Developing community structure on the sidelines: A social network analysis of youth sport league parents

ABSTRACT The extant literature suggests that the formation of social networks within local communities may be linked to both positive (e.g., health, social well-being) and negative (e.g., social segregation or stratification) outcomes. In this study, we examine the social networks formed at the structural level by parents of community-based youth sport programs. Employing Quadratic Assignment Procedures t-test and Quadratic Assignment Procedures correlation, we empirically tested changes in recalled network density and homophily effects of parents (n = 391) at a community-level youth sport league located in the Southeastern USA. Our findings suggest that parents’ social networks significantly increased in density from pre- to post-season. However, while we found no significant homophily effects based on socioeconomic characteristics, we did observe significant racial homophily effects for participants in basketball and baseball/softball.

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