Compare methods

	Homophily Analysis	Structural Equivalence
Field	Sociology	Sociology
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1954 (concept); 2001 (synthesis)	1971
Originator	Lazarsfeld & Merton (concept); McPherson, Smith-Lovin & Cook (synthesis)	François Lorrain & Harrison White
Type	Measurement of similarity-based tie formation	Equivalence relation grouping actors with identical tie patterns
Seminal source	McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., & Cook, J. M. (2001). Birds of a feather: homophily in social networks. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 415–444.	Lorrain, F., & White, H. C. (1971). Structural equivalence of individuals in social networks. The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 1(1), 49–80.
Aliases	homophily measurement, assortative mixing analysis, birds-of-a-feather analysis, tie-similarity analysis	structural equivalence analysis, positional equivalence, Euclidean equivalence of actors, equivalence classes
Related	4	5
Summary	Homophily analysis quantifies the tendency of similar individuals to form ties — the principle that 'birds of a feather flock together'. It compares the rate at which people connect with others who share an attribute (race, gender, age, education, attitudes) against what would be expected by chance, distinguishing the homophily that arises merely from group sizes from the genuine, behavior-driven preference for similar others.	Structural equivalence identifies actors who occupy the same position in a network because they have identical ties to identical others. Defined by François Lorrain and Harrison White in 1971, it formalizes the idea that two people are interchangeable in the social structure when they relate to exactly the same set of third parties, and it provides the foundation for partitioning networks into positions and building blockmodels.