The Center for Research on Families at the University of Massachusetts Amherst announces
SUMMER METHODOLOGY WORKSHOP ON SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS
RESEARCHING THE CONNECTED WORLD: AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS
Dates: June 1-3, 2011
Location: Amherst Masschusetts
Instructors: Dr. Andrew Papachristos, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, UMass Amherst and Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar, Harvard University
Dr. Ryan Acton, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Amherst
How do diseases, violence, and fashion trends spread through a population? What is the connection between global trade patterns and modern art? Does marriage affect banking relationships? How do modern technologies such as Facebook affect our intimate relationships? How cohesive are terrorist cells, and how successful are the government’s attempt at dismantling them? How does peer pressure influence obesity, smoking, and other behaviors? The answer to all these questions is based on understanding of social networks and how they are structured.
This workshop is an introduction to the burgeoning field of social network analysis, which spans many disciplines. The morning sessions will focus on introducing the network paradigm, its basic tenets, and methods of data collection and analysis. Topics include: a history of the field; basic graph theory, notation, and properties; network visualization; properties of actors including centrality, power, prestige, and prominence; cohesion and sub-groupings; and a brief introduction to statistical models for social networks. The afternoon sessions will guide the participant through a hands-on tutorial using freely available software and data including PAJEK and R. A variety of data examples will be used from multiple substantive areas.
FEE: General: $500 ; Students/CRF affiliates: $400
TO REGISTER: www.umass.edu/family
