Belonging, as a fundamental psychological need, plays an important role in students’ mental well-being and academic persistence. Being a numerical minority has been found to be associated with a lower sense of belonging, for instance, female minority students in engineering education. Although the theoretical arguments of belonging and qualitative research highlight the importance of interpersonal relationships on belonging perception, the quantitative research remains insufficient in determining the extent to which the established peer relationships influence students’ sense of belonging, especially those who are a gender minority within the study cohort. To fill this research gap, the present study implements a longitudinal research design to study sense of belonging and friendships among N = 311 first-year students in three different study cohorts. Participants were surveyed four times during their first academic year 2022-2023. By applying mixed-effects models with longitudinal aggregated network data, we find a significant and positive influence of the number of friends within the cohort on students’ sense of belonging. Our preliminary results also suggest that having a higher ratio of cross-gender friends positively affects female minority students’ sense of belonging. Moreover, we evaluate whether the association between friendships and sense of belonging is moderated by satisfaction with their social connectedness. Overall, our findings shed light on the importance of peer relationships to narrow a gender gap in sense of belonging and provide practical implications for educational institutions to integrate gender-underrepresented students more strategically in higher education.

The fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in South Korea have traditionally been perceived as male-dominated. Despite two decades of government-led policies aimed at fostering female STEM workers, only a small number of women have managed to sustain long-term careers in STEM. Before gender imbalance became a major societal issue, female STEM workers often coped with gender inequality in male-centred organisations by adopting the "superwoman" role, striving for perfection in both work and family life. Since the 2010s, however, Korean female STEM professionals have increasingly pursued career development not only through networking within their fields but also through government-led initiatives promoting overseas employment. This shift suggests a growing perception that leaving the domestic STEM industry can positively impact career progression.

This study explores how female STEM professionals, who have limited social capital due to male-dominated social networks, have navigated career development and how their narratives have evolved. To investigate this, in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 female STEM professionals working in South Korea and Western countries.

Findings indicate that since the 2010s, the expansion of global STEM networks through online platforms and international academic exchanges has provided Korean female STEM workers with greater opportunities to acquire social capital. Consequently, the "superwoman" narrative has gradually weakened, enabling women to seek alternative career paths beyond male-dominated networks. This study argues that the increasing trend of overseas employment among Korean female STEM professionals is not merely an individual choice but a structural shift facilitated by global networking and social capital exchange.

Despite growing interest in political polarization in social networks, relatively few studies have explored the co-evolution of political orientations and social ties (Lazer et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2020), and even fewer have considered the role of gender, which is often correlated with the former. This study expands the literature by analyzing the social networks of law students, whose political orientations are often intertwined with the ways they build social ties and how those ties influence their political behavior. Using two waves of the Student Experiences in Law School Study (SELSS), conducted at three law schools in the Midwest during fall 2019 and spring 2020, we examine the co-evolution of social ties and political behavior, with a particular focus on the moderating role of gender.

Our research addresses two key points. First, we differentiate political behavior into two components: political orientation and membership in student chapters of politically oriented legal organizations. Second, we center gender in our analysis to explore how the gender of law students influences their formation of social ties in relation to political orientations and organizational memberships, and how these ties, in turn, shape their political behavior. Using Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models (SAOMs), we hypothesize that law students will align both their political orientations and organizational memberships with those of their friends. In addition to this peer effects hypothesis, we expect homophilous selection based on political affiliation and orientation. Furthermore, we anticipate positive interaction effects between similarity in political associations and orientations. Finally, we test the role of gender in both peer effects and homophilous selection.

Seed circulation is a source of exchange of both cultural knowledge and genetic material and shapes the distribution of crop diversity and associated knowledge. Through a case-study among the Bassari of south-eastern Senegal, we explore the pathways, mechanisms, and actors mediating farmers access to seed with a focus on gender. By examining how seeds are accessed and by whom, we seek to uncover the social and power dynamics that shape gendered inequalities in seed access. We used a mixed-methods approach, combining ethnographic methods with a seed network survey documenting farmers seed acquisitions for the six main staple crops cultivated in the study area. We then tested the association between farmers’ centrality in the seed circulation network and their socio-demographic characteristics (n=258 farmers). We find that intersecting individual-level factors (i.e., gender, age, wealth) influence farmers’ centrality in the network and therefore, their access to seed. We argue that the roles and expertise around seeds are gendered, situated, dynamic, and constantly renegotiated, leading to structural inequalities affecting farmers’ access to seed. Moreover, such inequalities can be exacerbated by external interventions rooted on colonial histories and reinforced by the neoliberal food regime. To guarantee equitable access to locally adapted and culturally appropriate seeds entails explicitly addressing gender, wealth, and other dimensions of local inequality within and beyond households.

In this study, I explore how social support from online and offline communities are complementary resources that can aid women during the transition to motherhood. Although new mothers’ social support has been studied, little research systematically explores the social interactions and types of social support utilized within both online and offline networks. To address this gap, I ask two questions: (1) what types of support do mothers seek? (2) how do mothers navigate support within their online and offline communities? The current study uses a combination of over 2000 threads related to support scraped from five parenting subreddits, original survey collection of over 400 social media users, and 46 in-depth interviews to study mothers’ usage of online and offline social support networks. I find that mothers often rely on both online and offline networks to provide various types of support. Motivations for using online communities over offline networks varied, suggesting that depending on the topics, comfort level, and timing, mothers may selectively choose where and who to seek support from. Women frequently sought emotional and informational support within online communities, in contrast to more practical and emotional support from their offline networks. Additionally, mothers used their online communities to navigate and gain information on how to manage their offline relationships. Overall, these results suggest that online peer groups in which mothers can disclose events and challenges may help reduce feelings of isolation, enable the exchange of support between new mothers, and may supplement their in-person networks.