship groups than non-Hispanic single race youth. In addition, school racial composition is important in determining the relationship between race and friendship heterogeneity. These results suggest that biracial and Hispanic youth bridge the social distance among different single race groups and help weaken social boundaries between racial groups by fostering interracial interactions.
Read the entire paper here.