Far from random?: The role of homophily in student supervision

Giulia Rossello () and Robin Cowan
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Giulia Rossello: UNU-MERIT

No 2019-024, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: This paper studies racial and gender homophily in student supervision relationships in a context of social transformations, South Africa academia. We develop a technique to separate choice homophily from that induced by the system. Comprising two permutation tests repeated at two levels of aggregation, system and departments. We find clear evidence of homophily in student supervision, along racial lines in particular. Roughly half of the observed homophily is induced by the departments composition and stays constant over time. Overall, choice homophily has similar magnitude along racial and gender dimensions. Further, we ask where choice homophily originates in the demographic groups of students and professors. We find that white (male) students have high tendency to form same-type relations, while among professors it is black (female) who display the higher frequency. Group differences show that choice homophily is likely to originate from students in the former majority.

Keywords: Academia; South Africa; Student supervision; Network Analysis; Induced homophily; Choice homophily; Segregation; Assortativity mixing; Permutation test; Social Transformations; Social Change; System of Organisations; Institutional constraints; Gender ties; Racial ties; University System; emerging countries; Racial and Gender Homophily (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A14 D71 D85 I23 I24 J15 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-07-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:unumer:2019024

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