Social Networks and the Education of Children and Youth

doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-044894-7.00627-8

International Encyclopedia of Education (Third Edition)

2010, Pages 705-711

https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-044894-7.00627-8 Get rights and content

The social networks of children and youth are formed in the context of their families, peer groups, schools, and neighborhood communities. Researchers studying social networks of children and adolescents have primarily been interested in the formation of friendship relations and the impact of social location on academic achievement and social development. This article provides an introduction to social network analysis, identifies key concepts and terms associated with this research methodology, and reviews some of the major social network studies of young children and adolescents.

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Barbara Schneider is the John A. Hannah distinguished professor in the College of Education and the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University; principal investigator for the Data Research and Development Center; co-director of the Alfred P. Sloan Center on Parents, Children and Work; senior fellow, the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago; and research associate with the Population Research Center, NORC and the University of Chicago. Interested in the lives of school-age children and their families and schools, Schneider has published numerous articles, chapters, and books on these topics. In 2005, she was selected by the American Sociological Association as the new editor of Sociology of Education. She served as chair of the Sociology of Education section from 2002 to 2003 and was the editor of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis from 2000 to 2003.

Timothy Ford is a doctoral student in the curriculum, teaching, and educational policy program at Michigan State University and a research associate at the Data Research and Development Center. His primary research interests center on the sociology of education, with an emphasis on how education relates to issues of mobility, social inequality and/or social stratification, and parenting and family life. Tim holds a bachelor's degree in linguistics from Truman State University and an MA in teaching English as a second language from the University of Kansas.

Lara Perez-Felkner is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Advancing Research and Communication at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, where she leads the center's investigation of achievement gaps in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This research complements her broader body of work on the mechanisms underlying racial and ethnic disparities in postsecondary educational attainment. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, in the Department of Comparative Human Development. Her dissertation was a mixed-methods longitudinal study of the postsecondary pathways of high-aspiring Latino and ethnic minority youth in Chicago, for which she was awarded the Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship for Research Related to Education. Lara received an M.A. in human development from The University of Chicago and graduated with high honors in psychology from Wesleyan University.

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