Doing Social Network Research Network Based Research Design For Social Scientists

Table of contents List of boxes List of figures About the author Preface 1 The difference with social network research 2 Fundamental network concepts and ideas 3 Thinking about networks: Research questions and study design 4 Social systems and data structures: Relational ties and actor attributes 5 Network observation and measurement 6 The empirical context of network data collection 7 Ethical issues for social network research 8 Network visualization: What it can and cannot do 9 A review of social network analytic methods 10 Drawing conclusions: Inference, generalization, causality and other weighty matters References Index Doing Social Network Research Doing Social Network Research Network-based Research Design for Social Scientists Garry Robins SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP SAGE Publications Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road New Delhi 110 044 SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd 3 Church Street #10-04 Samsung Hub Singapore 049483 © Garry Robins 2015 First published 2015 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. Library of Congress Control Number: 2014942697 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-4462-7612-9 ISBN 978-1-4462-7613-6 (pbk) Editor: Katie Metzler Assistant editor: Lily Mehrbod Production editor: Ian Antcliff Copyeditor: Richard Leigh Proofreader: Kate Campbell Marketing manager: Sally Ransom Cover design: Shaun Mercier Typeset by: C&M Digitals (P) Ltd, Chennai, India Printed in Great Britain by Henry Ling Limited at The Dorset Press, Dorchester, DT1 1HD 1.1 Some good reasons to incorporate networks into social science research 1 1.2 You need more to incorporate networks into social science research 2 1.3 Pulling back the curtain: What goes on in real network studies 14 2.1 Some important terminology for graphs and networks 20 2.2 The bottom line in this section 22 2.3 Key social network theoretical ideas 28 2.4 Pulling back the curtain: What goes on in real network studies 37 3.1 Binary, valued and ranked ties 46 3.2 Pulling back the curtain: What goes on in real network studies 60 4.1 Some network notation 64 4.2 Creating an adjacency matrix from an edge list 69 4.3 Common types of individual constructs 79 4.4 Pulling back the curtain: What goes on in real network studies 86 5.1 Simple methods for sampling within networks 94 5.2 The wording of name generators 98 5.3 Egonet name generators from the 2005 US General Social Survey 104 5.4 Illustrative instructions for alter–alter data collection 106 5.5 An example of network measurement using position and resource generators 108 5.6 Egonet measurement in the field 109 5.7 The BKS results