Ethnic Homophily in Friendship Selection Among High School Students: The Role of Ethnic and Socioemotional Classroom Composition
Ákos Bocskor, Aleš KudrnáčABSTRACT
Introduction
Research shows that interethnic friendships are beneficial for integration, well‐being, and intergroup relations, yet adolescents often prefer same‐ethnicity friends even in diverse settings. Prior studies point to individual characteristics, structural opportunities for contact, and classroom contexts as potential predictors of ethnic homophily. This study examines whether ethnic homophily is associated with the ethnic and socioemotional composition of the classroom among adolescents in the Czech Republic.
Methods
Our data was collected in the autumn of 2023 from 6,447 students ( M age = 15.6, SD age = 0.73) in 258 classrooms. We estimated ethnic homophily applying exponential random graph models (ERGMs), accounting for reciprocity, transitivity, and homophily in gender and popularity. Meta‐regression was then used to examine the classroom‐level correlates of the ethnic homophily coefficients calculated by the ERGMs.
Results
The ERGMs provide evidence of ethnic homophily across all groups, with stronger effects observed among minority than majority students. For the Czech majority, homophily was positively associated with the proportion of Ukrainian students and negatively with the proportion of the “other ethnicity” group. Among Ukrainian students, homophily was positively associated with the proportion of Czech students. Neither in‐group size nor the socio‐emotional composition of the classroom, measured as classroom averages of empathic concern and perspective‐taking, was associated with ethnic homophily.
Conclusions
Our findings underline the importance of structural factors, the size of relevant out‐groups, in understanding ethnic homophily. They suggest that schools seeking to promote interethnic friendships should prioritize structured opportunities for meaningful cross‐ethnic interaction rather than relying only on general socioemotional characteristics of classrooms.