Albero study: a longitudinal database of the social network and personal networks of a cohort of students at the end of high school

ABSTRACT

The Albero study analyzes the personal transitions of a cohort of high school students at the end of their studies. The data consist of (a) the longitudinal social network of the students, before (n = 69) and after (n = 57) finishing their studies; and (b) the longitudinal study of the personal networks of each of the participants in the research. The two observations of the complete social network are presented in two matrices in Excel format. For each respondent, two square matrices of 45 alters of their personal networks are provided, also in Excel format. For each respondent, both psychological sense of community and frequency of commuting is provided in a SAV file (SPSS). The database allows the combined analysis of social networks and personal networks of the same set of individuals.

INTRODUCTION

Ecological transitions are key moments in the life of an individual that occur as a result of a change of role or context. This is the case, for example, of the completion of high school studies, when young people start their university studies or try to enter the labor market. These transitions are turning points that carry a risk or an opportunity (Seidman & French, 2004). That is why they have received special attention in research and psychological practice, both from a developmental point of view and in the situational analysis of stress or in the implementation of preventive strategies.

The data we present in this article describe the ecological transition of a group of young people from Alcala de Guadaira, a town located about 16 kilometers from Seville. Specifically, in the “Albero” study we monitored the transition of a cohort of secondary school students at the end of the last pre-university academic year. It is a turning point in which most of them began a metropolitan lifestyle, with more displacements to the capital and a slight decrease in identification with the place of residence (Maya-Jariego, Holgado & Lubbers, 2018).

Normative transitions, such as the completion of studies, affect a group of individuals simultaneously, so they can be analyzed both individually and collectively. From an individual point of view, each student stops attending the institute, which is replaced by new interaction contexts. Consequently, the structure and composition of their personal networks are transformed. From a collective point of view, the network of friendships of the cohort of high school students enters into a gradual process of disintegration and fragmentation into subgroups (Maya-Jariego, Lubbers & Molina, 2019).

These two levels, individual and collective, were evaluated in the “Albero” study. One of the peculiarities of this database is that we combine the analysis of a complete social network with a survey of personal networks in the same set of individuals, with a longitudinal design before and after finishing high school. This allows combining the study of the multiple contexts in which each individual participates, assessed through the analysis of a sample of personal networks (Maya-Jariego, 2018), with the in-depth analysis of a specific context (the relationships between a promotion of students in the institute), through the analysis of the complete network of interactions. This potentially allows us to examine the covariation of the social network with the individual differences in the structure of personal networks.

PARTICIPANTS

The social network and personal networks of the students of the last two years of high school of an institute of Alcala de Guadaira (Seville) were analyzed. The longitudinal follow-up covered approximately a year and a half. The first wave was composed of 31 men (44.9%) and 38 women (55.1%) who live in Alcala de Guadaira, and who mostly expect to live in Alcala (36.2%) or in Seville (37.7%) in the future. In the second wave, information was obtained from 27 men (47.4%) and 30 women (52.6%).

DATE STRUCTURE AND ARCHIVES FORMAT

The data is organized in two longitudinal observations, with information on the complete social network of the cohort of students of the last year, the personal networks of each individual and complementary information on the sense of community and frequency of metropolitan movements, among other variables.

Social network

The file “Red_Social_t1.xlsx” is a valued matrix of 69 actors that gathers the relations of knowledge and friendship between the cohort of students of the last year of high school in the first observation. The file “Red_Social_t2.xlsx” is a valued matrix of 57 actors obtained 17 months after the first observation.

The data is organized in two longitudinal observations, with information on the complete social network of the cohort of students of the last year, the personal networks of each individual and complementary information on the sense of community and frequency of metropolitan movements, among other variables.

In order to generate each complete social network, the list of 77 students enrolled in the last year of high school was passed to the respondents, asking that in each case they indicate the type of relationship, according to the following values: 1, “his/her name sounds familiar"; 2, "I know him/her"; 3, "we talk from time to time"; 4, "we have good relationship"; and 5, "we are friends." The two resulting complete networks are represented in Figure 2. In the second observation, it is a comparatively less dense network, reflecting the gradual disintegration process that the student group has initiated.

Personal networks

Also in this case the information is organized in two observations. The compressed file “Redes_Personales_t1.csv” includes 69 folders, corresponding to personal networks. Each folder includes a valued matrix of 45 alters in CSV format. Likewise, in each case a graphic representation of the network obtained with Visone (Brandes and Wagner, 2004) is included. Relationship values range from 0 (do not know each other) to 2 (know each other very well).

Second, the compressed file “Redes_Personales_t2.csv” includes 57 folders, with the information equivalent to each respondent referred to the second observation, that is, 17 months after the first interview. The structure of the data is the same as in the first observation.

Sense of community and metropolitan displacements

The SPSS file “Albero.sav” collects the survey data, together with some information-summary of the network data related to each respondent. The 69 rows correspond to the 69 individuals interviewed, and the 118 columns to the variables related to each of them in T1 and T2, according to the following list:

     • Socio-economic data.

     • Data on habitual residence.

     • Information on intercity journeys.

     • Identity and sense of community.

     • Personal network indicators.

     • Social network indicators.

DATA ACCESS

Social networks and personal networks are available in CSV format. This allows its use directly with UCINET, Visone, Pajek or Gephi, among others, and they can be exported as Excel or text format files, to be used with other programs.

The visual representation of the personal networks of the respondents in both waves is available in the following album of the Graphic Gallery of Personal Networks on Flickr: <https://www.flickr.com/photos/25906481@N07/albums/72157667029974755>.

In previous work we analyzed the effects of personal networks on the longitudinal evolution of the socio-centric network. It also includes additional details about the instruments applied. In case of using the data, please quote the following reference:

• Maya-Jariego, I., Holgado, D. & Lubbers, M. J. (2018). Efectos de la estructura de las redes personales en la red sociocéntrica de una cohorte de estudiantes en transición de la enseñanza secundaria a la universidad. Universitas Psychologica, 17(1), 86-98. https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.upsy17-1.eerp 

The English version of this article can be downloaded from: https://tinyurl.com/yy9s2byl

CONCLUSION

The database of the “Albero” study allows us to explore the co-evolution of social networks and personal networks. In this way, we can examine the mutual dependence of individual trajectories and the structure of the relationships of the cohort of students as a whole. The complete social network corresponds to the same context of interaction: the secondary school. However, personal networks collect information from the different contexts in which the individual participates. The structural properties of personal networks may partly explain individual differences in the position of each student in the entire social network. In turn, the properties of the entire social network partly determine the structure of opportunities in which individual trajectories are displayed.

The longitudinal character and the combination of the personal networks of individuals with a common complete social network, make this database have unique characteristics. It may be of interest both for multi-level analysis and for the study of individual differences.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The fieldwork for this study was supported by the Complementary Actions of the Ministry of Education and Science (SEJ2005-25683), and was part of the project “Dynamics of actors and networks across levels: individuals, groups, organizations and social settings” (2006 -2009) of the European Science Foundation (ESF). The data was presented for the first time on June 30, 2009, at the European Research Collaborative Project Meeting on Dynamic Analysis of Networks and Behaviors, held at the Nuffield College of the University of Oxford.

REFERENCES

Brandes, U., & Wagner, D. (2004). Visone - Analysis and Visualization of Social Networks. In M. Jünger, & P. Mutzel (Eds.), Graph Drawing Software (pp. 321-340). New York: Springer-Verlag. 

Maya-Jariego, I. (2018). Why name generators with a fixed number of alters may be a pragmatic option for personal network analysis. American Journal of Community Psychology, 62(1-2), 233-238. DOI 10.1002/ajcp.12271

Maya-Jariego, I., Holgado, D. & Lubbers, M. J. (2018). Efectos de la estructura de las redes personales en la red sociocéntrica de una cohorte de estudiantes en transición de la enseñanza secundaria a la universidad. Universitas Psychologica, 17(1), 86-98. https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.upsy17-1.eerp

Maya-Jariego, I., Lubbers, M. J. & Molina, J. L. (2019). A friendship network in decay: The dynamics of social relationships of a secondary school cohort over the transition to university. Remitido.

Seidman, E., & French, S. E. (2004). Developmental trajectories and ecological transitions: A two-step procedure to aid in the choice of prevention and promotion interventions. Development and Psychopathology, 16(4), 1141-1159. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954579404040179