Chapter 3. Do birds of a feather play football together? 53 Size matters The first reason is that the ecological model of affiliation is affected by the distribution of opportunities for homophilic tie-formation across groups. Essentially, this boils down to a classic critical mass argument, meaning that to seek out similar others, they first need to be there in sufficient numbers. Various factors may influence these opportunities, but group size is known to be an important factor (McPherson et al., 2001). The higher the number of ethnic peers who are members of amateur football clubs, the more likely an individual is aware of their presence and/or knows one or more of them directly. Moreover, when more ethnic peers have memberships to amateur football clubs, the attractiveness of club membership compared to other forms of time investment offering homophilic tie-formation increases. This in turn can draw in more co-ethnic members, especially those who attach high value to homophilic ties, thereby further strengthening ethnic concentration and segregation. A similar pattern is found from studies on residential segregation of Black people in the United States, in which increases in ingroup size seems to stimulate segregation (Hao & Fong, 2011). The relation between group size and segregation is likely to be particularly influential for minority groups, as changes in numbers and relative group size can have a substantial impact on their opportunities for homophilic tieformation, unlike majority group members for whom these opportunities are often guaranteed. Consequently, I expect that: E2A: The relative size of an ethnic minority group in the total member population is positively related to inbreeding. E2B: An increase in the size of an ethnic minority group within the total member population will be accompanied by a higher degree of inbreeding. Interethnic boundaries The second reason for the fact that we may expect interethnic differences in inbreeding is that ethnicity is constructed out of multiple ‘characteristics or expressions of shared belonging’ (Burton, Nandi, & Platt, 2010), through which ethnic similarity and difference are experienced. Characteristics which have been linked to ethnicity are manifold. Burton et al. (2010) note that they “may include ‘race’ (or colour or visibility), national identity, parentage or ancestry, nationality, citizenship, religion, language, and country of birth (or being an
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