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Abstract
To better understand persistent racial inequality in occupational mobility, we examine the influence of race and social capital on the promotions of 320 assistant college football coaches. The results from quantitative analyses demonstrate that social capital matters a great deal for promotions, but its impact is contingent on the race of the respondent. Specifically, network connections to heterogeneous contacts (racially heterophilous ties, weak ties, and high-status ties) appear to be more effective for black coaches than for white coaches. The findings underscore the importance and complexity of the relationships between race, social capital, and occupational mobility.
“Not so fast, my friend,” is the signature catch phrase of ESPN college football analyst, Lee Corso. The authors thank Michael Schulman and Margaret Zahn for their helpful comments on a previous draft. Special thanks to Michael Sagas for providing access to the data used here.
Notes
∗Reference category for black is “white”; for graduate degree is “no graduate degree”; and for played professionally is “did not play professionally.”
1The question regarding contact's status asked, “Is this person in a higher organizational level than you?” with the answer categories of (1) “Higher Level” and (2) “Same or Lower.” As a result, the measure of contact status is based on the contact's position relative to the respondent, as opposed to an absolute measure of contact status.
∗N = 320; Table entries are unstandardized regression coefficients (standard errors in parentheses); ∗p < .05, †p < .10; All continuous variables (i.e., age, organizational tenure, college coaching experience, higher status ties, strong ties, race homophily, and total contacts) are centered on their mean.
∗N = 320; Table entries are unstandardized regression coefficients (standard errors in parentheses); ∗p < .05; †p < .10; All continuous variables (i.e., organizational tenure, college coaching experience, higher status ties, strong ties, race homophily, and total contacts) are centered on their mean.