Education and Friendship Choices

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Education and Friendship Choicein Urban Zambia*HOWARD H. G A R R IS O N, V irginia Com m onw ealth U niversity

A B S T R A C TT he im pact of socioecono m ic divisions o n interpersonal relations isex am ined using surv ey data from three Z am bian cities. Indices of the educa-tional homogeneity of friendship choices show that interactional exclusivenessis m ost dev eloped at the ex trem es of the education hierarchy . From 1967 to1973 a modest increase in the indices of hom ogeneous choice for the tw o m osteducated groups suggests a slight intensification of socioeconom ic differentia-tion. A com plemen tary decline in the salience of ethnicity w as not observed.

Evolutionary models of societal development from diverse intellectual tra-ditions often share a common expectation that social class must emerge asthe primary dimension of social differentiation. Marx and Engels antici-pated the increase of class solidarity in backward societies as well as inthe advanced nations of the world. Other modernization expectations,deriving from either organic or bureaucratic models of society, also suggestthe rise of socioeconomic forces as the dominant dimension in social orga-nization. Furthermore a frequent corollary of this expectation predicts thatother traditional or less modern bases of social organization will decline inimportance. The organizing functions of the older social units diminish inscope as opportunities and allegiances become more structured by thesocioeconomic order. Several of the major European theorists of the latenineteenth and early twentieth century, including Marx, Tinnies, Simmel,and Durkheim, viewed ethnicity as one of these declining parochial ves-tiges of preindustrial society (see Blauner). It American sociology theseevolutionary expectations were expressed in the work of Parsons and in*I wish to acknowledge m y gratitude to David S. Wiley and Harry P. Travis for their generouscontributions to this study, to Malcolm C ross, Lynn Nelson, and two a nonym ous referees fortheir comm ents on an earlier version of this paper, and to C heri Nutty for her assistance withthe computations. The 1973 survey data were collected as part of the Zambia H ousing Studydirected by David S. W iley and co-sponsored by the D epartment of Sociology at the Univer-si ty of Zam bia and the Zambian M inistry of Local Gov ernment and H ousing. Funds for theinitial project and financial support for the author during the field work came from theNa tional Insti tute of Men tal He alth under a grant establishing the Sociology of Econom icChange Program at the University of WisconsinMadison. Additional support from the FordFoundat ion, the M idwest U nivers it ies C onsort ium for Internat ional A ffai rs , Inc. , and theRockefeller Foundation supported the field work an d preparation of the data. 1979, University of North Carolina Press. 0037-7732179/570417336 01.501310

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Education Friendship 1 1311

particular in his concept of pattern variables.Recent studies demonstrating the persistence of ethnicity in de-veloped nations have subjected these evolutionary hypotheses to sharpcriticism. In two studies of British voting patterns Hechter (a) contraststhe evolutionary expectation (which he calls the functionalist or diffusionmodel) with a reactive internl colonialism model. Finding no supportfor the thesis that industrialization leads to declining peripheral section-alism, he rejects the diffusion model. In a second paper, Hechter (b)concludes that in culturally dominant regions industrialization has beenassociated with a shift from status to class cleavages while in culturallysubordinate regions status group orientations have persisted as a reactionto the cultural division of labor.

Criticizing several researchers for treating class and class cleavagesas alternative and mutually exclusive bases of political alignment, Raginnotes that class factors may condition or limit the growth of peripheralsectionalism. In an insightful analysis of British elections Ragin qualifiesHechter's conclusions by demonstrating that status based opposition origi-nates among the dominant strata of the peripheral areas and that its growthis limited by class cleavages in that region.The challenges to these evolutionary hypotheses are not limited tostudies of developed nations. Noting the persistence of ethnicity and thefailure of assimilation in the advanced countries, Young states that sub-national solidarity is also of enduring importance in the third world. Hesuggests that certain factors traditionally associated with national integra-tion (urbanization, improved communication, and expanded educationalopportunities) can also lead to consolidation and expansion of ethnic loyal-ties. The continuing salience of ethnicity is not seen as a function of under-development. This view is shared by Enloe who argues that ethnicity anddevelopment are not antithetical.While several of the studies mentioned above focus specifically onpolitical phenomena, the evolutionary expectation of the rising salience ofsocial class and the diminishing impact of ethnicity is not limited to politics.The basic argument is more general, referring to the changing bases ofsocial solidarity. In this paper, survey data are used to examine the validityof these expectations for one aspect of social life (friendship relations) inone underdeveloped African nation (Zambia). Three topics are treated inthis investigation. First, the impact of socioeconomic divisions on friend-ship relations is outlined. Data from two surveys (1967 and 1973) are thencompared in search of changes over time. Finally, the investigation ofthe salience of socioeconomic factors in interpersonal relations is comple-mented with a brief discussion of the impact of ethnicity on friendshipchoice.Education is used as the basic indicator of socioeconomic position.The importance of education in the stratification process (both intergenera-

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1312 1 S ocial Forces I vol. 57:4, june 1979

tional and intragenerational) has been repeatedly demonstrated in studiesof status attainment. This relationship is no less important in newly inde-pendent nations such as Zambia which are attempting to replace foreignersrapidly with citizens in state bureaucracies and major industries. In addi-tion to its salierace in the stratification process, education is important inthe perception (evaluation) of social status. Blau and Duncan demonstratethat most of the variance in occupational prestige scores can be explainedby the average income and educational attainment of the rated occupa-tions. Hodge et al. have shown that these prestige ratings are fairly stableacross nations. Studies in Zambia have also pointed to the correspondenteof Zambian and Western evaluations of occupational prestige. Mitchell andEpstein conclude that these ratings reflect a prestige hierarchy based onmaterial wealth and educational qualifications.

The empirical study of social status and friendship choice has a longtradition in the U. S. (e. g., Curtis; Curtis and Jackson; Hollingshead; Kahl;King; Laumann, a, b; Warner and Lunt). Covering communities of varyingsize (small towns, rural communities, and major cities), studying variousgroups (youth, adult males, and families), and using different measures ofstratification (education, occupation, and income), most of these investiga-tions agree on one major finding: Americans tend to select friends of simi-lar status. Longitudinal studies, however, are almost completely absent.Furthermore, methodological and design differences make rigorous cross-sectional comparisons of research done in different localities extremelydifficult or impossible.l

A second though less general finding to emerge from these investi-gations is that the highest status group has the greatest rate of in-groupchoice. While measures appropriate for a comparison of this nature are notgenerated by all of the studies, Warner and Lunt, King, Curtis, Kahl, andLaumann present data which suggest that the strongest tendency towardin-group choice is in the highest status group. Several of these studies(Curtis; Laumann, b; Warner and Lunt) also note a tendency for the loweststatus groups to have a disproportionately high rate of in-group choice 2

MethodsTHE DATA

This investigation uses data from two surveys. The first survey, conductedby David S. Wiley in 1967, interviewed heads of households in severaltownships of Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. A second survey conductedin 1973 sampled adults in African residential areas 3of the three majorZambian cities: Lusaka, Kitwe (a mining center), and Ndola (a commercialcenter). Interviews were conducted by University of Zambia students

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Education & Friendship 1 1313

using a survey instrument that had been translated into the two majorZambian languages: chiNyanja and chiBemba. In addition to asking fordemographic information about the respondents, they also asked aboutthe education and ethnicity of the respondents' three best friends. 4The majority of the analysis, with the exception of the longitudinalcomparisons, is performed on the data from the larger 1973 survey. Be-cause the lower levels of education and labor force participation for thefemales in the sample complicates the analysis of education and friendshipchoice, this study is limited to data from male respondents.THE CATEGORIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENTThe Zambian education system, based extensively on the British system,has a number of certification levels: primary school, 0 level certificationon the Cambridge exam, A level certification on the Cambridge exam,and university certification. These certification levels suggest logical divi-sions for education categories. Wiley found that completion of a given levelof certification was associated with a nonlinear increase in occupationalprestige scores. This suggests that the discontinuities in the effects of edu-cation correspond with the certification levels and provides further supportfor the treatment of the certification levels as discrete categories. The fol-lowing categories were created using a certification level as a lower limitwhenever possible: no schooling beyond preprimary (0-2 years); someprimary school (3-7 years); completion of primary school (8-9 years); somesecondary school (10-11 years); and 0 level certification and beyond (12or more years).MEASUREMENT OF IN-GROUP CHOICEWith each of the five education groups choosing friends from its ownmembership and the membership of the other groups, the friendshipchoices of all five education groups can be combined to form a 5 x 5 choicematrix. 5The cells along the main diagonal of the table represent educa-tionally homogeneous friendship choices (i.e., in-group selections, wheremembers of Group i choose friends from Group i). In the study of bound-ary maintenance behavior (in-group preference) these cells are of centralimportance. Unfortunately, due to different sizes of the choosing groupsand the chosen groups in the sample, these cell frequencies cannot becompared directly.This problem is not eliminated by substituting percentages for theraw frequencies. Consider the hypothetical situation of a city with threegroups: Group A (80% of the population) and Groups B and C (each 10%of the population). Given a pattern of friendship selection in which there iscomplete independence between choosing and chosen groups, one can

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1314 I Social Forces 1 vol. 57:4, june 1979

expect that 80 percent (64180) of Group A will have homogeneous friend-ships while only 10 percent of Groups B and C will have homogeneousfriendships (see Table 1). Percentaging in this case does not eliminate theproblem of differential opportunity. When expressed as a percentage or as Tabia raw frequency, the diagonal cell from Group A (representing in-groupchoices by that group) is larger than the other two diagonal ceils. However,it is wrong to interpret this as indicating greater in-group preference bychoosers from Group A since the cell values in the example are determinedsolely by the marginal distributions of choosers and chosen. There is noassociation between any row and column category. 6Table 1. HYPOTHETICAL PATTERN OF FRIENDSHIP CHO ICE

ChoosersChosenotalA 64 8 8 80B 8 10c 8 10Total 80 10 10 10 0

The desire to compare friendship preference patterns over sub-samples and across time periods makes the control for the marginal distri-bution of groups essential. Since percentaging will not provide the desiredinformation, some other technique of controlling for marginal distributionsis required. Borrowing from the social mobility literature, Goodman's pro-cedure for measuring intrinsic status inheritance is used to assess the ex-tent to which groups prefer to choose friends from the ranks of their owngroup. Goodman's technique (and the index of intrinsic friendship homo-geneity derived from it) incorporates the odds-ratio (or cross-productsratio) as its basic measure of association. For a 2 2 table, a cross-productsratio adlbc) of 1.0 (and its equivalent log value of 0.0) identifies the casewhere there is no interaction within the table (the row and the columncategories are statistically independent). In other words, the expectedvalues, based on the row and column distributions, are equal to the ob-served values. The index of intrinsic homogeneity, Gi, is the average of aset of odds-ratios for 2 x 2 subtables involving the diagonal cell f{f . Itaverages all of those 2 x 2 subtable odds-ratios formed from two columnsand two rows which include the diagonal cell n the numerator andcontain no other diagonal cells. The intrinsic index of homogeneity can besymbolically expressed asGst=1)x(n 2)where G{, = the index of homogeneity for group i byguestonNovember19,2011http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/Downloadedfrom


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jj ij*.indexes the average deviation of the logarithm of the observed diagonal

cell frequency f l ) from its expected value under the assumption of inde-pendence in the component subtables. For a given group, an intrinsichomogeneity index below 0.0 indicates a less-than-expected rate of in-group choice while an intrinsic homogeneity index above 0.0 indicates agreater-than-expected rate of in-group choice.'

In addition to controlling for the size of the various groups, eachindex of homogeneity also controls for the homogeneous association of allother groups. Returning briefly to the hypothetical example cited above,the index of intrinsic homogeneity would be zero for all three groupsindicating: (1) independence of row and column categories; and (2) equalpreference for self-selection among the three groups.

The initial data on friendship choice are cross-classified into a 5 X 5table (choosers' education by chosens' education) for each of the threesampled cities. However, despite the large number of choice-events (1,316),a problem emerges due to the existence of cells with observed cell fre-quencies of zero. The presence of a zero in any of the four cells used tocompute the cross-products ratio (ad 1 bc, where a b, c and d are cell fre-quencies) constrains the value of the entire cross-products ratio to be zero.A common convention is to add a small constant (usually .5) to all of thecells in the table thus enabling the data to be analyzed. This procedure isfollowed in the present analysis.$

ResultsHOMOGENEOUS FRIENDSHIP CHOICE IN EDUCATION GROUPSThe h om ogene ity indices for the five education categories in each o f thethree cities are presented in Table 2. The lowest score w as 0.13 for thoseindividuals in L usaka w ith 8-9 years o f school ing. This negat ive scorereflecfs a slight tendency for m em bers of this group to underselect friendsfrom w ithin their own edu cation group. The rest of the scores, howeve r,are positive, indicating v arying deg rees of ov erselection o f friends fromone's own educa tion group. The m ost extreme level of in-group preferenceis found in Lu saka am ong those w ith 12 or more years of schooling. Forthis group, the hom ogen eity index of 3.70 indicates a very strong prefer-enc e for friends w ith similar levels of educa tion.In each c ity a remarka bly similar pattern is evident, one in whichthe highest rates of in-group preference o ccur at the top and the bottom ofthe education spectrum. Hom ogeneous choice rates for the m iddle groups

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1316 I Social Forces 1 vol. 57:4, june 1979Tabla 2 INTRINSIC HOMOGENEITY INDICES FOR EDUCATION CATEGORIES

LusakaitwedolaEducation Categoryndexndexndex0-2 years 2.97 1033-7 years .39 28 18 9 years -.13 8310-11ears 1.26 11412 or more years 3.70 70Weighted mean.24

are far lower than those for the m ost and least educated catego ries. The sedifferences are large and statistically significant. The interpretation of thispattern is quite straightforward: interactional exclusiveness or stratumboundary maintenance is most developed at the extremes of the educa-tional hierarchy. This pattern is similar to the one found in several U.S.studies.The em ergence of a social eli te from the ranks of the educated A fricanurbanites has often been noted in studies of African urban l ife. P. C. L loydhas repeatedly emphasized the rise of an educated elite in his work onW est Afr ica . In Centra l Afr ica , researchers f rom the Rhodes LivingstonInstitute (now the Institute for Soc ial Resea rch at the University of Zam bia)have c alled attention to the tenden cy tow ard self-segregation on the part ofthe more educated Africans. Epstein reports in Politics in an Urban AfricanCommunity that the more educated mine workers in Luanshya formedseparate voluntary associations (welfare associations) and a separate union(the M ines African S taff Association). The current investigation of fr iend-ship choice show s that the pattern of elite separation also extends to inter-personal relations. Friendship preference among the highly educated isvery in-group oriented.The ex istence of s t rong group boundar ies among the least educatedsegment of the population has received somewhat less attention in thesocial science l i terature on urban Africa. Some accounts focusing on shantytowns have stressed the spatial congregation of new arrivals to the urbanareas. But the pattern of in-group preference a m ong the least educated is amore general phenomenon which is found in established areas as well asin the shanty tow ns. 9W hile the patterns of elite separation may ha ve beenmore visible to outside observers, the patterns of in-group preferenceamong the least educated are only slightly less salient. The boundariesm ainta ined a t the bot tom of the educat ion scale are com parable to those a tthe top.The lack of crystal lizat ion of group bo undaries in the center of the

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education spectrum is more difficult to interpret. 10A greater degree ofstratification at the top is understandable given the desire of the privilegedto consolidate and protect their position. Similarly, the unique plight ofthose at the bottom of the social spectrum (economic vulnerability, exclu-sion by more prestigious groups, and marginal status in the urban society)might lead one to expect somewhat greater solidarity in this group. Somerationale exists for expecting the rate of in-group choice to be higher at theends of the scale than in the middle. Nevertheless, the almost total absenceof boundary maintenance by the middle groups does not follow from theseexpectations. 11For the groups in the middle of the education spectrum, the ex-tremely low rate of homogeneous preference (in absolute terms as well asrelative to other groups) is surprising. Seventy-five percent of the samplefall into these three middle groups. Thus, for most of the population,educational boundaries are not strongly maintained in interpersonal rela-tions. But for those at the top and the bottom of the education distribution,status boundaries are far more important in structuring friendship choice.LONGITUDINAL COMPARISON OF IN-GROUP FRIENDSHIP CHOICEAMONG EDUCATION GROUPSAlthough cross-sectional examination of urbanization or some other indexof development or modernity is often the basis for testing the evolutionaryhypothesis of rising socioeconomic differentiation, nevertheless it is ade-quately tested only within a longitudinal framework. In order to assess thechanges in the pattern of in-group preference among education groups thedata from the 1973 survey are compared to data from a similar studyundertaken in. 1967. (See Wiley for details of this survey.) The periodcovered by the two surveys was in some ways a period of rapid socialchange in Zambia. From 1969 to 1974 the population of Lusaka grew by 60percent, Kitwe by 63 percent, and Ndola by 52 percent (Europa Y ear Book , a,b). There was a major expansion in education with the number of second-ary school students increasing by 80 percent from 1967 to 1973 (Republic ofZambia, Ministry of Education). In other areas change was less dramatic.Industrial employment has expanded in Zambia but at a slower rate thanurbanization or school attendance. African employment in manufacturinggrew by 23.3 percent from 1967 to 1973, while African employment inmining, Zambia's major export industry, few by only 8.5 percent duringthe same period (Republic of Zambia; Europa Y ear B ook, b).Unlike the 1973 survey which sampled African residential areas inthree cities, the 1967 survey covers a more limited area (Matero and Libala,two council townships12in Lusaka). Therefore, in order to miminize theconfounding of longitudinal changes with other cross-sectional differences,the 1967 data are compared only to the 1973 data from the Lusaka council

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townships. In addition, since the 1967 survey interviewed only male headsof households, all males who were not household heads are excluded fromthe 1973 comparison group (the adjusted Lusaka council subsample).Indices of intrinsic homogeneity calculated for both the 1967 sample

and the 1973 adjusted Lusaka council sample are presented in Table 3. Thetwo sets of indices are very similar and the patterns within each sampleresemble those noted above. Those differences which do occur, while notstatistically significant, are substantively quite interesting. In the least edu-cated category (those with less than three years of education) the rate of in-group preference decreases from 1967 to 1973. The second and third lowestgroups (those with 3-7 years and 8-9 years of education respectively)show stable scores over the six-year period. At the two highest educationlevels the homogeneity scores for the 1973 sample are greater than thosefor 1967.

A second method of assessing the change in educational homo-geneity is to compare the mean homogeneity scores for 1967 and 1973.Since the education categories represent different proportions of the popu-lation, the weighted mean, adjusting for category size, provides a moreaccurate measure of the aggregate level of in-group preference than doesthe simple mean. In 1973 the weighted mean is far greater than for 1967,again demonstrating the increased strength of educational boundaries. It isimportant to note that the increase in the weighted mean in 1973 is dueboth to the increase in the rate of in-group preference in the two highesteducation groups and to the increase in the proportion of the sample inthese groups.The six-year period, 1967-1973, may not be sufficient time to wit-ness major social change; most of the differences in educational homo-geneity for the two time periods are minor. However, the increase in therate of boundary maintenance from 1967 to 1973 among the most educatedTable 3 LONGITUDINAL COMPARISON OF INTRINSIC HOMOG ENEITY INDICESFOR EDUCATION CATEGORIES

1967 1973Matero and Libala Twps.)* Lusaka Council Twps.)*

IndexIndex n0-2 years 2.962 1 59 233-7 years .7 422 .46 588-9 years .1045 .4 3 3510-11ears 1.159 1 94 4712 or more years 3.043.48 46Weighted mean 1.05 1.58*Heads of households only. byguestonNovember19,2011http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/Downloadedfrom


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groups suggests a trend toward greater interactional exclusiveness amongthe more educated segments of the society. This finding is compatiblewith the major evolutionary expectations of stratification trends in under-developed societies.COMPARISON OF HOMOGENEOUS FRIENDSHIP CHOICEIN EDUCATION AND ETHNIC CATEGORIESIn addition to ascertaining the rate of in-group friendship choice for educa-tion groups and assessing their change over the six-year period, a finalobjective of this paper is to compare the indices of homogeneous choicewithin education groups to those for ethnic groups. Data on respondents'and friends' ethnicity are coded in ten language categories. While thesample is quite large (N = 1600), the distribution of language groupsacross cities is such that expected cell values in certain rows and columnsof the 10 x 10 table are extremely small. The small representation of thesegroups makes the estimation of their indices of homogeneous choice prob-lematic. Furthermore, the small and occasionally empty cells could bias theestimates for the larger groups as well. In order to prevent distortion of theindex the tables were reduced from 10 x 10 matrices to 5 x 5 matrices bycombining the smaller groups into a residual category. The analysis isperformed on four ethnic (language) groups: Bemba, Mambwe, Tumbuka,Nyanja, and a residual category. 13From the data on respondents' ethnicityand friends' ethnicity, intrinsic homogeneity indices like those calculatedfor the education groups were computed for each ethnic group in each city.The rates of in-group preference for ethnic groups vary across ethnicgroups and, within ethnic groups, across cities. This far more complexpattern of homogeneous choice is discussed in detail elsewhere (Garrison).However, several brief observations provide an interesting and importantcontrast to the data on homogeneous choices for education groups pre-sented earlier.

The homogeneity scores for education and ethnic groups have dif-ferent ranges with the scores for the education groups reaching lowerminima. For ethnic groups, the homogeneity index rarely falls below 1.00and in no case are outsiders preferred at a higher rate than insiders. Foreducation groups, the minimum value of the homogeneity index in eachcity approaches zero. (For one category in Lusaka the homogeneity indexis negative indicating an underselection of group members as friends.)However, it is interesting to note that the scores for the education groupsalso reach higher maximum values than those for ethnic groups. The rateof in-group preference for those persons with more than 12 years of school-ing exceeds the maximum score for ethnic in-group preference in each city(see Table 4).

A comparison of the mean rates of in-group preference using the

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Tabla 4 INTRINSIC HOMOG ENEITY INDICES FOR ETHNIC GRO UPSLusakaitwedola

Language Groupn exn exn exemb 1.71 143 1.21 191 1.43 164Mambwe 2.64 30 2.97 48 1.71 31Tumbuka 2.91 66 3.18 79 2.69 35Nyanja 1.61 267 1.78 92 2.38 85Weighted mean 1.87 1.92 1.85

*These indices were calculated from 5 x 5 tables using each of thefour language groups listed plus a residual category containing all othergroups. The residual category was created in order to allow the calculation of the homogeneity indices for the remaining groups. The homogeneityscores for the residual category have no substantive interpretation andare therefore not shown.

weighted means of the homogeneity indices can also be made. In each ofthe three cities, the mean index of homogeneous choice for ethnic groupsis higher than that for education groups. Ethnic groups are able to maintainsocial boundaries between members and nonmembers more effectivelythan are the education groups. For most people ethnicity is more likely toserve as a defining feature of urban social relations than is education.Nevertheless, the most educated group maintains a higher rate of homo-geneous choice than any ethnic group. While socioeconomic divisions havenot swept away other bases of solidarity, they have become importantfeatures in the social relations of the most educated urbanites.

Thus, while education is becoming a more prominent dimension ofelite social organization, ethnicity is a more potent force in structuringintimate relations. However, this finding itself does not refute the expecta-tion of the declining salienee of ethnicity since the hypothesis is phrased inexplicitly evolutionary terms. Unfortunately, the longitudinal comparisonof ethnic in-group preference is constrained by a limitation in the surveydata: the representation of two groups in the 1973 Lusaka council sample istoo small to provide reliable estimates of ethnic in-group preference in a5 x 5 table. As an alternative, an examination is made using only the twomost widely represented groups: the Bemba and the Nyanja. All othergroups were combined to form a residual category. Homogeneity indiceswere then calculated from the smaller 3 x 3 tables for the comparable por-tions of the 1967 and 1973 data. Surprisingly, the rates of in-group prefer-ence rose for both of these groups in direct contrast to the evolutionaryexpectation (see Table 5).

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Table 5 LONGITUDINAL COMPARISON OF INTRINSIC HOMOGEN EITY INDICESFOR ETHNIC GROUPS>

1967973Language GroupMatero and Libala Twps.)tLusaka Council Twps.)tn exBemba.6014Nyanja.49

*Calculated from a 3 x 3 table. Heads of households only.

n ex2831.620ConclusionsThe impact of socioeconomic (educational) divisions on friendship choicein Zambia is differentially distributed. People at the extremes of the educa-tion scale are much more likely to prefer friends with similar educationthan are those individuals in the center. This pattern is quite stable acrossthe three cities sampled in 1973.

The period covered by this study was one of rapid change in urbanZambia. The major cities experienced tremendous growth, the educationalsystem was greatly expanded, and employment opportunities for Africansincreased. With these events came a modest increase in socioeconomicboundary maintenance. The mean level of in-group preference is slightlyhigher in 1973 than in 1967. The index of homogeneous choice feil in thelowest education category while members of the two highest educationgroups had a small increase in their rate of in-group preference. The in-creased separation of the most educated group is hardly surprising in lightof the widely held expectation of rising socioeconomic stratification.It is interesting to note, however, that the rise in socioeconomiccleavage comes without a decline in the salience of ethnicity. No support isfound for the decline-of-ethnicity corollary of the evolutionary model. Theincrease in ethnic solidarity displayed by some groups does, however,support Young's view that urbanization, education, and communication(factors often associated with modernization) can also support the crystal-lization of ethnic identities.

While both education and ethnicity are important dimensions in thestructuring of interpersonal relations, the source and form of their impactvaries widely. As Ragin points out, class and ethnicity are not inherentlyantagonistic or mutually exclusive orientations. Although the data do notpermit a comprehensive examination of the degree of ethnic in-choices attwo times, a limited comparison does suggest that ethnic dynamics do notalways operate inversely to socioeconomic forces. From 1967 to 1973, an in-

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crease in the maintenance of education boundaries occurs simultaneouslywith an increase in the maintenance of ethnic boundaries.Notes1. In one of the few studies able to support cross-sectional comparisons, Curtis and Jacksonfind some variation in choice patterns across communities. In-group choice is roughly thesame in three Arizona cities but is positively related to city size in three Indiana cities.2. This U-shaped pattern of higher rates of exclusiveness at the extremes of the status hier-archy is also found in studies of residential segregation. Duncan and Duncan find that thehighest ranking occupation group (professionals) and the lowest ranking occupation group(laborers) are more segregated in their residential location than occupation groups with inter-mediate socioeconomic rankings.3. The low density residential areas, once exclusively European, were not part of thesampling frame.4. The English translation of the chiBemba phrase for best friends is favorite people withwhom you play often.5. Since each of the 610 male respondents in the sample was asked for information about histhree best friends, there are 1,830 possible choice-events. After the elimination of themissing data there are 1,316 such events.6. Actually, two distinct questions can be asked about the in-group friendship choices. Onequestion involves the degree of in-group preference or boundary maintenance which is bestassessed by determining the rate of over-selection net of the effects of group size. Theprincipal concern of this paper is with this issue. A second question involves the actual choicestructure which results from the combination of the preference pattern and the opportunitystructure (i.e., the relative size of each group).7. For a more detailed treatment of this procedure the reader is referred to the originaldiscussion by Goodman.8. Several methods for handling the problem of zero cells were actually employed. A tech-nique of smoothing distributions is suggested by Bishop, Fienberg, and Holland for prob-lems such as this one. A weighted adjustment of each expected cell value under the model ofindependence is added to each observed cell. In this way each cell receives a small (butnon-zero) cell value. Since the measure of in-group choice used in this study is based ondeviations from expected values under the model of independence, this turns out to be a veryconservative adjustment procedure. Analysis performed with this procedure produced resultsalmost identical to those obtained by adding .5 to each cell. For that reason, the results usingthe simpler procedure of adding .5 to each cell are reported in the text.9. In separate analyses for shanty toten and authorized council housing areas, similar patternsof intense in-group attraction among the least educated residents are detected (see Garrison).In two out of three cities the rate of in-group choice was higher for this group in the shantytowns, but in all residential areas, in all three cities, the least educated group showed ex-tremely high levels of in-group preference.10. Both Edward Laumann and Richard Schoenherr have suggested the possibility of an edgeeffect, that is, an artificial limit on the choice range of persons in the top and bottom cate-gories. Given the expectation of similar status friendship choices, the number of adjacentcategories is restricted for the most and least educated groups. (While our measure of in-group choice controls for the statistical properties of the marginal distribution of choosers andchosen, it is not shielded from any potential substantive bias of the edge effect.) The substan-tive implication of the edge effect is that the higher rate of in-choice is not due to socialprocesses (e.g., common class interest) but rather to the more limited range of choices. Theauthor is unaware of any control for this possibility. However, the argument over the edgeeffect does not run counter to the positron taken in this paper; it merely qualifies it somewhat.Since the whole suggestion is predicated on the acceptance of a model of similar statusfriendship choice, the question reduces to whether the degree of homogeneity is accentuatedby the edge effects, not whether it is caused by them. Furthermore, in the investigation ofchanges in the rate of in-group choice, the edge effect will be irrelevant, since it can be safelyassumed that the restriction imposed by being in an edge category will be stable over time.

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11. One might suspect that this finding (the low level of in-choice in the middle educationcategories) is due in part to the particular system of categorization used to form the educationgroups. While it is impossible to completely eliminate the effects of the categorization processin this type of analysis, further investigation does not confirm this suspicion. Combining thethree middle categories into a single category does not alter the basic pattern. In fact, thecombination accentuates the difference between the homogeneous choice rates of the middleand extreme categories.12. These are locally administered government owned housing areas. Shanty townships andself-help housing projects are the other major types of African housing areas in urban Zambia.13. In analyses performed on larger 10 x 10 tables, the basic findings are in agreement withthose reported below for the four groups (see Garrison).ReferencesBishop, Yvonne M., Stephen E. Fienberg, and Paul W. Holland. 1975. Discrete

M ultivariate A nalysis: T heory and Practice. Cambridge: MIT Press.Blau, P. M. 1977. A Macrosociological Theory of Social Structure. A m erican Journalof S oc iology 83(July):26-54.Blau, Peter M., and Otis Dudley Duncan. 1967. T he A m erican Occupational S tructure.New York: Wiley.Blauner, Robert. 1972: R acial Oppression in A m erica. New York: Harper & Row.Curtis, R. F. 1963. Differential Association and the Stratification of the UrbanCommunity. S ocial Forces 42(October):68-77.Curtis, Richard F., and Elton F. Jackson. 1977. Inequality in A m erican Com m unit ies.New York: Academic Press.Duncan, O. D., and B. Duncan. 1955. Residential Distribution and OccupationalStratification. A m erican Journal of Sociology 60(March):493-503.Enloe, Cynthia H. 1973. Ethnic Conflict and Political Development. Boston: Little,Brown.Epstein, A. L. 1958. Polit ics in an Urban A frican Com m unity . Manchester: ManchesterUniversity Press.Europa Y ear B ook. a:1971. London: Europa Publications.. b:1977. London: Europa Publications.Garrison, H. H. 1976. Patterns of Ethnic and Socioeconomic Association in UrbanZambia: The Structural Bases of Friendship Choice. Unpublished Ph.D. dis-sertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison.Goodman. L. A. 1969. How to Ransack Social Mobility Tables and Other Kinds ofCross-Classification Tables. A m erican Journal of Sociology 75(July):1-40.Hechter, Michael. a:1973. The Persistence of Regionalism in the British Isles, 1885-

1966. A m erican Journal of Sociology 79(September):319-42.. b:1974. The Political Economy of Ethnic Change. A m erican Journal of Soci-ology 79(March):1151-78.

Hodge, R. W., D. Treiman, and P. H. Rossi. 1966. A Comparative Study of Occu-pational Prestige. In R. Bendix and S. M. Lipset (eds.), Class, Status, andPower. 2d ed. New York: Free Press.Hollingshead, August B. 1947. Elmtown 's Y ou th . New York: Wiley.Kahl, Joseph S. 1967. The American Class Structure. New York: Holt, Rinehart &Winston.King, M. B. 1961. Socioeconomic Status and Sociometric Choice. S ocial Forces39(March):199-206.

Laumann, Edward O. a:1966. Prestige and A ssociation in an U rban Com m unity . India-napolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

. b:1973. B onds of Pluralism . New York: Wiley.

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Mitchell, J. C., and A. L. Epstein. 1959. Occupational Prestige and Social StatusAmong Urban Africans in Northern Rhodesia. A frica 29(January):22-40.Parsons, Talcott. 1953. T he Social System . New York: Free Press.Ragin, C. 1977. Class, Status, and 'Reactive Ethnic Cleavages': The Social Bases ofPolitical Regionalism. A m erican Sociological R eview 42(June):438-50.Republic of Zambia, Central Statistical Office. 1970. S tatistical Y earbook 1969. Lusaka:The Government Printer.Republic of Zambia, Ministry of Education. 1974. E ducational S tatistics 1973 . Lusaka:The Government Printer.Travis, Harry P. 1973. Religious Intermarriage in Canada. Unpublished Master'sthesis, University of WisconsinMadison.Warner, W. Lloyd, and Paul S. Lunt. 1941. T he Soc ial Li fe o f a Modern Com m unity .New Haven: Yale University Press.Wiley, David S. 1971. Social Stratification and Religion in Urban Zambia. Unpub-

lished Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University.Young, Crawford. 1976. The Politics of Cultural Pluralism. Madison: University ofWisconsin Press.

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Education and Friendship Choices

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