ERIC Number: EJ1466740
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-May
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1525-822X
EISSN: EISSN-1552-3969
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Network of Categories: A Method to Aggregate Egocentric Network Survey Data into a Whole Network Structure
Mireia Bolíbar1; Julia Martínez-Ariño2; Maria Schiller3
Field Methods, v37 n2 p110-127 2025
We propose a new method for analyzing and visualizing information on a large collection of personal networks to uncover the socio-centric structure of relationships among aggregated actors that we clustered into categories. The network of categories identifies the links between groups of sampled ego actors sharing a given attribute (e.g., "being immigrant organizations") and abstract attribute-based groups or types of alters (e.g., "any immigrant organization"). This method takes advantage of both whole networks and ego-centered networks analytical approaches since it gains insights into the context's whole network structure while generalizing the results to a wider population. The method can be applied to data obtained through modified versions of instruments such as position or resource generators, which are easy to collect within standard large-N representative surveys. We present a concrete application of the method to the analysis of immigrant organizations' position in local governance networks in 40 French and German cities.
Descriptors: Measurement Techniques, Data Analysis, Data Collection, Networks, Network Analysis, Surveys, Immigrants, Organizations (Groups), Governance, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: France; Germany
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain; 2University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands; 3Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands