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Genetic ancestry testing is a controversial industry, with scholars questioning the tests legitimacy as well as their potential to increase racial essentialism. Yet despite these controversies, genetic ancestry testing continues to grow in popularity in the United States as a way to either confirm or uncover ethnoracial ancestry. While research is beginning to examine people's interpretations of their ancestry test results, little consideration has been given to realworld outcomes of taking these tests, like their impact on changes in the ethnoracial make-up of social networks. This paper asks whether (1) taking the test, and (2) receiving results of non- European background impacts ethnoracial network diversity for a sample of White Americans. We address these questions using an original randomized controlled trial of White, non-Hispanic Americans, half of whom received genetic ancestry tests. Unexpected findings show that testtakers network diversity shrinks post-test, and especially for those with more diverse networks to begin with. We further explore these patterns, drawing on 57 qualitative follow-up interviews with study participants, and present three potential theoretical explanations for the finding. We discuss how future research can adjudicate between these explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the first time, this paper distinguishes four kinds of individual social capital: access to resources controlled by men or women, through ties to men and women in varied occupations, and access to resources controlled by people in higher or lower prestige occupations, through ties to varied occupations in these groups. We show how homophily, status seeking, the population size and diversity of social settings, and biographical constraints shape individual social capital in such a way that social networks link people of the same gender or similar occupational prestige levels more than they bridge gender and occupational boundaries, so the resources each group most controls stay mostly within the group. Social capital reproduces social stratification, with lower prestige people being especially isolated and disadvantaged. We base our work on a high quality national survey, the 2004 election survey of Canada. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research suggests that tolerance flows from a variety of sources where different types of social networks are but one possible cause. Earlier work has never included many kinds of social networks alongside personal attributes and voluntary association membership, also known to impact tolerance. As such, exploring the theoretical debates surrounding the impact of different types of networks relative to each other, to these other factors and to tolerance has not been possible. For example, debates exist in the literature about whether it is strong, personal ties or weak, acquaintance ties that are most influential of tolerant attitudes towards minorities. Further, do voluntary association members have more tolerance because association activity widens one's network, or because association activities meet the conditions of the "contact hypothesis," or because members are well educated? Both social networks and associations vary in the extent to which they provide the experiences theoretically linked to tolerance. As such, different types of networks and types of associations should have different effects on tolerance. Findings from analyses of the 2004 Canadian federal election study show that tolerance is complex where different types of social networks have varying individual and combined effects on tolerance. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reciprocity - doing for others if they have done for you - is a key way people mobilize resources to deal with daily life and seize opportunities. In principle, reciprocity (the Golden Rule) is a universal norm. In practice, it is variable. Personal networks rarely operate as solidarities and as such, people cannot count on all the members of their networks to provide help all the time. Rather, social support comes uncertainly from a variety of ties in networks. This paper uses survey research to understand the variable and contingent nature of reciprocity and inquires about the kinds of resources exchanged between people. We investigate the extent to which interpersonal ties, network characteristics, and people's social characteristics (e.g., gender) affect the nature of reciprocal relationships. The evidence is extraordinarily clear on one subject - the source of support triggers reciprocity. Analyses show that getting support from network members is the key to East Yorkers reciprocating - usually in kind but sometimes with other forms of support. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research suggests that tolerance flows from personal characteristics (especially education), from diversified networks, and from participation in voluntary associations. But earlier work does not include all of these in the same study, so we have not been able to explore alternative theoretical accounts of how these possible causes of tolerance connect to each other and to tolerance. For example, does education lead to tolerance because education opens minds, or because more educated people develop more diversified networks and are more active in associations? Do association members have more tolerance because association activities meet the conditions for the "contact hypothesis," or because members are well educated, or because association activity widens one's networks? Further, both associations and social networks vary in the extent to which they provide the experiences theoretically linked to tolerance, so types of associations and types of networks should have different effects on tolerance. Exploring such variations provides an enriched test of theoretical conjectures. This paper is based on a national study of the Canadian federal election of 2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology as a discipline has reflected widely on the impact of class, gender and race to group outcomes. These forms of status stratify societies in different ways, impacting individual abilities to find employment, make friends, pursue educational opportunities and even attend cultural events. Yet, when it comes to recognizing these forms of status within the structure of individual social capital, very few studies have considered the class, gender and ethno-racial composition of contacts and looked at the way different factors contribute uniquely to their diversification. Rarer yet is the consideration of ethnic entrepreneurs and the accumulation of diverse social capital as an indicator of fluid and instrumental movement across symbolic boundaries between different status groups. This paper fills that gap by marrying the literature on ethnic boundaries with that of social capital and networks, using data from a case study of Indigenous entrepreneurs in Toronto, Canada. Class, gendered and ethno-racial diversity of ties are considered here as separate but equally important forms of status. Results show that indeed different forms of social capital do exist, evidenced by the variable impact of social background predictors and participation in voluntary associations. While conclusions are made about the value of varieties of social capital in research, this paper also discusses the ability of Indigenous entrepreneurs to maintain co-ethnic social capital while developing new forms of capital consecutively - speaking directly to the nature of boundary spanning, the flexibility of symbolic boundaries and the unique case of Indigenous entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]