SOCI 424/624

Introduction

Networks & Social Structures
/ Social Networks

  1. Course intro
  2. Course mechanics
    (assignments, evaluations, etc.)
  3. Social structures

Land acknowledgement

McGill University is located on land which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst Indigenous peoples, including the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg nations. McGill honours, recognizes and respects these nations as the traditional stewards of the lands and waters on which we meet today.

https://www.mcgill.ca/fph/welcome/traditional-territory

see also:

Chelsea Vowel. “Beyond Territorial Acknowledgments.” Âpihtawikosisân (blog), September 23, 2016. https://apihtawikosisan.com/2016/09/beyond-territorial-acknowledgments/.

Initial notes

Live classes

  • Some portions of the class (live lectures, lab walkthroughs, full-class discussions) will be streamed/recorded and made available to students in the class
  • Remote participation is possible if you are unable to attend in person some days
  • Lab work sessions will not be recorded/streamed

Introductory questionnaire

Initial notes

Photo of Legault putting on a Habs mask but seeming to have difficulty as the mask is covering his eyes.

Attending in person

  • Wearing of masks is not required, but is greatly appreciated while in the classroom
  • If you have any symptoms of COVID-19 or have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 please stay home (this will not affect your grade in this course)
  • It is up to us to make a safe and welcoming learning environment for everyone!

Course goals

A vintage photo (early 20th century) of a woman in a nightgown sitting suspended in a huge spider web. Her chin is resting on her hand in a slightly pouting gesture.

Social structures

  • Theoretical tools to think about social processes through the lens of social structures and relational systems

Social network theory

  • History and theory of social networks as a way to understand human relations and organization

Network methods

  • Methodological tools to produce and consume empirical network analyses

Balancing theory and methods is tricky, but vital for the topics in the class

Syllabus

Screenshot of the course syllabus

Syllabus is online

  • Available at https://soci424.netlify.app
  • Contains schedule, assignments, assessment, and other important information
  • Updated with links to slides and lecture recordings, and with any schedule changes regularly

Assessment

Percent of final grade
Component Due SOCI 424 SOCI 624
Reading See schedule 10% 10%
Worksheets See schedule 35% 25%
Worksheet peer evaluation See schedule 5% 5%
Project précis Thu, Feb 8 5% 5%
Project proposal Thu, Feb 29 20% 10%
Project presentation Wed, Apr 3 25% 20%
Project paper Fri, Apr 19 N/A 25%

Readings

a pile of open books

Perusall for online reading/evaluation

  • Readings are a central aspect of the course
  • All readings will be done through the online tool Perusall
  • To register for this class's Perusall, see MyCourses

Grading - SOCI 424

  • Each reading is automatically scored 0 points or 1 point
    (Perusall may tell you that the maximum score is 3, but that is not the case in this class)
  • Lowest two reading scores dropped at the end of the term
  • If you did the reading on time, but did not get credit, messame me to fix the score (really)

Grading - SOCI 624

  • Readings will be scored hollistically
  • You are expected to participate in annotations and online discussoins

Readings

Textbook

  • Rawlings, Smith, Moody, and McFarland (2023)
  • General introduction to network analysis especially suited to social scientists
  • Excellent integration of theory and methods
  • Explicit treatment of networks and culture
  • Fantastic hands-on tutorials:
    https://inarwhal.github.io/NetworkAnalysisR-book/
  • First two readings from this book due Tuesday
  • (See also Martin 2009)

Projects

A web of metal rods suspended in air with the sky in the background. They are arranged in vaguely geometrical patterns.

Student projects

Each student will complete an independent research project.

Undergraduate students (SOCI 424) will analyze a network dataset, asking relevant questions and performing a quantitative investigation. The project will culminate in a presentation to the class at the end of the term.

Graduate students (SOCI 624) will complete an original, theoretcially informed research paper. They will present a brief overview of the project in a presentation in the final days of class and turn in a completed paper at the end of the term.

Worksheets

Weekly worksheet

  • Worksheet due most weeks
  • Worksheets are a mix of quantitative tasks and qualitative reflections
  • Distributed and turned in as an R Markdown document (.Rmd)
  • You are welcome and encouraged to work together on these, but they must be submitted individually

Peer assessment

  • Anonymized worksheets will be peer assessed
  • Aftereach worksheet deadline, each student will be assigned two completed worksheets to assess
  • Worksheets will be assessed not jsut for correctness, but also for content, style, and ease of comprehension

Timing

  • Distributed Tuesday
  • Worksheet due Friday
  • Peer assessments due Following Tuesday

Class periods

Thursdays: lecture and discussion

  • Class will typically begin with a lecture and slides
  • Class-wide discussion will follow
  • All readings should be done before Thursday classes

Tuesdays: lab and work session

  • Class will be devoted to worksheets and individual projects
  • Often with some guided code walkthroughs

R!

Working in R

  • The R programming language will be a major compnent of this course
  • We will use R (and R Markdown) to manage data, run network analyses, create visualizations, and write up results
  • The class assumes some familiarity with programming
  • Labs assume you have a laptop you can bring to class
    Let me know ASAP if this won't be possible

Learning R

Video stylized to look like a 1980s hacker sequence. Two hands, one of which is wearing a Nintendo Powerglove type randomly at a retro computer console. Cut to the screen, random letters appear rapidly in the middle of some otherwise plausible computer code.

Social structure

Social structure: an illustration

Photo of a primary school classroom. Students are seated around short tables in short chairs. Their attention is mostly focused on a teacher in the front of the class. The walls are covered with whiteboards, projector screens, and educational posters.

Social structure: an illustration

Photo of a primary school classroom. Students are seated around short tables in short chairs. Their attention is mostly focused on a teacher in the front of the class. The walls are covered with whiteboards, projector screens, and educational posters.

Position

  • A student's relation to the teachers (adults) defines the institutional expectations on their behavior
  • A student's friendships influence their identity, activities, norms
  • Who a student communicates with influences what they know
  • A student's position in a status order defines their power or lack of power and affects mental health and academic achievement

Structure

  • The instructor relationship defines the role of teacher and student across the school
  • Arrangement of friendship cliques define the social cohesiveness of the school
  • Communication patterns influence the speed and accuracy of information spread among students
  • Aggregated status relations define the level of hierchy, conflict, and inequality among students

Some themes

vintage photo (early 20th century) of three acrobats forming a simple human pyramid

Structure is encountered as a constraining external “fact”, BUT it is created and maintained through interaction
E.g. a high-schooler's peer group

Structure has as much to do with relationships (tendencies toward interation) as roles (institutionalized expectations)
E.g. structural division between students and instructors

Small-scale structures, as specific entities (based on relationships, rules, heuristics) imply something about global structures in general
E.g. being friends with your friends' friends

A vintage photo (early 20th century) of a woman in a nightgown sitting suspended in a huge spider web. Her chin is resting on her hand in a slightly pouting gesture.

Image credit

Photo of Legault putting on a Habs mask but seeming to have difficulty as the mask is covering his eyes

Photo by Ryan Remiorz/ The Canadian Press via AP

A vintage photo (early 20th century) of a woman in a nightgown sitting suspended in a huge spider web. Her chin is resting on her hand in a slightly pouting gesture.

Caught in a Web c.1909 Postcard, via Maudelynn's Menagerie

a pile of open books

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

A web of metal rods suspended in air with the sky in the background. They are arranged in vaguely geometrical patterns.

Art by Tomás Saraceno; Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash

Video stylized to look like a 1980s hacker sequence. Two hands, one of which is wearing a Nintendo Powerglove type randomly at a retro computer console. Cut to the screen, random letters appear rapidly in the middle of some otherwise plausible computer code.

Clip from Kung Fury (2015) via giphy

Photo of a primary school classroom. Students are seated around short tables in short chairs. Their attention is mostly focused on a teacher in the front of the class. The walls are covered with whiteboards, projector screens, and educational posters.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

vintage photo (early 20th century) of three acrobats forming a simple human pyramid

Photo from Wellcome Collection

*

Live tour of syllabus

Live tour of Perusall