The Interplay of Children’s and Parents’ Networks in Shaping Each Other’s Social Worlds

Project Information

ChiParNet

Grant agreement ID: 101075915

DOI

10.3030/101075915

EC signature date 12 May 2023

Start date 1 January 2024

End date 31 December 2028

Funded under

• European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 496 538,00

EU contribution

€ 1 496 538,00

Coordinated by

JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE-UNIVERSITAET FRANKFURT AM MAIN
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ChiParNet (The Interplay of Children’s and Parents’ Networks in Shaping Each Other’s Social Worlds)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2026-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

As our social worlds remain divided by categories such as ethnicity, religion, and social class, attenuating social boundaries is paramount to creating equal opportunities and building cohesive societies. Segregated networks mark boundaries from childhood on and persist through adolescence and beyond. Research stresses parents' influence on children's contacts, but it largely neglects that children also influence their parents' contacts. If we do not account for the interplay of children's and parents' networks, we may draw wrong conclusions about how segregation emerges and under which conditions it persists or diminishes. Since younger generations are more diverse, we must understand whether children adopt their parents' network structures or whether diversity in children's social lives also diversifies the social worlds of their parents.

My project aims to advance our knowledge of mutual intergenerational boundary-making by developing and testing a theory of how child–parent networks co-evolve over time in educational settings with varying degrees of diversity. I propose to collect an innovative panel dataset of children's and parents' networks for multiple cohorts from kindergarten to secondary school. These unique data will allow me to rigorously examine how the interplay of children's and parents' networks affects boundaries in each other's social worlds and how this varies by children's age and diversity in educational settings.

By showing how children and parents shape each other's social worlds, the project will provide decisive new insights into the (bi)directionality and conditions of the intergenerational reproduction of social boundaries. This will change our understanding of segregation and break new ground in the interdisciplinary fields of intergroup relations, family studies, and network science. The results of the project will create a solid scientific basis on which policymakers can develop measures to reduce boundaries between future generations.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The ChiParNet project has made significant progress toward its objective of advancing our understanding of mutual intergenerational boundary-making in children's and parents' networks through three successive steps.

The first step is to develop a theory of how children and parents affect each other's networks. Theory development continued throughout the first two years of the project, and the PI presented the theory at respective stages at several conferences and scientific meetings.

The second step is to collect panel data on children's and parents' networks, which, in the final third step, can be used to test the theory. Since no data meet all necessary criteria, the project collects three waves of innovative, unique panel data on children's and parents' networks across multiple starting cohorts from early childhood to adolescence, in educational settings (i.e. kindergartens and schools) with varying levels of ethnic and cultural diversity.

A first milestone for the second step was to conduct a pilot study at a high-diversity elementary school with 2nd-grade children and their parents. We selected a high-diversity school with 2nd graders, expecting them to be the most difficult group to collect data from, given their young age (about 7) and potential language barriers. The pilot study also constituted the first attempt to collect network data from both children and their parents.

We conducted the pilot study on site on October 8, 2025. Overall, the two questionnaires we developed for children and parents worked well, allowing us to identify potential problems and thus improve them for the main data collection. Children completed questionnaires in class, using tablets and headphones provided by the project team to listen to the questions. Parents obtained a QR code that allowed them to answer the survey online.

A second milestone for the data collection was the recruitment of the target sample of schools, including different starting cohorts (grade 2, 5, and 7) and varying levels of ethnic diversity (low, medium, and high). We successfully did so during autumn 2025. As planned in the Description of the Action, we recruited nine elementary schools (starting cohort grade 2) as well as ten secondary schools (starting cohorts grades 5 and 7). For both types of school, we recruited three low-, medium-, and high-diversity schools each.

The third milestone was the start of the first wave of the data collection, which began in February 2026. For reasons explained in section 2.4 as well as the need to coordinate data collection with the school's schedules, this was several months after the original timeline described in the Description of the Action. At the end of February, we had collected data in six schools. Data collections with ten other schools are scheduled for March and April 2026. (As described in section 2.1 below, we had to cancel data collection in three schools.) All participating schools agreed to collect the second and third waves in early 2027 and 2028, respectively.

The third step will be to test the theory empirically using the collected panel data. As explained in the Description of the Action, this requires panel data, which we will have in mid 2027. We will begin preliminary and descriptive data analysis after completing fieldwork for the first wave.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

To achieve the breakthrough and advance the field, we must test the newly developed theory using adequate data that do not currently exist, and the collection of which could be considered a potential breakthrough in its own right. The collection of panel data is a work in progress that involves considerable risks and challenges. While it is too early to judge how successful the data collection will be or what breakthroughs it may enable, the project has laid the groundwork for collecting novel, unique data. In particular, the data will allow us to examine the developed theory, which will challenge our understanding of network segregation and advance our knowledge of its underlying processes. The ChiParNet project will thereby provide groundbreaking new insights into the (bi)directionality and conditions of the intergenerational re-production of social boundaries.