Study Shows Most White Americans Don't Have Black Friends

[caraher]

53. Hold on

I see some very serious methodology issues in drawing any conclusions about how socially segregated the races are from this study. In fact, it appears what this actually says is that most people confide in their families, and their families tend to be of the same race as the respondents - hardly surprising!

Following an approach developed in the General Social Survey (GSS)*, respondents were asked to name up to seven people with whom they had “discussed important matters” in the past six months. Respondents were then asked to provide five attributes about each of those individuals, including gender, race and ethnicity, religious affiliation, 2012 vote preference, and relationship to the respondent. This approach—known in the social scientific literature as “egocentric network analysis”—is designed to measure the ways in which individuals’ choices and attitudes are influenced by their family and close friends.

I. Social Network Size and Distribution

There are only modest differences in the distribution and average size of Americans’ social networks. Among Americans overall, only eight percent name no persons in their social network, 50 percent name one to three persons, and 43 percent name four or more persons.

Americans overall reported, on average, a social network of 3.4 people out of a maximum of seven people. Overall, people named in these networks are slightly more likely to be immediate family members (an average of 1.8 people) than non-immediate family members (an average of 1.5 people).

Go to the study to read the details... what they're talking about is really family and very close friends; this has nothing to do with broader social networks but the identities of the 3-4 people closest to you, of whom typically 2 are family members. If you assume the family members are classified as "same race" then what you're really looking at is the chance either of one's two closest non-family friends is of a different race.

I think the article says something basically true, but supports it with a study that really doesn't provide very good support for the broader claims about "friends" because the data set is skewed both by the inclusion of immediate family and the attempt to use "friend," "social network" and what amounts to "confidant" interchangeably.

Actual survey question: "From time to time, most people discuss important matters with other people. Looking back over the past six months - who are the people with whom you discussed matters important to you? Just provide their first names or initials and their relationship to you..."

If I were answering that question, there are a lot of people I'd consider "friends" whom I probably would not name.