Understanding Mathematical Sociology

John Skvoretz, Distinguished University Professor of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, University of South Florida, USA

• ContentsPreface1 Introduction 2 Talk, talk, talk: participation in task groups 3 We, they, us, them: intergroup relations 4 Agents, teams, success, status: exercises in computational sociology 5 Trajectory and time: dynamic models with applications in stratification and group process research 6 More talk: participation revisited 7 We, they, us, them: intergroup associations revisited 8 We, they, us, them: intergroup associations in the small 9 Coda References

‘Animated by the belief that sociology can be a rigorous science, Skvoretz explains clearly how to design and to study mathematical and computational models to answer substantive micro-macro questions including the emergence of hierarchies in small groups and the construction of homophily in networks of intergroup relationships. Examples of how those models can be connected to empirical data are also provided. In a word, Skvoretz presents mathematical sociology at work thus succeeding in introducing the principles and the tools of mathematical sociology while demonstrating the explanatory power of the approach. This is a text that complements, and is promised to sit aside, iconic introductions to mathematical sociology written by Coleman, Fararo, Sorensen or Rapoport as well as, more recently, by Bonacich and Lu.’