In this chapter we continue our discussion of methods for studying social network positions and roles. Referring to Figure 9.1, which presented an overview of positional and role analysis in terms of whether the major task was “grouping” relations or “grouping” actors, the methods in this chapter primarily have the goal of “grouping” actors. Such a classification gives rise to a partition of actors into positions. However, several of the methods that we discuss at the end of this chapter consider similarities among relations as a way to determine which actors should be grouped together. Specifically, these methods present alternative ways to classify actors based on their sharing of patterns or types of ties. Since positions of actors are defined in terms of patterns or types of ties, we will also consider associations among relations, and thus network roles.

We can also use the list of four tasks in a positional analysis that we presented in Chapter 9 to organize the topics in this chapter. This chapter is primarily concerned with the first and second tasks: defining equivalences and measuring how closely subsets of actors adhere to these definitions.

The methods we discuss in this chapter focus on roles for individual actors. Individual roles are descriptions of the network, including similarities among actors, and associations among relations, from the perspectives of individual actors. In Chapter 11 we presented methods for describing the role structure of an entire group and for comparing the role structures from different groups, without reference to the individual actors.