A Personal Network Measure of Acculturation

Chris McCarty, Survey Research Center, Bureau of Economic and Business Research, University of Florida

Abstract:  McCarty's research interests are in measuring the extent to which personal network compositional and structural variability explains attitudes, behaviors and conditions of individual respondents. He will present the results of a study of acculturation among African and Hispanic migrants to Spain, and Hispanic migrants to the USA. Broadly defined as the result of cultures coming into contact, acculturation as measured by scales is often used to predict specific outcomes of migrants, such as levels of depression, smoking rates, self-perception of health, obesity and number of children. In collaboration with Jose Luis Molina of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, McCarty uses personal network composition and structure as a substitute measure of acculturation. The data were collected using a software program called EgoNet (developed by McCarty) to test whether there are regularities across cultures and geography in personal network composition and structure, and whether personal network composition and structure explain a significant fraction of variance in these outcomes not accounted for by acculturation scales alone. McCarty will also present the results of the application of the E-I index to these data, as well as the research results of his collaborators in the development of personal network typologies using selected compositional and structural properties.