SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING

OF THE

METHODOLOGY SECTION

OF THE

AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

THEME: MODELING DEPENDENCY

Princeton University

Princeton, New Jersey

March 22-23 2002

Organizers

Bruce Western, Princeton University

Mark S. Handcock, University of Washington

Co-sponsored by the

Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences, University of Washington

the

American Sociological Association Methodology Section

The Keynote Address will be given by

Harrison White

Department of Sociology

Columbia University

at the annual dinner on Friday, March 22nd.

Theme

Over the past 40 years, the advent of abundant micro-level data, regression-based statistical methods, and high-speed computing have led to many advances in the analytic tools available to sociologists for empirical research. This is now a mature field, and advances are increasingly distinguished by substantively motivated methodological development rather than by the improvements in technique alone.

While microdata analysis has been the bread and butter of empirical sociological research, the primary assumption that underlies traditional microdata methods -- independent observations -- is often inappropriate in the social science context. In an important sense, this assumption takes the social out of social science. Increasingly, it is no longer necessary to adopt such assumptions for statistical reasons. From the temporal dependence induced by longitudinal data collection or path dependence, to the spatial dependence induced by sampling, neighborhood context or networks, great progress is being made in the statistical theory and methods for analyzing various forms of dependent data.

Background

Since our first meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, in February 1996, the Methodology Section of the American Sociological Association has been meeting annually to present and discuss cutting-edge work in methodology. The meetings typically run for two days, with papers given in a traditional presenter/discussant format. Traditionally we also have a dinner for participants, followed by a keynote address. In line with the theme of modeling dependent data, this year’s keynote will be delivered by Professor Harrison White, a scholar who has made seminal contributions to social theory, especially in the study of networks and economic sociology.

Thematic sessions

The leading edge of sociological methodology is moving to questions that involve multi-level models, networks, and spatial processes. Some of these directions are:

· Models for individual heterogeneity exploit the within-person dependence induced by longitudinal data collection to obtain better estimates of population parameters and variance decomposition.

· Models for contextual effects, on the other hand, exploit the dependence induced by shared environments to identify effects that operate at different levels.

· Network models, finally, seek to explicitly represent the dependence between persons (or larger units of analysis). There are many methodological issues outstanding. Central among these are the development of a general statistical framework for estimation and inference, and a theory for network sampling.

We would like to encourage the participation at the Annual Meetings of those doing work in these areas, and also work on modeling other social processes based on dependent data. Sessions on cutting-edge general methodology are also welcomed.

Preliminary Program

Professor Bruce Western	Email: western@opr.princeton.edu
Department of Sociology	Web: www.princeton.edu/~western
Princeton University	Phone: (609) 258-2445
116 Wallace Hall	Fax: (609) 258-2180
Princeton, New Jersey 08544

Or to:

Professor Mark S. Handcock	Email: handcock@stat.washington.edu
Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences	Web:www.stat.washington.edu/~handcock
University of Washington	Phone: (206) 221-6930
C014 Padelford Hall	Fax: (208) 445-5942
Seattle, Washington, 98195-4320

Dates and times

The conference will start on Friday, March 22^nd, 9:00am, and finish after the keynote address at 9:00pm, Saturday, 23^rd.

Location

The conference will be held on the campus of Princeton University.

Accommodations

Updated information will be available at the website www.stat.washington.edu/~handcock/asameth02

Registration

Registration information will be posted at a later date. Those who are interested in attending the meeting but do not plan to present papers are encouraged to inform the co-organizers by the beginning of February to facilitate planning for the conference.

Registration form

Preliminary Program

ASA Winter Methodology Meetings

March 22-23, Princeton University

222 Bowen Hall

Friday, March 22

Breakfast , 9:00-10:00am

Session 1. 10:00-12noon

	Social networks models and methods
Christophe Van den Bulte		The sequence of awareness and decision stages within an innovation adoption process, with marketing effort and social network exposure affecting different stages
Yu Xie and Zhen Zeng		Statistical Models for Studying Inter-Group Friendship
Mark Handcock		Advances in Social Network Models and Inference

Lunch, 12:00-1:30pm

Session 2. 1:30-2:45pm

	Labor Market models and methods
Richard Arum	Estimating the effects of state-level educational resource investments on adult labor market outcomes
Marc Scott	Hybrid Population-Average and Individual-Specific Models for Longitudinal Data with Application to labor market outcomes

Afternoon Tea , 2:45-3:15pm

Session 3. 3:15-5:15pm

	Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods in Social Research
Simon Jackman	MCMC and its social application
Scott M. Lynch	MCMC and its social application
Bruce Western	Posterior Predictive Checks for Comparison of Models of Panel Data

Keynote Address by Harrison White, and Conference Dinner (Prospect House), 6:00pm

Saturday, March 23

Breakfast, 9:00-10:00am

Session 1. 10:00-12noon

	Methods and Inference for Longitudinal data
Paul Allison	Bias in Fixed-Effects Cox Regression with Dummy Variables
Ken Hudson	The Hierarchal Linear Difference Model
L. Wu and S. Martin	Effects of Exposure on Prevalence: A Recursive Hazard Model

Lunch, 12:00-1:30pm

Session 2. 1:30-2:45pm

	Mixed Effects models
Guang Guo	Mixed or Multilevel Model for Behavior Genetic Data
German Rodriguez	Generalized Linear Mixed Models.

Afternoon Tea, 2:45-3:15pm

Session 3. 3:15-5:15pm

	Rethinking methods in social research
David Weakliem	The role of hypothesis testing in sociological research
Christopher Winship	Longitudinal Data and Causal Effects
Steve Morgan	Should Sociologists Use Instrumental Variables?