2009 - Same-Race Friendships and School Attachment: Demonstrating the Interaction Between Personal Network and School Composition

Attribution: Ueno, Koji
Researchers: Koji Ueno
University Affiliation: The Florida State University
Email: kueno@fsu.edu
Research Question:
  • What is the relationship between number of same-race relationships and school attachment?
  • Does the relationship between same-race friendships and and school attainment get stronger when the school includes a large proportion of same race peers?
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Sociological Forum
Journal Entry: Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 515-537
Year: 2009
Findings:
  1. White students showed the strongest attachment to school, Black students showed the weakest and

    Asians and Hispanic students were in between.

  2. Compared to White and Black students, Hispanic and Asian students had lower proportions of same-race friends, mainly because they make up a smaller proportion of the student body in many schools.
  3. Proportion of same-race friends was positively associated with school attachment. The relationship between friendship, racial composition and school attachment was similar across racial groups (when school composition was not considered).
  4. Proportion of Black peers had a significantly more positive association with school attachment with

    Black students than with White students.

  5. The main effect of school composition was small or nonexistent once friendship composition was

    taken into account.

  6. The relationship between same-race friendships and school attachment was more positive when

    the racial group makes up a higher proportion of the student body for Asian students, this pattern did

    not appear for Black or Hispanic students.

  7. There is a significantly positive relationship between proportion of same-race friends and school

    attachment in the overall sample. This relationship was not any stronger for Whites than for non-

    Whites.

Keywords: RaceRacial CompositionSES CompositionMethodologies: QuantitativeAnalysis Methods: Multilevel Models Sampling Frame:7th through 12th grade students
Sampling Types: Nationally RepresentativeAnalysis Units: SchoolStudentData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
  • The author used the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Analysis includes 112 schools. The sample includes 50,817 students.
  • DV:
    • School attachment
  • IV:
    • Racial background, egocentric network composition, school composition

      control variables: sex, grade level, parents’ education, extracurricular activity, GPA, proportion same race

      friends, proportion same race friends *white, school type, school proportion white, school

      proportion white* white, school proportion white* same-race friends, school proportion white*

      same-race friends*white

  • Theory:

    1. School Composition and School Attachment- school attachment increases under structural

      conditions and school climates that promote personal and pleasant interactions among students and

      teachers. Students who attend a school with many same race peers tend to have stronger

      2. attachment.

    2. Friendship Network Composition and School Attachment- students spend a great deal of time

      interacting with their school friends and engaging in many school activities in the company of their

      friends. Therefore, racial composition of their friend groups is likely to shift the degree to which

      students are exposed to positive and negative responses to their racial background at school.

Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts