Essex Summer School in
Social Science Data Analysis

Rich DeJordy

Rich DeJordy is Assistant Professor of Management and Organizational Development at Northeastern University, where his research interests include social conformity, institutions, identity and social networks. He is co-author of a number of articles on the use of network tools in the analysis of proximity data.

Paulo Serôdio

Paulo Serôdio is a PhD Candidate in political science at the University of Essex. His research focuses on special interest groups and campaign finance in the United States and Brazil, where he also looks at campaign contribution networks and their evolution over time.

1D Introduction to Social Network Analysis

Rich DeJordy, Northeastern University
Paulo Serôdio, University of Essex
8 -19 July (two week course / 35 hrs)

Detailed Course Outline [PDF]

Course Content

This module is an introduction to the basic concepts, theory, and methods of social network analysis. Social network analysis is a fairly new discipline, which seeks to understand how patterns of connections among members of a system affect the opportunities and constraints that the individual (and the system) encounters.

Course Objectives

Participants will obtain a grounding in the theory and methods of network analysis. Having taken this module, students should be able to design and carry out competent network research studies as well as to be able to interpret network analyses in a consultancy setting.

Course Prerequisites

Participants need to be familiar with basic mathematical notation such as provided in an elementary introductory statistics module. Emphasis is on understanding and interpretative methods, not on the underlying mathematics. Participants should also be comfortable learning new menu-driven software of complexity, such as Microsoft Excel.

Representative Background Reading

Scott, J. 1992. Social Network Analysis. Sage.

Required Reading

Hanneman, R.A., and Riddle, M. Introduction to Social Network Methods. Online book.

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