ABSTRACT
In the rapidly growing literature on the empirical effects of ethnic diversity different indicators of social cohesion have been applied. Various types of trust, civic engagement, and attitudes supportive of the welfare state are among the most frequently employed variables. More seldom, but appealingly straightforward, is an understanding of social cohesion in terms of the actual ties that might exist between the members of a community, i.e., in a stricter, network-analytical way. Many authors studying the consequences of ethnic diversity rely on relational aspects of cohesion at least in parts of their reasoning. The concept of social cohesion within classrooms measured by basic methods of network analysis. Exponential random graph (ERG) models are a powerful tool to analyze ethnic homophily in networks more precisely. In addition, the ERG model contains a constant, often referred to as "edges", which captures the baseline log-odds of making friendship choices in the classroom.
