Informations

RC33 FALL 2019 NEWSLETTER

The International Sociological Association’s RC33 Research Committee “Logic and Methodology”:

President: Vera Toepoel (Netherlands)

Secretary: Martin Weichbold (Austria)

Vice President - Finances: Wander van der Vaart (Netherlands)

Vice President - Membership: Inga Gaizauskaite (Lithuania)

Vice President - Information: Karl M. van Meter (France)

Vice President - Online Communication: Claire Wagner (South Africa)

Vice President for Awards: Henrik Andersen (Germany)

Vice President for Conferences: Iasonas Lamprianou (Cyprus)

Vice President for ISA World Congress Programme Coordination: N.N.

Vice President for ISA Forum Programme Coordination: N.N.

Vice Presidents at Large:

Pei-shan Liao (Taiwan)

Fumiya Onaka (Japan)

Adriana García Andrade (Mexico)

Yashwant Deshmukh (India)

Past President - Nina Baur (Germany)

News from the President

This year we have the luxury of not having to organize a conference, so we can prepare for future conferences and have time to think about what we want for RC33 in the future. The idea has always been to be more inclusive for scholars from Type B and C countries. One of the ideas is to have regional conferences. Regional conferences should reduce the travel time and money, reduce problems with visas that some scholars have, and might also result in conferences that deal with issues more relevant to local scholars. In addition, it broadens the knowledge of non-local attendees. After all, there are major differences in how to do methodology and reasoning between countries and cultures. Luckily we have some very enthusiastic Board members from Asia that have organized a successful conference in the past in Taiwan, and are willing to organize a new conference in Japan (2021). We have been trying hard to find other enthusiasts in other world regions such as Africa, and South and Central America. We are always dependent on volunteers who are willing to undertake such an endeavor. Thanks to the help of our Past President Nina Baur, we are starting to plan a local conference in Africa, and there are also conversations to organize a conference in South America. If you think you can help organize a conference in your region, please let me know and send me an email (v.toepoel@uu.nl). RC33 is very much in need of new blood, since organizing regional conferences is not possible without your help!

We have also set up a blog on our Web site (www.rc33.org) on which we post information about RC33 activities, but also some general thoughts about methodology and logic. For example, I have written a discussion concerning replicability in social sciences. Some scholars argue that there is a replicability crisis, but is that actually the case? Or is it a crisis in some disciplines, but not in others? And if we were to undertake a replicability study, how should we design such a study? A direct replication of a study that is outdated due to developments in society (cultural or technological), does that make sense? But if we update the original study, how could that count as a replication? In all, some food for thought.

We have also restructured our relationship with our BMS journal. All Board members are now part of the editorial team, and we encourage RC33 members to submit papers to the journal. I personally have published a paper about the layout of rating scales, including experimentation with smileys, star ratings, and other mobile-friendly layout suggestions. Please consider the BMS as an outlet for your work.

Next academic year will be another important year, since 2020 is the year of our RC33 conference (8-11 September in Cyprus). We hope to see you all there! We are preparing an exciting program for you, bringing together new technologies but not forgetting traditional methods. And knowing our local organizer Iasonas Lamprianou, who reports below, there will be plenty of opportunities to see Cyprus and enjoy its cuisine and clear blue sea.

See you in Cyprus,

Vera Toepoel

RC33 President

ISA Forum of Sociology 2020 - Let’s Go for Brazil!

While the ISA World Congress of Sociology has a long tradition (the upcoming congress 2022 in Melbourne will be the 20th!), the history of the ISA Forum is rather young: After Barcelona 2008, Buenos Aires 2012 and Vienna 2016, the ISA Forum of Sociology in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in July 2020 will be the fourth in a row. The idea of the Forum is to give the Research Committees (the RCs) more room to present their work and to facilitate exchange between them.

Consequently, RC33 is organizing a number of sessions on methodological issues that should attract the attention of empirically interested sociologists without losing themselves in methodical details. Besides that, we will host joint sessions with other RCs, thus providing an interesting program covering a broad range of methodological topics:

Comparability of Sample Aggregates in Cross-National Surveys

Some people expressed concern about the political situation in Brazil. We share their fears, but are convinced that it is best to make the ISA Forum of Sociology in Brazil a success and to support our colleagues in Brazil by celebrating the unity and strength of the global sociological family. You can find further information on the ISA Homepage and also register there for Porto Alegre (https://www.isa-sociology.org/en/conferences/forum/porto-alegre-2020)!

I’m looking forward to meeting you in Brazil,

Martin Weichbold

RC33 Program Coordinator

Prepare for an Exciting 2020 RC33 Conference in Cyprus!

Yes, the rumors are correct! The 10th International Conference on Social Science Methodology of RC33 (“Logic and Methodology”) of the International Sociological Association will be held in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, on 8-11 September 2020. The local host of the conference will be the University of Cyprus (UCY, http://www.ucy.ac.cy) through its Department of Social and Political Sciences (http://www.ucy.ac.cy/sap/en/). The University of Cyprus is a young but dynamic university with a strong research reputation. Some of its academics figure in the The Highly Cited Researchers list of 2018 (Clarivate Analytics) and the university is positioned favorably in university ranking lists such as the “Shanghai Ranking” and the “World University Rankings”.

The conference will be chaired by Assist. Professor Iasonas Lamprianou and the Local Organizing Committee includes academics from several local universities across Social Science disciplines. We aspire to organize an enjoyable and informative conference, combining high-caliber presentations and a rich social program with excursions and gastronomical treats.

The Department of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Cyprus has a long list of successfully organized conferences. Most recently, in 2016, the Department organized a very successful Midterm Conference for RN21 (Quantitative Methods) of the European Sociological Association (http://www.easyconferences.eu/rn21/).

Although we have not yet finalized the theme of the conference, rest assured that we have started all the other preparations early on. We have booked the Landmark Nicosia hotel, an amazing five star venue in the heart of the capital of the island, walking distance from the old town. With a client rating of 8.6 out of 10 on Booking.com and 4.5 out of 5 on TripAdvisor, we are looking forward to welcoming you. Have a look at the hotel photos online, the swimming pool and the bar and pack your luggage!

More details and a Call for Papers will be available later. A dedicated Web page has also been launched (http://cyprusconferences.org/rc33/) and will be updated frequently for your convenience.

For the time being, we would like to invite you to Cyprus for an enjoyable and inspirational conference!

The Chair of the Local Organizing Committee,

Iasonas Lamprianou

Vice President for Conferences

RC33 Web Site and Research in South Africa

At the RC33 Board meeting in Toronto in July 2018, I gave a brief update on the RC33 Web site (http://www.rc33.org) that was launched in 2017 and asked for feedback from the audience. Someone mentioned that the Blog section was empty and that it would be good to have regular news from RC33 posted on the Blog. I’m pleased to report that our new President, Vera Toepoel, started us off in August with an article on “Replicability in the Social Sciences”. Since then blogs have followed from our new Vice President for Membership (Inga Gaizauskaite), from Pei-shan Liao about the application of survey research in Taiwan, a farewell message from our Past President, Nina Baur, and a letter from the new President. Henrik Andersen introduced himself in the newly created position of Vice President for Awards and we shared some news about the BMS and RC33. Please look out for the forthcoming blog by Ioasonas Lamprianou with information about the 2020 conference in Cyprus. As we elected a new Board and President for 2018-2022, we have also added the profiles of the Board members that can be found on the About Page so that you can familiarize yourself with each Board member’s research and functions.

Since I wrote an article in 2015 for the BMS, reflecting on the state of social science research on the African continent, there have been developments in the South African tertiary education landscape. Although more funding has been made available for the poor and working class, some students continue to protest in 2019 about the lack of accommodations and food, and the slow payment of financial aid, amongst other subjects, while the debate about the feasibility of free higher education persists. The call for a decolonized, transformed curriculum has resulted in some interesting work and events. A publication titled “Transforming Research Methods in the Social Sciences - Case Studies from South Africa” has been released by WITS University Press as an open access document. A conference on moving towards a decolonialized psychology was held in Cape Town in February and another (on the decolonial turn and the humanities curriculum) in Pretoria (at the University of Pretoria) in July. We have had a number of lectures on curriculum transformation at the University of Pretoria, including a visit by Prof Nelson Maldonado-Torres who is the Academy of Science of South Africa’s 2018/2019 Distinguished Visiting Scholar. I am working on transforming the research methods curriculum in psychology (and the broader humanities) with a doctoral student and have an article published in Sage Open that reviews 15 years of literature on teaching qualitative research. I hope to engage with fellow social scientists concerning these topics at the next ISA Forum or Congress, and especially in Cyprus next year!

Claire Wagner

Vice President Online Communication

BMS - RC33 Newsletter, October 2019 - Finances

It’s time for a short overview of RC33 finances during the previous Board term 2014-2018. Since 2014, with the change of the Board and the RC33 Treasurer, we have been working on a new membership payment system that was to be integrated in a new Web site. In 2016, these improvements were realized and led to much more user friendly and efficient membership registration, as we hope some of you have noticed. Similar to the ISA procedure (for RC33 members who are also ISA members), new “RC33-only” members provide membership information and pay their membership fee in the same process through the Web site. Thus the investments in our new Web site were really worth the money and effort.

OPEN IN VIEWER

	SAGE-BMS	Transaction costs	Web- hosting	Web site design	sum
Debet
2018	€ 2.143	€ 130	€ 54	€ 959	€ 3.287
2017	€ 4.344	€ 150	€ 90	€ 580	€ 5.163
2016	€ 509	€ 121	€ 29		€ 660
2015	€ 1.048	€ 116			€ 1.164
2014	€ 3.023	€ 117			€ 3.140
SUM	€ 11.067	€ 634	€ 173	€ 1.539	€ 13.413
	RC33 member fees	ISA member fees	ISA grant	sum
Credit
2018	€ 210	€ 5.206,00	€ 490,00	€ 5.906
2017	€ 2.758			€ 2.758
2016	€ 4.222			€ 4.222
2015	€ 110		€ 490	€ 600
2014	€ 220	€ 2.409		€ 2.629
SUM	€ 7.520	€ 7.615	€ 980	€ 16.115

The above tables provide the main figures of our expenditures and incomes.

The largest debit entries are the payments to SAGE for publishing the BMS and providing the two free BMS issues a year to all RC33 members. You may recognize that the investment in the Web site was one of our main expenditures. On the credit side, it’s clear the membership fees form the mainstay of our organization. For the full 2014-2018 period, about the same amount of fees came in through ISA-RC33 members and RC33-only members. The membership fees in 2016 are inflated since this includes a large transfer of older fees from the former financial account. Fee payments fluctuate strongly over the years since they are paid once every four years and often this payment is connected to a RC33 conference. In addition, ISA provides a grant per Board period (in two terms) for RC33 activities such as conferences and journal issues. Besides to the yearly expenditures and incomes, we have built a general reserve of about €6,000. We may conclude that the finances are steady and sound, but also very vulnerable in terms of membership incomes.

Wander van der Vaart

Vice President for Finances

Books/Livres

Mike Brewer, What Do We Know and What Should We Do About Inequality? Sage Publications, 2019, ISBN 9781526460417, 120 pages. This is a book from the new Sage series “What Do We Know and What Should We Do About:…” that offers readers of all levels, short, up-to-date overviews of key issues often misrepresented or simplified in the mainstream media, written by leading social scientists who have an established reputation in the relevant subject area. In each book, the authors provide an overview of the research around the subject (“what do we know”), whether this be long-established or the most recent findings, and suggest ideas about “what we should do”, based upon the authors’ knowledge of the field, their own views, values and preferences. The series includes other titles such as: What Do We Know and What Should We Do about Immigration? by Jonathan Portes; and What Do We Know and What Should We Do about the Future of Work? by Melanie Simms. In this book on Inequality, Mike Brewer discusses “What We Know” about economic inequalities in the UK, presents a new analysis of the top 1% and 0.1% in the UK, and summarizes the causes and consequences of high levels of inequality. Among other questions, the author examines Thomas Piketty’s prediction that growing wealth inequalities will return us to levels of inequality last seen at the dawn of the twentieth century, and concludes that if the UK wants to move off its high-inequality path, it may involve further taxation, wealth redistribution and welfare reform.

Véronique Lucas-Gabrielli et Catherine Mangeney, L’accessibilité aux médecins généralistes en Île-de-France - Méthodologie de mesures des inégalités infra-communales, IRDES, Document de travail/Working Paper n. 80, juillet 2019, 114 pages, https://www.irdes.fr/recherche/documents-de-travail/080-l-accessibilite-aux-medecins-generalistes-en-ile-de-france-methodologie-de-mesures-des-inegalites-infra-communales.pdf. Dans un contexte d’inégale répartition de l’offre de soins, l’un des défis majeurs des politiques de santé des pays développés consiste à garantir à la population une égale accessibilité aux soins sur leur territoire. Evaluer ces inégalités d’accessibilité devient alors un enjeu. Depuis quelques années de nouvelles méthodes font l’objet d’une convergence d’intérêt dans la littérature géographique internationale. Elles se sont imposées en France à travers l’indicateur d’Accessibilité potentielle localisée (APL) construit par la DREES et l’IRDES. Ce dernier sert de socle à la définition des zonages déficitaires en médecins généralistes institués en 2017-2018 dans l’ensemble des régions françaises. Pour améliorer encore la mesure, la mobilisation de nouvelles données volumineuses (big data) sur la région Île-de-France montre les impacts de différentes évolutions de l’indicateur. La réduction de l’échelle géographique d’observation, de la commune à la maille de 200 mètres, met en exergue des disparités infra-communales importantes. La prise en compte des interactions entre l’offre et la demande à l’échelle régionale est la seconde évolution qui modifie le plus les niveaux d’accessibilité mesurés. L’intégration de la dimension sociale des besoins et des pratiques de mobilité différenciées (voiture, transports en commun…) a des impacts plus locaux. Enfin, la mise en contexte plus globale de l’indicateur, notamment en tenant compte des offres médicales alternatives en spécialistes de premier recours, conduit à apporter une vision des équilibres infra-régionaux très sensiblement modifiée. Les résultats sont présentés sous forme de scénarios comparant l’effet de chacune des hypothèses introduites. Des séries de cartes permettent également d’en avoir une lecture spatiale.

Caroline Guibet-Lafaye (sous la direction de), « Une juste violence ? Violences et radicalités militantes depuis les années 1970 », Parlement[s], 2018, n. 28, Presses universitaires de Rennes, ISBN 9782753574908, 250 pages. Les études de sciences humaines portant sur les violences politiques proposent généralement d’appréhender ces phénomènes en déployant trois types d’analyses. Les premières visent à éclairer les carrières des individus engagés dans les organisations violentes, en analysant, dans une perspective processuelle, les mécanismes qui les poussent à entrer, à rester ou à sortir de ces organisations. Les secondes ambitionnent d’étudier les réactions sociales que suscitent les actions violentes : réactions de la société ou (ré)interprétation médiatiques. Les dernières, enfin, s’efforcent d’envisager la relation duelle entre l’État et ses ennemis en observant la répression de ces groupes, leurs formes spécifiques de coercition et la mise en place de dispositifs pour les juguler. Mais force est de constater le faible nombre de travaux qui proposent d’étudier ce que ces mouvances ont à dire de leurs pratiques et comment ils les justifient. Parce que ces groupes se tiennent dans la clandestinité et hors des barrières de la légalité, leurs actions sont commentées de l’extérieur et réinterprétées par les champs médiatique, politique et universitaire. S’ils doivent légitimer leurs actes pour s’assurer d’un minimum de soutien dans la société civile, ils sont également tenus d’être discrets quant à leurs activités, ce qui complique de fait l’accès du chercheur aux sources et aux terrains. Ce dossier « Une juste violence » de la revue Parlement[s] propose justement de remédier à cette lacune en observant précisément les registres discursifs de légitimation de la violence politique d’une pluralité de groupes aux modes d’action et aux visions du monde très hétérogènes.

Yannik Porsché, Public Representations of Immigrants in Museums - Exhibition and Exposure in France and Germany, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, ISBN 9783319663562, XI, 401 pages. This book offers an interactionist perspective on theories of public representation, knowledge and immigration in museum institutions. Examining how a Franco-German museum exhibition represents immigrants and exposes public stereotypes, the analysis follows the process of the production and reception of the exhibition as it travelled from Paris to Berlin. The author proposes a micro-sociological contextualization analysis integrating discourse analysis and ethnography to compare formats of museum work, social interaction in the exhibition and mass media debates. Visitor reception of the different exhibition versions reveals the symbolic nature of interactions in museums, for example concerning conflicting political voices and accusations of censorship. Depending on the institutional context, interactions in the museums are geared towards securing immigrants a place in national collective memory, towards carrying out debate on integration, or providing opportunities for personal encounters and reflection beyond national categorization.

Patrick R. Ireland, Migrant Integration in Times of Economic Crisis - Policy Responses from European and North American Global Cities, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, ISBN 9783319581002, 117 pages. This book examines how the severe economic downturn following the 2007-2008 financial crisis affected the structural integration and quality of life of urban migrants in Europe and North America. It compares the experiences of migrants from Poland, Romania, Serbia, Pakistan, and Ghana in five similar, secondary global cities of Hamburg (Germany), Barcelona (Spain), Chicago (USA), Toronto (Ontario, Canada), and Montréal (Québec, Canada) over the period of 2000-2015. The work uses statistical analysis to gauge changes in residential segregation and structural integration (such as unemployment, poverty, and social assistance rates). It then provides qualitative analyses of individual city neighborhoods where the target migrant groups have settled, exploring each community’s unique evolution and the ambivalent impact that local policy responses have had on their quality of life. Of particular interest for BMS readers is the methods chapter: “A Mixed-Method Study Comparing Migrant Integration Outcomes in Five Global Cities” (doi 10.4135/9781526477200). “My work uses statistical analysis to gauge changes in residential concentration and segregation, unemployment, poverty, and social assistance rates – what is generally referred to as structural integration. I also provide qualitative analyses of individual city neighborhoods where migrant groups have settled, exploring the areas’ evolution and the ambivalent impact that local policy responses have had on their residents’ quality of life.”

Jennifer Shore and Jale Tosun, A Two-Generation Study in Germany - Insights into Survey Data Collection, Sage Publications, 2019, SAGE Research Methods Cases Part 2, ISBN 9781526464613, doi https://dx-doi-org-s.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.4135/9781526464613. This case examines the design and practicalities of a survey conducted among young Germans (aged 18-35) and their parents. The survey presented is part of the CUPESSE (Cultural Pathways to Economic Self-Sufficiency and Entrepreneurship: Family Values and Youth Unemployment in Europe) project (2014-2018) – a large-scale research project examining young Europeans’ cultural pathways to economic self-sufficiency. The survey was designed to not only capture the economic and educational situations of young people but also how their family background and upbringing influence their relevant life choices. We provide insights into the planning and development of the survey instrument, paying particular attention to both the successes and setbacks encountered. The reader will gain an in-depth look into the practicalities of designing and executing survey research, as well as the trade-offs involved.

Journals/Reviews/Reports

Brendan Read, “The Influence of Device Characteristics on Data Collection Using a Mobile App”, Understanding Society Working Paper Series 2019-01, https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/research/publications/525473. Previous research has found differences in survey outcomes on mobile devices and PCs. A wide variety of mobiles devices are used to respond to surveys. Little is known about how differences in mobile devices may affect data quality. Data is from the Understanding Society Spending Study One, an app-based study asking participants to take pictures of receipts or submit information about purchases. Results suggest some survey outcomes can be strongly affected by the device used. Important device characteristics affecting data quality were whether the device was a tablet or smartphone, the operating system, and the amount of Random-Access Memory.

Maurizio Bussolo, Carla Krolage, Mattia Makovec, Andreas Peichl, Marc Stockli, Ivan Torre and Christian Wittneben, “Vertical and Horizontal Redistribution - The Cases of Western and Eastern Europe”, 2019, EUROMOD Working Paper Series EM1/19, https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/eseemodwp/em1-19.htm. European countries have the world’s most redistributive tax and transfer systems. While they have been well equipped to deal with vertical inequality – that is, fostering redistribution from the rich to the poor – less is known about their performance in dealing with horizontal inequality, that is, in redistributing among socio-economic groups. In a context where individuals may not only care about vertical redistribution, but also about the economic situation of the specific groups they belong to, the horizontal dimension of redistribution becomes politically salient and can be a source of social tensions. We analyze the performance of the 28 EU countries on redistribution across i) age groups; ii) occupational groups; and iii) household types over the period 2007-2014 using counterfactual simulation techniques. We find a great degree of heterogeneity across countries: changes in the tax and transfer system have particularly hit the young and the losers of occupational change in Eastern European countries, while households with greater economic security have benefited from these changes. Our findings suggest that horizontal inequality is a dimension which policy makers should take into account when reforming tax and transfer systems.

“Book Review Symposium”, Public Opinion Quaterly, 2019, 83(1): 159-68. In recognition of the importance of understanding the influence of Russian activities on the 2016 US presidential election, Public Opinion Quarterly assembled three reviews of Kathleen Hall Jamieson’s book, Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President—What We Don’t, Can’t, and Do Know. Although the reviewers – Justin Grimmer (pages 159-163), Regina G. Lawrence (pages 163-166) and Michael Traugott (pages 166-168) – were not equally convinced by the evidence that Jamieson brought to bear, all agreed on the significance and timeliness of the question.

Articles/Chapters

Ronald S. Burt, “The Networks and Success of Female Entrepreneurs in China”, Social Networks, 2019, 58: 37-49. Despite population opinion in China favoring men over women, data on a large probability sample of Chinese entrepreneurs show that men and women – on average – build similar network structures, experience similar distributions of network advantage, achieve similar levels of business success, and experience similar performance returns to their network advantage. Digging into network content, male and female entrepreneurs have similarly close and trusting relations with similar kinds of contacts, with one exception, gender homophily: men are more likely than women to operate in a network composed entirely of men, while women operate more often than men in a network containing multiple female contacts. There is also gender pattern in the use of contacts, reflecting conservative attitudes in the broader society: Women are the object of more interaction on technical matters out of the public eye, while men are the preferred contact for representation (men and women more often cite male contacts for help in founding the business, dealing with suppliers, and dealing with customers). The gender pattern is more obvious in the business contacts of men than in the business contacts of women, and more linked with business success for men. In sum, there is gender pattern to the networks around male and female entrepreneurs, but the network theory of advantage from access to structural holes similarly predicts the success of male and female entrepreneurs regardless of gender.

Gregor Cehovin, Michael Bosnjak and Katja Lozar Manfreda, “Meta-Analyses in Survey Methodology - A Systematic Review”, Public Opinion Quarterly, 2018, 82(4): 641-660. Meta-analytic techniques have become the standard methods for aggregating the results from thematically related studies in the behavioral, health, and economic sciences. To analyze the state of the art of using meta-analyses in survey methodology, previous meta-analyses are systematically identified and classified according to the thematic areas the analyses address. This is followed by identifying gaps in research (areas where there are few or no existing meta-analyses) and investigating potential avenues for future meta-analyses in this field. The findings are based on a systematic search of two bibliographic harvesters (together covering 265 bibliographic databases), which yielded 54 eligible manuscripts reporting 60 meta-analytic studies and 91 effect sizes. To identify the thematic areas, the effect sizes are structured according to seven categories of the total survey error (TSE). Characteristics of primary studies that potentially influence the variability of meta-analytic findings also are considered, such as the survey mode, questionnaire design, and sample characteristics. The results show that the thematic areas of these meta-analyses cover only two of the seven TSE categories: measurement and nonresponse error. Thematic areas in the remaining TSE categories are not covered, and the key practical implication is that gaps exist in current research. Regarding the methodology of existing meta-analyses in the survey methodology field, there are fundamental differences in reporting styles in terms of transparency and replicability, calling for a concerted effort to develop meta-analytic reporting standards for survey methodology.

Aigul Mavletova and Peter Lynn, “Item Nonresponse Rates and Panel Conditioning in a Longitudinal Survey among Youth”, Field Methods, 2019 31(2): 95-115. This article examines two important aspects of data quality in self-completion surveys of young people, taking advantage of a unique data source: Understanding Society - the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study. Young persons aged 10-15 are asked to complete a self-administered paper questionnaire at annual intervals. The number of completed interviews varies over waves from 4,049 to 5,020. Data are also collected from parents, providing important explanatory covariates for the analysis. Stronger parent-child relationship and higher mother’s involvement in education were associated with lower item nonresponse rate and lower inconsistency throughout waves. We also found some evidence for a negative panel conditioning effect with an increase of social desirability bias and measurement errors in the subsequent waves. There was a higher level of inconsistent responses and a higher probability of social desirability bias throughout waves in more sensitive items.

Johannes W. S. Kappelhof and Edith D. de Leeuw, “Estimating the Impact of Measurement Differences Introduced by Efforts to Reach a Balanced Response among Non-Western Minorities”, Sociological Methods & Research, 2019 48(1): 116-155. This study investigates the impact of different modes and tailor-made response enhancing measures (TMREM) – such as bilingual interviewers with a shared ethnic background and translated questionnaires – on the measurement of substantive variables in surveys among minority ethnic groups in the Netherlands. It also provides insight into the ability to detect mode measurement effects of a recently developed method for disentangling mode measurement and mode selection effects, as well as into the tenability of the assumptions underlying this method. The data used in this study come from a large-scale survey design experiment among the four largest non-Western minority ethnic groups in the Netherlands comparing single-mode computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) and sequential computer-assisted Web interviewing, computer-assisted telephone interviewing, and CAPI-MM. The number and intensity of the TMREM varied among the four ethnic groups. The results show that mode measurement effects occur among all ethnic groups and are the result of a combination of the presence or absence of an interviewer and TMREM. Mode measurement effects occur more often on socio-cultural questions, but also, on occasion, on more socio-structural or background questions. The method used to disentangle mode measurement and mode selection effects can be applied to detect mode measurement effects, but one should be cautious in interpreting them. Implausible mode measurement effects can be caused by the violation of the assumptions underlying this method.

Per Block, Christoph Stadtfeld and Tom A. B. Snijders, “Forms of Dependence - Comparing SAOMs and ERGMs from Basic Principles”, Sociological Methods & Research, 2019 48(1): 202-239. Two approaches for the statistical analysis of social network generation are widely used; the tie-oriented exponential random graph model (ERGM) and the stochastic actor-oriented model (SAOM) or Siena model. While the choice for either model by empirical researchers often seems arbitrary, there are important differences between these models that current literature tends to miss. First, the ERGM is defined on the graph level, while the SAOM is defined on the transition level. This allows the SAOM to model asymmetric or one-sided tie transition dependence. Second, network statistics in the ERGM are defined globally but are nested in actors in the SAOM. Consequently, dependence assumptions in the SAOM are generally stronger than in the ERGM. Resulting from both, meso- and macro-level properties of networks that can be represented by either model differ substantively and analyzing the same network employing ERGMs and SAOMs can lead to distinct results. Guidelines for theoretically founded model choice are suggested.

Peter Lynn, “The Advantage and Disadvantage of Implicitly Stratified Sampling”, Methods, Data, Analyses, 2019, 13(2): 253-66, doi 10.12758/mda.2018.02methods, data, analyses. Explicitly stratified sampling (ESS) and implicitly stratified sampling (ISS) are well-established alternative methods for controlling the distribution of a survey sample in terms of variables that define the strata. If these variables are correlated with survey estimates, the estimates will benefit from improved precision. With ESS, unbiased estimation of the standard errors of survey estimates is possible, provided that sampling strata membership is identified on the survey dataset. With ISS, this is not possible and usual practice is to invoke an approximation that tends to result in systematic over-estimation of standard errors. This can be perceived as a disadvantage of ISS. However, this article demonstrates, both theoretically and through a simulation study, that true standard errors can be smaller with ISS and argues that this advantage may be more important than the ability to obtain unbiased estimates of the standard errors. The simulation findings also suggest that the extent of over-estimation with the usual approximate variance estimator may be modest.

Anton Grafström, Magnus Ekström, Bengt Gunnar Jonsson, Per-Anders Esseen and Göran Ståhl, “On Combining Independent Probability Samples”, Survey Methodology (Statictics Canada), 2019, 45(2), https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/12-001-x/2019002/article/00003-eng.htm. Merging available sources of information is becoming increasingly important for improving estimates of population characteristics in a variety of fields. In the presence of several independent probability samples from a finite population, we investigate options for a combined estimator of the population total, based on either a linear combination of the separate estimators or on the combined sample approach (Horvitz-Thompson estimator). A linear combination estimator based on estimated variances can be biased as the separate estimators of the population total can be highly correlated to their respective variance estimators. We illustrate the possibility of using the combined sample to estimate the variances of the separate estimators, which results in general pooled variance estimators. These pooled variance estimators use all available information and have potential to significantly reduce bias of a linear combination of separate estimators.

Past Meetings / Réunions Passées

On 3-6 February 2019, in Cape Town/Stellenbosch, South Africa, the CARME 2019 - Correspondence Analysis & Related Methods conference took place with an excursion to the Cape Peninsula (https://carmesa2019.wixsite.com/conference).

On 7-8 February 2019, in Mannheim, Germany, the Third International CILS4EU User Conference, “Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries” took place (http://www.cils4.eu/images/Programme/cils4eu_2019.pdf).

Les 12-13 février 2019, à Grenoble, en France, les journées d’étude « Question raciale / questions urbaines - Frontières territoriales et racialisation » se sont tenues à l’Université Grenoble Alpes (https://www.pacte-grenoble.fr/actualites/question-raciale-questions-urbaines-frontieres-territoriales-et-racialisation).

From March to May 2019, at the University of Mannheim in Germany, the International Program in Survey and Data Science (IPSDS) took place (https://survey-data-science.net/).

On 6-8 March 2019, in Cologne, Germany, the General Online Research Conference (GOR 19) took place (https://www.gor.de/gor19/).

On 7-8 March 2019, in Mannheim, Germany, the Sixth European User Conference, “Microdata from Eurostat”, took place, organized by German Microdata Lab, GESIS, in cooperation with Eurostat. Microdata from Eurostat are the basis for comparative social research in all of Europe (https://www.gesis.org/angebot/veranstaltungen/gesis-tagungen/european-user-conference-6/).

On 25-29 March 2019, in Turin, Italy, the European Consortium for Sociological Research (ECSR) organized it 2019 “Spring School” (http://www.ecsrnet.eu/spring-summer-school). Since 1999, ECSR has been organized a yearly Spring or Summer School. This Spring School, “New and Old Data - Cutting-edge Approaches to Quantitative Social Research”, was jointly organized by the Collegio Carlo Alberto, the NASP and the ECSR.

On 28-29 March 2019, in Paris, France, the First CASD/IAB Conference on “Advances in Social Sciences Using Administrative and Survey Data”, took place (Anna.Lepouze@casd.eu).

Les 28 et 29 mars 2019, à Lille, en France, le colloque « Internet et les nouvelles formes de participation politique », a eu lieu, organisé avec le soutien du CERAPS (université de Lille), de CEDITEC (UPEC), du CEVIPOL (université libre de Bruxelles) et du CRESPO (université Saint-Louis-Bruxelles) et l’ANR (JGContamin@noos.fr).

On 15-17 April 2019, in Mannheim, Germany, the Forth European Social Survey Conference (ESSC), “Turbulent Times in Europe - Instability, Insecurity & Inequality”, took place (http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/about/conference/).

On 15-18 April 2019, at Utrecht University in the Netherland, the Spring Postgraduate Methodology & Statistics Course, the Four-day Course on the Basics of Bayesian Statistics, offering hands-on experience with OpenBUGS or R and JAGS, took place (ms.post.graduate.education@uu.nl).

Le 18 avril 2019, au Centre d’Alembert, LRI, à l’Université Paris-Sud, le séminaire « Big data, IA, sélection des données » a eu lieu (Jean-Luc.Manguin @unicaen.fr).

On 16 May 2019, at the University of Illinois in Urban-Champaign, Illinois, at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry 2019 (ICQI2019), the Pre-conference Workshop by Reiner Keller, “Doing Discourse Research”, took place (https://icqi.org/registration/).

On 16 May 2019, in Cologne, Germany, the Joint SHARE Germany and SHARE Netherlands User Workshop on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) took place (friedel@mea.mpisoc.mpg.de). Get connected with other SHARE data users and get deep insights into SHARE data!

On 16-17 May 2019, in Cologne, Germany, the Sixth international “pairfam” (German Family Panel) User Conference took place (hank@wiso.uni-koeln.de). There were national and international researchers from all disciplines presenting on topics utilizing data from the German Family Panel pairfam. The conference was held in English.

On 17 May 2019, at the Newcastle University Business School, in Newcastle, England, the Understanding Society workshop, “Persistence of Poverty & Poor Health in the North - Exploring Longitudinal Data”, took place (https://iser.cmail20.com/t/r-l-jilkliud-kuejdmjr-g/), and then on 22 May, in London, the Understanding Society workshop, “Intergenerational Persistence of Poverty and Poor Health in the North”, took place.

On 19-22 May 2019, in Toronto, Canada, the World Association for Public Opinion Research organized its 72nd Annual Conference (https://www.aapor.org/getattachment/Conference-Events/Annual-Meeting/AAPOR-19-CP_webFNL.pdf.aspx).

On 22-25 May 2019, in Konstanz, Germany, the 2019 POLNET Political Networks Conference and Workshops, “Network Models of Culture and Discourse”, took place (christiane.richter@uni-konstanz.de). This year’s summer school on advanced social network analysis was dedicated to the analysis of the nexus between words and networks that offers new possibilities to understand the impact of culture and language use in social networks and vice versa. Scholars used a variety of different approaches: qualitative content based analysis (QSA qualitative structural analysis, content analysis), quantitative analysis (automated content analysis, text mining), or a combination of both (DNA discourse network analysis).

On 23-24 May 2019, at the Georg-August-University Goettingen, in Goettingen, Germany, the meeting, “Data Analysis & Sampling in Mixed Methods & Multimethod Social Research”, took place (https://www.hsu-hh.de/methoden/en/mixed-methods-network).

On 27-28 May 2019, in Mainz, Germany, the Historical Network Analysis Workshop, “Networks across Time and Space – Methodological Challenges and Theoretical Concerns of Network Research in the Humanities”, took place at the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur (https://historicalnetworkresearch.org/).

Les 27 et 28 mai 2019, à Toulouse, en France, la toute première conférence francophone interdisciplinaire sur l’analyse des réseaux, « Frognet », a eu lieu (Picard_Julien@hotmail.fr). Frognet (conférence Francophone sur les Graphes et les Réseaux Sociaux) avait pour ambition de réunir chercheur.e.s et étudiant.e.s mobilisant l’analyse des réseaux, ses théories, ses concepts et ses méthodes. Cette conférence a été notamment l’occasion de favoriser les discussions, les coopérations et collaborations entre divers horizons et disciplines scientifiques : sociologie, économie, histoire, gestion, archéologie, géographie, linguistique, statistiques, mathématiques ou encore informatique.

On 30 May-1 June 2109, in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, the 11th Slovenian Social Science Conference, “Observing Social Transformations: National and Transnational Perspectives” (http://www.fuds.si/en/slovenian-social-science-conference), took place, organized by Slovenian National Committee of the UNESCO Management of Social Transformations Program (MOST) and the School of Advanced Social Studies, Nova Gorica, Slovenia, in cooperation with Slovenian Social Science Association and ISA Junior Sociologists Network.

On 6-8 June 2019, at the University of Turku, in Finland, the conference, “Dynamics of Inequality Across the Life-course (DIAL)” took place (http://dynamicsofinequality.org/midterm-conference/). The DIAL program is focused on understanding the dynamics of inequalities as they unfold over the life course, causal processes and drivers in relation to these inequalities, and the impact of these inequalities on social cohesion.

On 6-8 June 2019, at the University of Bergamo, Italy, the 23rd DiscourseNet Conference - Discourse, Power and Mind - between Reason and Emotion took place with a panel on the theme “Legitimation Processes in Discourse - New Theoretical and Empirical Insights” (Franco.Zappettini@liverpool.ac.uk).

On 10-21 June 2019, in Sardinia, Italy, the BIGSSS Summer School Program, “Migration”, took place. The aim of the BIGSSS summer school program was to support young social scientists by opening a cross-border dialogue on theoretical questions and methodological approaches to current matters of social science research (https://bigsss-css.jacobs-university.de/).

Les 13 et 14 juin 2019, à l’Université de Caen Normandie, en France, le Centre de recherche Risques et Vulnérabilités a organisé une conférence sur « Le travail des données - Sociologie des pratiques de quantification » (https://travaildonnees.sciencesconf.org/).

On 13-14 June 2019, at the University of Mannheim, in Germany, the workshop “How to Analyze Large-Scale Network Structures” on the subject of “The ‘Boundary Specification Problem’ Revisited” (https://bit.ly/2Vl8AKH) took place.

On 16-29 June 2019, at the University of Oxford, in England, the Summer Institute in Computational Social Sciences took place (https://compsocialscience.github.io/summer-institute/2019/oxford/).

On 18-23 June 2019, in Montréal, Canada, the Sunbelt XXXIX Social Network Conference (insna2019@gmail.com) took place following the distribution by the BMS-RC33 list of four Sunbelt XXXIX Calls for Papers: for the “Words and Networks” Session; for the Session in French; for the “Collective Action and Social Movements” Session; and for the “Climate Change” Session.

On 23-28 June 2019, in Ascona, Switzerland, the International Monte Verita Conference on “Immigrants´ Integration, Educational Opportunities and Life Chances”, took place, hosted by the Department of Sociology of Education at the University of Bern (Switzerland) in collaboration with the Institute of Education and Society, University of Luxembourg (Luxembourg) and funded by the Congressi Stefano Franscini (CSF)/ETH Zurich (http://www.iieolc.edu.unibe.ch/unibe/portal/fak_humanwis/philhum_institute/micro_iieolc/content/e699336/e779664/FinalProgram_MonteVerit_2019.pdf).

Les 26 et 28 juin 2019, à Caen, en France, le colloque intitulé « Approches critiques de la dimension spatiale des rapports sociaux - Débats transdisciplinaires et transnationaux » a eu lieu, organisé par l’UMR ESO (Espaces et sociétés) et le Groupe transversal JEDI (Justice, espace, discriminations, inégalités) du Labex « Futurs urbains » de l’Université Paris-Est (https://caen-juin-2019.sciencesconf.org/).

On 26-28 June 2019, in Malmo, Sweden, the International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion program (IMISCOE, https://www.imiscoe.org/), the largest European network of scholars in the area of migration and integration, organized the “Revisiting Integration Studies” conference. The focus was on comparative research and joint research projects. A panel on “Revisiting Integration Studies - Concepts, Methods and Debates on Immigrant Integration” was organized by Géraldine Bozec and Christian Rinaudo (URMIS).

Du 1 au 6 juillet 2019, à Nice, en France, le groupement de recherche Analyse de réseaux en SHS (ARSHS), avec le soutien du Centre de la Méditerranée Moderne et Contemporaine, a organisé une école d’initiation à l’analyse de réseaux (https://arshs.hypotheses.org/1200).

On 2-4 July 2019, in Essex, England, an Understanding Society Scientific Conference was organized on “Sharing Research Based on Longitudinal Household Panel Studies” with 26 sessions, 83 speakers and 86 papers (https://www.understandingsocietyconference.co.uk/).

On 2-4 July 2019, in Bordeaux, France, the French Association of Political Science (AFSP) organized its 15th Congress, in partnership with Sciences Po Bordeaux, and combined with the 8th congress of the Network of Francophone Political Science Associations (CoSPoF). This event was particularly internationalized, as testified by more than 100 of its panels being co-organized by at least one colleague from a national association other than the AFSP (https://www.afsp.info/congres/congres-2019/contacts/).

On 8-12 July 2019, Luxembourg, the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), the University of Luxembourg and the LISER jointly organized the “Summer Workshop on Inequality and Poverty Measurement”, which was taught in English as a one-week intensive course designed to introduce researchers in the social sciences to comparative research on income and wealth distribution, employment and social policy, using the harmonized LIS and the Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS) data bases (http://www.lisdatacenter.org/news-and-events/events/workshop/2019-summer-workshop/).

On 8-26 July 2019, in Cologne, Germany, 39th GESIS Methods Seminar took place (Loretta.Langendoerfer@gesis.org).

On 15-19 July 2019, in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, European Survey Research Association (ESRA) organized the Eight European Survey Research Association Biennial Conference (https://www.europeansurveyresearch.org/). The BMS-RC33 list previously distributed four of the conference’s Calls for Papers: for the “Methodological Issues in Surveying Older People” session; for the “Assessing Implicit Attitudes Using General Population Surveys” session; for the “Sampling Hard-to-Reach Populations” session; and for the “Sensitive Questions in Surveys - What are Sensitive Topics?” session.

BMS-RC33 List of Important “Calls” Since Our N. 142 Issue

Since the preceding N. 142, April 2019, issue of the BMS, all individual and institutional subscribers to the BMS registered with us and all RC33 members received detailed information distributed by our BMS-RC33 list (bms-rc33@services.cnrs) concerning the following important “Calls”:

Anyone can join our free and open but “reduced” list AIMSl (one to two emails per week). However, the “full” BMS-RC33 list (five to six emails per week) is reserved for authors of BMS articles, readers of AIMS lists, members of the RC33 and BMS subscribers.

Tout le monde peut s’inscrire sur notre liste libre et ouvert, mais « réduite », AIMSl (un à deux courriels par semaine). En revanche, la liste « complète » BMS-RC33 (cinq à six emails par semaine) est réservée pour les auteurs d’articles du BMS, les lecteurs de listes de l’AMIS, les membres du RC33 et les abonnés du BMS.