Call for Papers: Measuring social relations, social networks and social capital in comparative surveys

Session at the 6th Conference of the European Survey Research Association (ESRA), 13th to 17th July 2015 in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Organizers: Christof Wolf (GESIS) and Dominique Joye (University of Lausanne)

The measurement of social relations, social networks and social capital, here understood as resources accessible through one’s social relations, has attracted a lot of attention. Dependent on the intended purpose there exists instruments to measure aspects of specific relations (spouse, best friend), instrument capturing “personal communities”, i.e. the egocentric network approach, or instruments measuring social capital through, for example, social support questionnaires or the position or resource generators.

While we know a lot about the performance of these measures in a national context we lack information on their performance in comparative studies. This session therefore aims to explore the challenges posed by adapting survey instruments measuring social relations, social networks and social capital to a comparative, cross-national investigation. These challenges include problems of

• equivalence of the meaning of stimuli; e.g. do the terms “friends”, “discuss important matters” or “to be close to someone” have the same meaning across countries.

• equivalence of resources; e.g. is knowing a person who can lend me money or who can repair my car equally important in all societies? or

• equivalence of occupations selected for the position generator; e.g. can we find a set of occupations that reflects the entire social structure of different countries equally well?

Of course, these are only few selected examples and there exists many more. We welcome all contributions investigating the challenges encountered when trying to measure social relations, network and capital in cross-national surveys

To submit a paper abstract, visit the conference website at http://www.europeansurveyresearch.org/conference and follow the instructions. Please do not forget to select this session from the list of sessions provided in the submission form. You may submit a maximum of two papers on which you are enlisted as presenting author. The closing date for submission of paper proposals is 15 January 2015.

Authors of selected papers will be invited to give an oral presentation of their paper. Presentations must be given in English.