Roberto M. Fernandez

Structures of Mediation: A Formal Approach to Brokerage in Transaction Networks

The concept of brokerage has gained considerable attention in recent years, but few researchers have attempted to specify what the phenomenon is. In this paper, we develop a theoretical conception of brokerage behavior in social systems characterized by the exchange or flow of resources. Building on the idea that any set of actors can be partitioned in a meaningful way into a set of mutually exclusive subgroups, we show that such a partition generates five formally, analytically, and intuitively distinct brokerage types or roles. We construct quantitative measures of each of these five types for actors in social networks and for whole systems, and show that statistical inference can be used to test whether occupancy of a brokerage position is the product of a random distribution of exchange relations or the product of underlying social structure.

A Dilemma of State Power: Brokerage and Influence in the National Health Policy Domain

This article shows that occupancy of brokerage positions in the U.S. health policy domains communication network is a crucial determinant of influence. However, the ability to convert structural position into power is contingent on the type of brokerage position occupied and whether the actor is a government organization. In the government sector, actors in representative positions are more influential to the extent that they take public stands on events, whereas liaison and itinerant positions only confer influence if their occupants remain impartial. The article concludess that the influence of government organizations is contingent on their capacity to link disparate actors in the communication network while remaining uncommitted to specific policy agendas.

Networks, Race, and Hiring

It is common for scholars interested in race and poverty to invoke a lack of access to job networks as one of the reasons that African Americans and Hispanics face difficulties in the labor market. Much research has found, however, that minorities do worse when they use personal networks in job finding. Research in this area has been hampered by the complicated and multi-step nature of the job-finding process and by the lack of appropriate comparison data for demonstrating the various ways in which minorities can be isolated from good job opportunities. We seek to specify what it means to say that minorities are cut off from job networks. Building on the literature on social networks in the labor market, we delineate the various mechanisms by which minorities can be isolated from good job opportunities. We examine how these mechanisms operate, using unique data on the chain of network contacts that funnel to an employer offering desirable jobs. We find that network factors operate at several stages of the recruitment process. We find scant evidence, however, that these network factors serve to cut off minorities from employment in this setting. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and methodological implications of the case for the study of networks, race, and hiring.

Gendering the Job: Networks and Recruitment at a Call Center

Understanding the mechanisms driving gender segregation has become a key focus in research on gender and labor markets. While the literature often invokes gender‐sorting mechanisms that operate prehire, the data used to study these processes are usually collected on posthire populations. This article examines the workings of prehire mechanisms determining job sex segregation. Analyzing unique data on the recruitment and hiring process for customer service representatives at a telephone service center, all of the factors examined—preapplication choices, gender homophilous networks, and screeners’ choices—play significant roles in the gender segregation of this job. The analyses also show that making inferences about prehire processes on the basis of posthire data can be misleading. The authors conclude by discussing the theoretical and methodological implications of these findings.

Social Networks and Social Movements: Multiorganizational Fields and Recruitment to Mississippi Freedom Summer

This study explores the role of multiorganizational fields in recruitment to social movements. We study applicants to the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer project from two sites: the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Using network analysis, we develop a model of recruitment that predicts participation on the basis of the structural positions of individuals within the multiorganizational fields, as well as on the basis of individual background factors. We also study the role that the recruitment context plays, by comparing the results at these two universities. Independent of the individual background factors, structural position in the multiorganizational field predicts participation in Freedom Summer at Wisconsin, but not at Berkeley. The effects of individual background factors on participation are also contingent on the recruitment context. We discuss the theoretical implications of our results for the study of the effects of multiorganizational fields and recruitment contexts on participation in social movements.

Skill‐Biased Technological Change and Wage Inequality: Evidence from a Plant Retooling1

One of the most popular explanations for the increased wage inequality that has occurred since the late 1970s is that technological change has resulted in a downward shift in the demand for low‐skill workers. This pattern is also alleged to account for the growth in racial inequality in wages over the same period. This article reports on a case study of the retooling of a food processing plant. A unique, longitudinal, multimethod design reveals the nature of the technological change, the changes in job requirements, and the mechanisms by which the changes affect the wage distribution for hourly production workers. This research finds that, indeed, the retooling resulted in greater wage dispersion and that the changes have also been associated with greater racial inequality in wages. However, contrary to the claims of advocates of the skill‐bias hypothesis, organizational and human resources factors strongly mediated the impact of the changing technology. Absent these “high road” organizational choices, this impact on wage distribution would have been even more extreme.

Bilingualism and Hispanic scholastic achievement: Some baseline results

Abstract The effects of background characteristics and language factors on scholastic achievement are estimated for four groups: Hispanic bilinguals, Hispanic English monolinguals, white bilinguals, and white English monolinguals. For both bilingual samples, proficiency in both English and the other language is positively related to achievement, but frequent use of the non-English language is negatively associated with achievement. The longer the family has resided in the United States, the lower school achievement. Although the process is generally similar for Hispanic bilinguals and other language minorities, some of the results suggest a specific handicap associated with Hispanic minority status.

Dropping out among Hispanic youth

Abstract This paper examines the nature and extent of the dropout problem among Hispanics, compared to non-Hispanic whites and blacks, using data from the sophomore cohort of “High School and beyond,” a national longitudinal study of high school students initiated in 1980. We predict dropping out with measures of scholastic achievement, socioeconomic background, and demographic characteristics for separate race and gender groups. For Hispanics, we also explore the effects of language factors and nativity on dropping out. With the exception of socioeconomic status, the results show similar patterns of effects across groups. Socioeconomic status is a more important deterrent to dropping out among non-Hispanic whites than among Hispanics and non-Hispanic blacks. Simulations of droupout rates based on these analyses reveal that much of the difference in dropout rates observed between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites is due to variations in average background characteristics.

A Multilevel Model of Life Satisfaction: Effects of Individual Characteristics and Neighborhood Composition

The effects of individual attributes, neighborhood context, and neighborhood social comparison on self-reported life satisfaction are examinedfor a sample of United States residents. We hypothesize that neighborhoods are important social contexts within which individuals draw satisfaction from life. In the individual-level model of life satisfaction, the results agree with past research that age, education, health, and marital status affect satisfaction. The effects of neighborhood context and social-comparison processes show that rural dwellers are more satisfied than city dwellers, while persons living in neighborhoods with a high cost of living are less satisfied. People whose incomes are below the neighborhood average may be less satisfied.

American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass.

This article argues that racial segregation is crucial to explaining the emergence of the urban underclass during the 1970s. A strong interaction between rising rates of poverty and high levels of residential segregation explains where, why and in which groups the underclass arose. This argument is developed with simulations that replicate the economic conditions observed among blacks and whites in metropolitan areas during the 1970s but assume different conditions of racial and class segregation. These data show how a simple increase in the rate of minority poverty leads to a dramatic rise in the concentration of poverty when it occurs within a racially segregated city. Increases in poverty concentration are, in turn, associated with other changes in the socioeconomic character of neighborhoods, transforming them into physically deteriorated areas of high crime, poor schools, and excessive mortality where welfare-dependent, female-headed families are the norm. Thus, policies to solve the socioeconomic pr...