Structural Equivalence
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.
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Sources
- Lorrain, F., & White, H. C. (1971). Structural equivalence of individuals in social networks. The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 1(1), 49–80. DOI: 10.1080/0022250X.1971.9989788 ↗
- Burt, R. S. (1976). Positions in networks. Social Forces, 55(1), 93–122. DOI: 10.1093/sf/55.1.93 ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Structural Equivalence Analysis of Networks. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/sociology/structural-equivalence
Which method?
Set this method beside its closest kin and read them side by side — the library lays the books on the table; the choice is yours.
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