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This research captures local networks of German political parties and welfare agencies in regards to poverty. The article explores whether there are differences in regards to homophily and brokerage between the two studied groups using a dataset of 33 egonetworks in two German cities. The computer assisted drawn networks were collected in an interactive participative way together with the interviewed egonetworks. To achieve the theoretical aim of analysing homophily and brokerage between politicians and welfare workers, two hypotheses are examined, resting upon social capital theory. The hypotheses were quantified and explicated with different variables. The first hypothesis states that heterophile networks imply more social capital, which referred to different measurements (size, density, homophily). This could be partially validated since the analysed networks of association representatives (n=12) were denser and slightly more heterophile than those of party representatives (n=21). Second, it was assumed that politicians, because of their function as elected representatives, would be more likely to take on an interface function within the communities than representatives of civil society institutions. Results based on calculated EI-indices, subgraphs and brokerage show that party representatives do indeed have larger networks, but these networks split into fewer subgraphs than association representatives' networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Immigrant adolescents have been found to show high levels of friendship homophily (the tendency to prefer intra-ethnic over interethnic friends). Based on acculturation theories, we predicted longitudinal changes and interindividual differences in level and rate of change in friendship homophily by immigrant composition of school, parental objections to the cultural adaptation of their offspring, discrimination, and language use. Altogether 218 newcomer and 272 experienced adolescents who had emigrated from the former Soviet Union to Germany participated in 4 annual assessments. Friendship homophily was assessed by percentage of intra-ethnic friends. Results revealed higher levels of friendship homophily among newcomer (75%) than among experienced (65%) adolescents at Time 1, and a significant decrease over time was found only among newcomers. Higher age, higher percentage of immigrants at school, and lower levels of new language use all related to higher friendship homophily. Rate of change in friendship homophily was strongly related to change in new language use. Findings suggest that friendship formation with native adolescents is related to social learning processes, in which new language use plays a crucial role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents English language abstracts of articles in the journal including "Self-Employment by Foreigners in Germany: Income Effects and Implications for Entrepreneurship Support Policies," "Homophily Among Good Friends. Close and Weak Friendships Between Children With Migration Background and Native Peers," and "Regional Inequality on the Marriage Market? Regional Aspects of Macro-Structural Restrictions on Partner Choice."