brosche

A high response of the sample units approached is one of the cornerstones of survey research (Groves, 1989) and the growing nonresponse has been a constant worry of survey statisticians all over the world (De Leeuw & De Heer, 2002). Several theories on the reasons for nonresponse and panel attrition have been developed over the years (Stoop, 2005). Survey climate and attitudes towards surveys are key concepts in these theories (Loosveldt and Storms, 2008). De Leeuw and colleagues (2010) proposed a brief nine-item scale to measure a person’s survey attitude. It consists of three sub-constructs: survey enjoyment, survey value, and… Read More »Survey attitude, nonresponse, and attrition in a probability-based online panel

While many sociologists focus on contextual drivers of individual behavior (e.g. neighborhoods on individuals), there are few studies on the ways individual behaviors influence social environment. One reason for the dearth of empirical work supporting micro-to-macro links is that there is no method available within regression analysis to properly study this. We developed a conceptually reversed hierarchical linear model (HLM) that utilizes the ‘multiple membership’ variant of the HLM to incorporate an aggregation function into regression modeling. Previous studies examining micro-to-macro links either aggregated or disaggregated the data. These approaches obstruct the inherent aggregation problem, cannot separate micro- and macro-level… Read More »Accomplishing micro-macro aggregations with richly parametrized linear models

Since for high-schoolers many consequential life choices lie still ahead, it is crucial that their choices suit their abilities. Among other things, students’ misperception of their academic ability can lead to educational misinvestment with potentially severe consequences. While previous research has documented gender differences in the self-perception of academic performance, disparities by socioeconomic status (SES) have not been investigated. This paper redresses the gap. Drawing on the German National Educational Panel Study, I examine disparities in the ability to self-evaluate academic performance by SES. Specifically, I rank school grades and academic self-concepts of 15-year-olds within each class to analyze whether… Read More »Socio-economic status and the self-evaluation of school performance

The alarming increase in social inequality in the US corrodes the national ethos as the “land of opportunity” (Grusky and Hill 2018). Embedded in that imagery is the ideal of a nation where rich and poor can co-mingle at work, at play, and at school. The causes and consequences of such cross-SES relationships are the focus of the proposed research. Integrating network dynamics with models of social stratification provides untapped potential for our theoretical and empirical understanding of social inequality. Building on research examining network ties that bridge social strata (Blau 1977; Blau and Schwartz 1984; Bourdieu 1980; Burt 1992;… Read More »Cross-SES friendship and socioeconomic attainment in the US