Information-Theoretic Measures and the Analysis of Social Structures

Abstract

This paper presents a conceptual and methodological framework for the multivariate, nonparametric analysis of models of social structure. Following McFarland (1969), an information-theoretic measure of the openness of a social structure is developed. A Proportional-Reduction-in-Error (PRE) interpretation is presented for this measure and appropriate statistical testing procedures are indicated. This measure is applied to an analysis of the social structure of university teaching and its performance is compared with that of other PRE measures. Finally, the multivariate application of the measure is outlined.

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