MPW 2133 MALAYSIAN STUDIES
A SOCIAL STUDY ON RACIAL HOMOPHILY IN CAMPUS
BAVANI KOLAN DE VELU 12540
KOHILA MARIAPAN 12617RANI ELIZABETH MUTHU 12834RUSTAM TALIPOV 12262YASHADINI ANANDARAJAH 12899
DR RAJA AHMAD ISKANDAR RAJA YAAKOB
6TH APRIL 2012
[A Social Study on Racial Homophily in Campus] April 6, 2012
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
LITERATURE REVIEW...........................................................................................................4
PROBLEM STATEMENT........................................................................................................7
FINDINGS.................................................................................................................................8
SAMPLE QUESTIONNAIRE...............................................................................................8
BAR CHART REPRESENTATION...................................................................................11
PIE CHART REPRESENTATION......................................................................................13
DATA ANALYSIS..................................................................................................................16
RECOMMENDATION...........................................................................................................19
CHALLENGES........................................................................................................................20
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................21
REFERENCE...........................................................................................................................22
APPENDIX..............................................................................................................................23
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[A Social Study on Racial Homophily in Campus] April 6, 2012
INTRODUCTION
The notion of homophily is among the oldest and most recurrent in social science.
Homophily is defined as tendency of individuals to associate and bond with similar others.
The idea of homophily is very common in our society today. The pervasive fact of homophily
means that cultural, behavioral, genetic, or material information that flows through networks
will tend to be localized. Homophilous ties provide valuable sources of mutual support but
may limit racial minorities access to resources and information in organizations. Our study
case focuses on racial homophily issue among the UTP students. Students are the future of
the nation and also catalyst of the education business. They must work together in order to
achieve their academic goals in university such as scoring high in subjects and also
graduating with flying colors. Even though it seems like they merely depend on their
coordinator such as lecturers or tutors in their study, informal relations such as friendship
among coursemates is mutually important for their survival in university years. Students need
to have verbal communication and interact with each other during class hours. They will be
engaged in informal communication when it is out-side the formal time. The students manage
their activities such as group studying, discussion and work-related study formally by
managing them in accordance with the organizational rules and regulations, structure and
system. This will generate the formal relations among them. On the other hand, informal
communication between students exists when they are voluntary to mix up together in any
activities and keep interacting with each of the members in the group. Informal networks
such as cliques are developed based on the similar traits. It can be similar interest, hobby,
culture, language and etc. This relation developed is not to fulfill their formal endeavor, but
more on achieving their personal goals.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
Today, universities around the world highly stress on racial homophily and it remains
as a key focus of attention with respect to diversity in education. The reasons for this to be in
place were already discussed in introduction part of this research. Such a focus on racial
diversity has provoked many related researches, in order to understand the issue deeper and
get some qualitative data for analysis of it. Studies of racial homophily and the past topic
related research reveals that interracial friendships are far less common than same race
friendships (Hallinan & Williams, 1989; Joyner & Kao, 2000; Lewis, 2012).
To avoid the problems of interpreting the consequences of attitudes, many studies
focus directly on actual relationships. Dubois and Hirsch (1990) asked respondents whether
or not they had other-ethnic friends. Patchen (1982) asked respondents how much they
interacted with other-ethnic peers. Sometimes a personal network approach was used to
determine the prevalence of inter-ethnic relationships. In these studies respondents were
asked to name their (for example, three) best friends and were then asked to indicate which
ethnic group each friend belonged to (Fong & Isajiw, 2000) and (Smith & Schneider, 2000).
The main limitation of these studies is that the number of other-ethnic friends or the ratio of
other-ethnic friends to same-ethnic friends says nothing about the respondent’s individual
inclinations because the studies did not control for the opportunities for relationships.
Because schools, neighborhoods, universities, etc. are often segregated, people often have
more opportunities to engage in relationships within their own group. They might, for
instance, prefer inter-ethnic relationships but still have more intra-ethnic than inter-ethnic
relationships because they live in a mono-ethnic neighborhood or visit a mono-ethnic school
(Baerveldt & Van Duijn, 2004). Some studies have tried to measure in-group preferences
using different, nonstandard questionnaires. For example, Kinket and Verkuyten
(1999) asked students to rate different ethnic groups on several attributes, such as honesty
and smartness. Verkuyten et al. (2006) asked students to rate different ethnic groups on how
much they would like to interact with a representative of these groups. Patchen
(2002) questioned students on a wide range of attitudes towards their own group and other
groups. Although these studies clarify some of the processes regarding the formation of intra-
ethnic preferences, they do not add to the explanation of ethnic boundaries. It is not clear how
people’s preferences relate to actual behavior since, depending on the circumstances, they
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[A Social Study on Racial Homophily in Campus] April 6, 2012
may act very differently from their expressed attitudes, for instance, when they are pressured
by others.
Many of the researches were concentrated on finding out the reason for racial
segregation, yet conclusions were diversified. Thus, a preference for intra-ethnic relationships
could be explained by the social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979), which states that
people need to belong to a group with a special identity. For many people, ethnicity serves
this purpose. A social identity generally motivates people to accentuate their differences with
people in other groups rather than their similarities, augmenting prejudice rather than
diminishing it, and thus preventing inter-ethnic relationships from developing (Wimmer,
2010).
In order to show the importance of studying racial segregation, many researches were
conducted. In Social network integration during the college and university years could have a
long-term impact on broader racial integration in U.S. society. First, connections made during
the college years have lasting importance, as networks of strong and weak ties are formed
that can have substantial impact over the course of a lifetime. When students leave college,
the network becomes a web of ties. In a separate research entitled “When Does Race Matter
in College Friendships? Exploring Men's Diverse and Homogeneous Friendship Groups”, the
author states that the qualitative study explores how male students from different racial
backgrounds experience racial diversity within racially diverse or homogeneous friendship
groups. Based on an inductive analysis of purposive interviews, the author found that diverse
friendships among men may result from both an attitude of intentionality with regard to
diversity as well as a complete dismissal of difference. Similarly, racial homogeneity among
friends is not always intentional, nor does it necessarily lead to racial isolation (Antonio and
Lising, 2004)
In Malaysia, homophily in university was investigated under the research title of “ A
Test On Homophily As the Basis of Classroom’s Informal Networks” (N.K.Kamarunzaman
and A.A.Zawawi,2010). In their research, 10 homophilious factors were tested on 23 student
of Diploma Public Administration, UiTM Kedah. Later, the data were analyzed using the
UCINET6 program, a program used to analyze relational data. The formation of cliques was
the main finding of this test.In the social sciences, the word "clique" is used to describe a
group of 2 to 12 (averaging 5 or 6) “persons who interact with each other more regularly and
intensely than others in the same setting.” (Wikipedia). Some factors that propagated the
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formation of cliques include similar interests/hobbies, and the need to perform the same
task/assignment. Students tend to keep close contact with the assignment group mates as this
will help them attain both formal goals and personal interest, graduating as an example. Other
contributing factors were the use of same dialect/language and the family background.
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PROBLEM STATEMENT
History shows that Malaya is a colonial creation with ethnic groups living side by side
but never mixed. Many factors have caused this situation. The first can be traced back to the
"divide and rule" policy during British colonization. This kind of administration greatly
limited interaction and communication among the different ethnic groups and segregated
them according to their economic functions. For example, the M a la ys w e re know n to
be f a rmer s l i v i ng in ru r a l a r ea s , Chinese were involved in the commercial and
mining sectors in urban areas while the Indians, on the other hand, worked as labourers in
estates and plantations.
The education system, as it was long before we know it today also varied according to
different ethnic groups in terms of curriculum and methods of dissemination. There was no
such thing as a standardized education system back then. Since these vernacular schools
comprised a single race, lessons were conducted in its respective language, such as Malay,
Mandarin and Tamil. Due to the inconsistencies and differences in the education system,
there existed barriers and gaps among the different races in Malaya.
All these shows that racial homophily has been happening before the Independence
Day itself during the colonization era by other countries and its effectscan still be clearly seen
in our current daily life. For example, in our campus,students tend to mix more with their
own race. The main objective of this test is to study racial homophily and the students’
awareness and opinion on this issue. The view of the younger generation on this matter is
essential as they are the future leaders of our country. We need to investigate both the short
and long term effect of racial homophily as it is one of the determination factors of our
country’s future development.
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FINDINGSSAMPLE QUESTIONNAIRE
RACIAL HOMOPHILY – pervasive tendency of people to associate, mix with people of similar race or ethnicity as theirs.
1. Age Range
15-20
20-25
2. Gender
Male
Female
3. Race / Ethnicity
Malay
Chinese
Indian
Others. Please specify : _________
4. Are you aware of the homophily issue in our campus?
Yes
No
5. Rate the interracial relations / racial unity in our campus.
Poor
Average
Good
Excellent
6. Do you prefer mixing with your own race?
Yes
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No
If yes, why?
Language
Culture
Family background
All above
Other (please, state the other reason) ________________
7. How diverse is your close network of friends in terms of race?
Poor
Moderate
Good
Excellent
8. Does racial homophily have negative effects your study life in campus?
Yes
No
If yes state the reason_________________________________________________________
9. Do you think UTP is making any initiative to promote racial integration?
Yes
No
If yes, give an example _____________________________________________________________________
10. In your opinion, has a government project such as Satu Malaysia had any positive impact on you or people surrounding you?
Yes
No
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11. Is racial homophily threat for Nations (Malaysia) prosperous future?
Yes, strongly agree
Yes, to some extend
Maybe
I don't think so
12. Suggest steps to overcome this issue._____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
BAR CHART REPRESENTATION
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15 - 20 years 20 - 25 years0%
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
100%
15%
85%
Age Range
Age Range
Male Female0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
71%
29%
Gender
Gender
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Malay Chinese Indian Others0%
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
100%
19% 19% 19%43%
Race/Ethnicity
Race/Ethnicity
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PIE CHART REPRESENTATION
76%
24%
Are you aware of the racial homophily issue in our campus?
YesNo
71%
29%
Do you prefer mixing with your own race?
YesNo
33%
57%
10%
Rate the interracial relations/ racial unity in our campus
PoorAverage GoodExcellent
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24%
43%
19%
14%
Why you prefer mixing with your own race?
LanguageCultureFamily BackgroundAll aboveOthers
14%
36%32%
18%
How diverse is your close network of friends in terms of race?
PoorModerateGood Excellent
48%52%
Does racial homophily have negative effects on ed-ucation?
YesNo
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46%54%
Do you think UTP is making any intiative to promote racial integration?
YesNo
55%45%
In your opinion, has a government project such as Satu Malaysia had any positive impact on you or
people surrounding you?
YesNo
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50%27%
23%
Is racial homophily threat for Nations (Malaysia) prosperous future?
Yes, strongly agreeYes, to some extendMaybeI don't think so
DATA ANALYSIS
In the survey conducted, around 15% of respondents are aged between 15-20 years
while the remaining 85% are in between the range 20-25 years old. All the respondents are
UTP students from different races or ethnicity. Besides, 71% are males and 29% of them are
females. We found that most of our respondents are aware of homophily issue in the campus.
They realized that certain people tend to mix with the people of similar race or ethnicity as
theirs. This can be noticed when some people form their own cliques to associate with
whenever they engaged in any activities. On the other hand, we have minority of the
respondents saying that they are not even aware of this issue. For them, homophily does not
really matter compare to other issues that are currently happening in the campus.
When we question all the respondents on the rate of racial unity in our campus, 57%
and 33% are saying that it is still at an average and poor level respectively. The remaining
10% of respondents vote for the good level. A very important point to note, nobody agrees
that rate of racial unity is excellent in UTP. This marks the inexistence of strong bond of
interactions among students from different races in UTP. We can clearly see that race and
ethnicity are the biggest divides in social networks in the campus. To be more specific, we
inquire the respondents whether they prefer mixing with their own race. As expected, 71% of
respondents prefer to mix with their own race. This is very common where most of them love
to stick with their clique and feel more comfortable around the people of same race. The
remaining 29% do not prefer mixing with their own race. We believe that these respondents
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are foreigners where they tend to mix up and socialize with the people from all races in our
country.
There are few reasons behind this issue. 43% of respondents are saying it’s because of
similar culture background. Theoretically, cultural differentiation leads to the
cultural convergence.The remaining think that both language and cultural are contributing to
homophily issue in UTP. Language plays a very important role as a medium of
communications among people. The primary function of language is undoubtedly to facilitate
interaction among people who may or may not come from different cultural
background. Students tend to interact more with the people from similar culture and language
thus neglecting those who are not in that circle.
Majority of the respondents think that racial homophily will have negative effect on
education. An example of this case would be sitting arrangement in classes where usually the
grouping would be based on race that is Malays will sit among the Malays, Chinese among
the Chinese and the same goes for Indians and foreign students. Another example would be in
doing group work such as projects or assignments. Students tend to choose group mates of
their own race. This can be due to the language barrier or maybe because they are more
comfortable with their friends of the same race. On the bright side, this can be something
good as students are able to express their opinion without having any difficulties in
understanding each other. This is because some students are more comfortable in talking
using their mother tongue rather than communicating in English. As a result, students can
participate more in the group work and thus perform better.
However, on the other hand, racial homophily will lead to poor networking among
races. Imagine having the freedom to choose your groupmate with the same race always.
There will be no harmony and no different opinion from different race or culture. Besides
that, your social of network will consist of only one race. Another thing is the narrow way of
understanding things when you only mix with students of the same race. One good thing you
can learn when you mix with other race is to learn other language such as improving your
English. All this will have long term effect on your student life. Without racial homophily,
you are able to improve your social skills when you mingle around. This can be very useful
for your future career where you will meet people from different part of the world.
Moving on to the next point, that is whether UTP is making any initiative to promote
racial integration. 46% agree with the statement while the remaining 54% disagree. Among
the efforts done by UTP is the organization of cultural events such as Indian Cultural Night,
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UTP Chinese Orchestra and International Cultural Night. All these are events which can
reduce social homophily not only by attending it but also maybe through the interactions
between the organizing committee. Besides that, UTP academic committee has also made it
compulsory for 3rd year student to take Engineering Team Project where students will be
divided into groups of students from different courses and races. This is a great effort taken
by UTP to promote integration between students from different courses and races. However,
based on our survey, we found out that some of the students are facing difficulties in
communicating. For example, an international student facing problem to communicate with
his team mates who are not fluent in English. This might end up affecting his grades. This
clearly shows the effect of racial homophily in education. Besides that, there are also student
bodies such as Majlis Perwakilan Pelajar (MPP) and International Student Council (ISC)
representing the local and foreign students which encourage multiracial students to join and
work together in voicing out students’ opinion. Indirectly, this will lead to a more integrated
community in UTP. Another important effort by UTP is the Mission Awareness Program
(MAP) with its objective to generate integration between UTP local and international
students. Through this program, international students are exposed to the local Malaysian
culture. So, what they gain through the camp can be useful in socializing with the locals.
Overall, we can say that UTP is making initiatives in promoting racial integration and we
should appreciate that but those efforts taken are just not sufficient or maybe we can say not
effective.
Not only UTP but government has also been taking initiatives to promote racial
integration. For instance, 1 Malaysia project by our prime minister. Based on our survey, we
found out that 55% respondents agree that this project has positive impact on us while the
remaining 45% disagree. The survey shows that there is a general acceptance of the
1Malaysia concept by UTP students overall, although each ethnic group in the campus has its
own narrow reservations. Those students who agree mentioned that the 1Malaysia concept
made them realise the importance of racial integration. It succeeded in creating awareness
among Malaysians from all walks of life. However, on the other hand the percentage of
students not agreeing to the statement is quite high as well. They think that the concept does
not really meet its purpose of promoting racial integration. For example, UTP students are
aware of the concept yet they still mix around with their own race rather than mixing with
everyone.
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One important question to think about, is racial homophily a threat for Malaysia’s
prosperous future? 50% respondents strongly agree while 27% agree to some extent. 23%
think that it is possible for racial homophily to be a threat and 0% disagree. Our country
Malaysia is a multiracial country. We can clearly see that leaders of our country now consist
of people from different races. Imagine having leaders who tend to mix around with their
own race. That can definitely lead to racism which focuses only on the benefits of their race
rather than focussing on the nation’s development. If there is no integration between races, it
can definitely affect the development and prosperity of the country. School or campus life is
the best place to get exposed to people from different races. Therefore, we must ensure that
students in our campus are aware of this issue.
RECOMMENDATION
As the study suggests, one of the main reason a test was conducted is obtain ways to
overcome the issue of racial homophily in campus, well in this case Universiti Teknologi
PETRONAS. Students have to be encouraged to have a perspective that emphasizes
performance rather than race,this mentality will indirectly abolish the need to be a racial
homophile. As education is a backbone of any individual,school is a good platform to
promote racial unity and curb racial homophily. The recommendation stated for this factor
was the abolishment of vernacular schools as it in a way promotes racial homophily. It is also
suggested that opting for building of more national schools are encouraged.
On the other hand, events that depict various cultures should be held. Events like
these will give chance to students to learn and accept other culture and race. As a result, a
understanding among the races will be created and the gap will be bridged. As an example,
food can be used as a culture promotion tool. Individuals of different races can organize
cultural potluck gathering where they can experience and learn cultures through food.
Besides that,educational talk shows that focuses on different races should be carried out. In
this case, students will be able to trade ideas and opinions on their cultural and racial
understanding. It will act as an essential platform for students to learn about other races. As a
result, racial homophily will be buried.
Since students are largely involved in groupworks as part of the studying process, it
is important that mixing between races is done to set up a group. This will build a diverse
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atmosphere for the students to work in as there are racial integration and ideas will not be
biased. It is hoped that these ways will be executed successfully in the near future in order to
curb racial homophily for the betterment of the university,people and the nation.
CHALLENGES
In the process of completing our Malaysian Studies project entitled ‘A Social Study
on Racial Homophily in Campus’ we encountered many challenges. The most vivid
challenge was our group members consisting of two different courses. We are comprised of
mechanical engineering and civil engineering department, therefore fixing a meeting time
was tough. Even though with such hurdle we manage to successfully complete our project.
Next, our general topic was ‘social’; therefore there was a lot to choose from since
social issue is the current hype issue. But with crucial consideration our team members
settled with the topic ‘racial homophily’ which has always been a problem in every
community but ignored as always. Racial homophily is pervasive tendency of people to
associate, mix with people of similar race or ethnicity as theirs. Since this was not a mainly
studied topic in Malaysia, we had to surf through some challenges to obtain the research
paper on this topic.
While carrying out the interview on our respondents who were all UTP students
consisting of all ages and races, we found that many did not want to cooperate when it came
to video interview. But there were few students who offered to help us on our project and
gave a sincere interview which really made our process easier.
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The next step was to collect data obtained from the survey, interview and
journals/books. The challenges we had been here to come up with the method of
representation of the findings. We were supposed to come up with the best and most
comprehensible way of data representing because only then data analysis would be easy.
Lastly, in completing the report based on the survey, we had challenges in terms or
analyzing the findings collected. Since the outcomes are mostly assumed to be hypothetical
suggestion. But after few challenges our team members decided to think critically and find
solutions to our problem which is racial homophily.
CONCLUSION
Our major findings suggest that the homophily model applies exclusively to
all students in UTP. Though UTP students live in an environment with different cultures and
races among them, they could not be differentiated from their single-race counterparts
(statistically). Our evidence suggests that students seem to find their place among single-race
groups in spite of their identity asserting their racial difference. However, their specific
experiences of integration vary depending on their racial backgrounds. Due to this, it was
noted that none of the respondents chose excellent for racial unity in UTP. This marks the
inexistence of strong bond of interactions among students from different races in UTP.
Most of the respondents chose to mix with friends of their own race. One thing has to
be noted here, having friends of our own race will also have adverse impact in terms of
education. Since Education is the platform for all future undertakings it is very important for
a person to be exposed to all races so that he will get connections and widen his network.
This might be helpful in his future if he is able to bond with all races. At the same time, it
contributes to nation integration as well because a person who doesn’t build network during
study life would have difficulties in networking during work life. So education is a
foundation to strengthen nation through racial mixing. Many respondents mentioned that
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aspects like culture and languages are barriers to students mixing among their own races. We
have to realize that we are now living in 21st century where every detail is just at our finger
tips. So aspects like language and culture should not come in between networking.
Steps should be taken to curb this outrageously growing racial homophily issue. It
should start as early as at home so that kids can discipline and practice themselves. Parents
should be expose kids to other culture and educate them in a good and limited manner.
Sending kinds to language classes might also help kids to boost the confidence thus
networking skills too. Whereas in schools, kids should be nurtured to mix around in groups
consisting of students of different races and of various culture. This will automatically train
them to share ideas on different things. Malaysia is a country occupied by people of different
nations, races and culture so it should be easier for us to start curbing this issue.
REFERENCE
[ 1 ] Wikipedia, free encyclopedia. Homophily. Retrieved from; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophily
[ 2 ] Kamaruzaman N. Z., Zawawi A. A. (2010). A test of homophily as basis of classroom informal networks Conference on Science and Social Research (CSSR 2010) Retrieved: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5773901
[ 3 ] Burgess S., Sanderson E., Umana –Aponte M. (2011). School ties: An analysis of homophily in an adolescent friendship network. University of Bristol. Retrieved from; http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publications/papers/2011/wp267.pdf
[ 4 ] Mollica K. A., Gray B., Trevino Trevino L. K. (2003). Racial Homophily and its persistace in Newcomers’ Social network. Organization Science. 14:123-136 Retrieved from; http://orgsci.journal.informs.org/content/14/2/123.abstract
[ 5 ] Wimmer A., Lewis K. (2010). Beyond and below racial homophily: ERG models of a friendship network documented on FACEBOOK. American Journal of Sociology. Volume 2, No 16, 583-642. Retrieved from: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/wimmer/WimmerLewis.pdf
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[A Social Study on Racial Homophily in Campus] April 6, 2012
[ 6 ] Doyle M. J., Kao G. (2004). Friendship choices of multiracial adolescents: Racial homophily, blending or concession. Retrieved from: http://www.socsc.smu.edu.sg/events/Paper/Grace_kao.pdf
[ 7 ] Currarini S., Jackson M. O., Pin. P. (2009). Identifying source of racial homophily in highschool friendship networks. Retrieved from: http://www.stanford.edu/~jacksonm/racialhomophily.pdf
[ 8 ] The social pathologist. Retrieved from: http://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2011/04/homophily-and-psychological- entropy.html
[ 9 ] Gresenz C. R., Rogowsi J. Escarce J. J. (2009). Comunity demographics and access to health care among U.S Hispanics. Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2754547/
APPENDIX
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