In the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, civil society organizations (CSOs) have played a crucial role in responding to the growing needs of vulnerable groups, including migrants. Their goals have focused on promoting social inclusion, creating employment opportunities, fostering local economic development, and reducing poverty. Through strategic actions in the public sphere, these organizations continue to provide migrants with alternative ways to navigate political and social exclusion. However, the organizational aspects of migrant life remain underexplored.

This article examines the networks and activities of migrant organizations in Geneva. As key sites in migration studies, cities have garnered significant attention through network and relational approaches, which emphasize how local contexts can offer supportive relational opportunities for migrants. These opportunities foster both bridging and bonding ties, challenging exclusion. Given the extensive range of contacts migrant organizations establish in host countries, we argue that networks connect different migrant actors with forms of doing together, involving both "horizontal and vertical" dynamics between migrant and non-migrant organizations, as well as their connections to the policy arena.

In analyzing the vertical and horizontal patterns of interaction among 91 migrant issue-oriented organizations in Geneva, we first describe the network "patterns" that migrants establish with other civil society actors and institutions. Second, we show how these patterns converge into subgroups that are not defined by the common divide between social movement organizations and civil society organizations, but by their strategies aimed at the labor and social integration of migrants.

This study explores the role of egocentric social networks in mediating or moderating the relationship between migration status and adolescent health in Europe. Specifically, we aim to answer the question: Do ego-network characteristics shape the health disparities between migrant and non-migrant adolescents? We test four hypotheses using longitudinal data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU, n = 15,977). First, we examine whether friendship ties are more likely to form among peers of the same migrant generation (H1). Second, we assess whether migrant adolescents exhibit better health outcomes than their native peers, which aligns with the immigrant health paradox (H2). Third, we analyze whether homophilous friendship networks mediate the association between migration status and health outcomes, offering protective effects for migrants (H3). Finally, we test if homophilous networks amplify the health advantages of migrant youth, acting as moderators (H4). Employing multilevel regression models with bootstrapped standard errors, we find support for H1, indicating strong generational homophily in adolescent friendships, and H2 suggesting that migrant youth report better health outcomes across multiple indicators. Preliminary results provide partial support for H3, with friendship homophily mediating the relationship between migration status and alcohol consumption. H4 receives mixed evidence, suggesting that homophilous networks may reinforce migrant health advantages but with variations across health outcomes. By integrating social network analysis with migration and health research, this study offers new insights into the relational mechanisms that contribute to health disparities in adolescence.

This presentation focuses on how immigrants navigate the tension between the desire to maintain cultural identity and the pressures of migrant incorporation. In this context, we examine three dimensions: “want to”, “forced to”, and “get to”. First, “want to” refers to the strong desire among many immigrants to retain their ethnic culture. Second, “compelled to” involves scenarios where some immigrants are compelled to hold on to their cultural practices by their co-ethnics, who enforce norms of ethnic identity preservation. Third, “get to” highlights the extent to which national structures—particularly multicultural policies—support ethnic culture retention. Ultimately, we argue that minority groups are proactively preserving their cultural identity through strategies like establishing ethnic social networks. We further develop these contemplations through discussion of empirical findings from a research project on Indian and Chinese ageing immigrants in Singapore, illustrating how they navigate migrant incorporation dynamics across the life-course.

Much ethnic homophily research builds on school and classroom data, where complete social network data can be collected more easily than in other contexts. Such data enabled network scholars to first demonstrate the pervasiveness of ethnic homophily among adolescents. Earlier research also provides valuable insights into causes and moderators of ethnic homophily within schools. Ethnic homophily research speaks to the overarching social issue of ethnic segregation. What remains unknown is how much ethnic homophily within schools contributes to ethnic gross segregation. This study examines the relative consequences of school composition (affected by upstream mechanisms, such as residential choice) and ethnic homophily within classrooms on the ethnic segregation in friendship networks. We use data from the Trends in Student Achievement study 2018, comprising information on 25,573 students in 1,141 complete friendship networks. Permutation tests decompose gross ethnic segregation into a component attributable to classroom composition and another attributable to remaining factors, including ethnic homophily. Our results reveal that classroom composition accounts for 95 percent of ethnic gross segregation in the examined networks. Counterfactual simulations based on ERGMs suggests that less than one percent of ethnic gross segregation in students’ friendship networks is due to ethnic homophily. We will present subsample analyses for classrooms with different levels of ethnic diversity and discuss implications for intergroup contact research.

Friendships play a crucial role in adolescent psychosocial development, yet research shows that immigrant youth develop distinct friendship patterns compared to their peers with U.S.-born parents. Specifically, they tend to demonstrate stronger ingroup homophily and are more likely to experience social isolation, which may negatively affect their social integration and psychosocial well-being. However, the underlying reasons for these differences remain unclear. Building on prior research, this study employs social network analysis to explore variations in network-dependent friendship characteristics between immigrant and nonimmigrant youth, and to examine how ethnoracial background, school activities, and family context shape these characteristics. Using individual and friendship network data from the 2017-2018 Teen Identity, Development, and Education Study (N = 4,370)—a longitudinal survey of students from two U.S. high schools—we assess not only friendship quantity and ingroup homophily but also their relative positions in the broader school friendship network. We anticipate that immigrant and nonimmigrant youth will differ on these key measures, with variations shaped by ethnoracial background, social activity participation, and family socialization.