Christoph Spörlein
Biographic Data
| ID | 315188 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christoph Spörlein |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christoph |
| FAMILY NAME | Spörlein |
| SIGNATURE | SPÖRLEIN C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6148-9490 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 127 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
The rural-urban gap in educational inequality
While educational systems have expanded, regional and social disparities in attainment remain remarkably persistent. This study integrates social stratification research with behavioural genetics to examine how macro-level regional opportunity structures and micro-level family environments moderate the genetic influence on education. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and a Polygenic Index (…
How successfully do immigrant parents transfer their voting behavior to their offspring
This study integrates political socialization theory and behavioral genetics to disentangle the mechanisms underlying differences in the intergenerational transmission of voter turnout in majority and immigrant families. The pathways shaping the intergenerational transmission of electoral participation are examined through variations in political exposure within families, offspring’s social engagement in the host country, and the socioeconomic st…
How Much Do “Local Policies” Matter for Refugee Integration? An Analytical Model and Evidence from a Highly Decentralized Country
A growing number of studies have recently postulated a so-called local turn in the study of immigrant and refugee integration policy. A fundamental, yet untested, assumption of this body of research is that local (sub-national) policies and administrations shape how migrants and refugees integrate into society. We develop and apply an analytical model using multilevel modeling techniques based on large-N, longitudinal survey data ( N > 9000) with…
Did social change strengthen genetic associations? Gendered educational attainment before and after German reunification
Eine soziologische Einführung in die Verhaltensgenetik
Die Verhaltensgenetik blickt auf eine gut replizierte Studienlage. Daher wird es zunehmend schwerer, sie in den Sozialwissenschaften zu ignorieren und gleichzeitig den Anspruch zu erheben, kausale Muster der Entstehung und Reproduktion sozialer Ungleichheit zu identifizieren. Der erste von zwei Teilen dieses Lehrbuchs gibt einen einleitenden, aber kritischen Überblick über die zentralen Ideen, analytischen Mechanismen und methodologischen Ansätze…
The intergenerational transmission of risk and trust attitudes
This replication revisits an influential contribution on the intergenerational transmission of risk and trust attitudes, which, based on data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP), reveals a positive correlation between parents' and children's attitudes. The authors of the original study argue that socialization in the family is important in the transmission process. The replication is motivated by mounting evidence indicating that within-f…
A many-analysts approach to the relation between religiosity and well-being
The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N=10,535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-…
Catalyst of hate? Ethnic insulting on YouTube in the aftermath of terror attacks in France, Germany and the United Kingdom 2014-2017
In the last 20 years, several major terror attacks conducted in the name of political Islam hit Western Europe. We examine the impact of such terror attacks on hostile behaviour on social media from a cross-national perspective. To this end, we draw upon time-stamped, behavioural data from YouTube and focus on the frequency and popularity (‘likes’) of ethnically insulting comments among a corpus of approximately one hundred thousand comments. We …
Who benefits from school-to-work linkages in the labour market? A comparison between natives, migrants educated abroad, and those educated domestically
Recent research suggests that people with more occupation-specific qualifications (i.e. qualifications that link to a smaller set of occupations) experience greater benefits in the labour market. Based on human capital, signalling and credentialing theory, we argue that these benefits may vary between the native majority population, individuals with a migration background who hold a foreign qualification, and individuals with a migration backgrou…
The dynamics of recent refugees' language acquisition
Do the processes underlying destination-language acquisition differ between recently arrived refugees and other new immigrants? Based on a well-established model of language learning according to which language fluency is a function of efficiency, incentives, and exposure, this study addresses general processes of language learning as well as conditions specific to refugees. Longitudinal data on refugees (IAB-BAMF-SOEP Sample of Refugees in Germa…
Ethnic Insults in YouTube Comments
In this article, we investigate the extent to which ethnic insults propagate through comment networks in YouTube videos from four German political talk shows with the largest audience reach. We argue that comments using ethnic insults signal social norms and embolden others to emulate offensive behaviour, therefore potentially contributing the contagiousness of insulting commenting. Moreover, periods of highly salient intergroup conflict (i.e. se…
Explaining Immigrants' Worries About Ethnic Harassment
What factors shape immigrants’ worries about becoming targets of ethnic harassment? This is an important question to ask, but most previous studies restricted their focus to the microlevel only. By contrast, few if any studies examined the possible macrolevel antecedents driving harassment-related worries among immigrants. This study aims to help fill this gap. Focusing on a 20-year period from 1986 to 2004 in Germany, we apply multilevel regress…
Residential Segregation and Social Trust of Immigrants and Natives
This study examines the relationship between residential segregation and social trust of immigrants and natives in the Netherlands. Building on previous studies that have found evidence for a negative segregation-trust link, we present a nuanced narrative by (i) distinguishing between an ethnic minority and majority perspective, (ii) elaborating theoretical foundations on the moderating role of individual exposure in the form of ethnic minority c…
Selectivity profiles of recently arrived refugees and labour migrants in Germany
Migrant selectivity refers to the idea that immigrants differ in certain characteristics from individuals who stay behind in their country of origin. In this article, we describe the selectivity profiles of recent migrants to Germany with respect to educational attainment, age and sex. We illustrate how refugees differ from labour migrants, and we compare the profiles of Syrian refugees who successfully completed the long journey to Europe to Syr…
Why We Should Care About Regional Origins
Immigrant selectivity describes the notion that migrants are not a random sample of the population at origin, but differ in certain traits such as educational attainment from individuals who stay behind. In this article, we move away from group-level descriptions of educational selectivity and measure it as an individual's relative position in the age- and gender-specific educational distribution of the country of origin. We describe the extent o…
Educational Selectivity and Language Acquisition among Recently Arrived Immigrants
This article investigates destination language proficiency upon arrival and subsequent proficiency growth among recently arrived immigrants in Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland. We introduce selectivity considerations to a model of language acquisition, arguing that positively selected individuals should display higher levels of language skills upon arrival and faster growth in destination language proficiency thereafter. The results show that …
Many Analysts, One Data Set
Twenty-nine teams involving 61 analysts used the same data set to address the same research question: whether soccer referees are more likely to give red cards to dark-skin-toned players than to light-skin-toned players. Analytic approaches varied widely across the teams, and the estimated effect sizes ranged from 0.89 to 2.93 ( Mdn = 1.31) in odds-ratio units. Twenty teams (69%) found a statistically significant positive effect, and 9 teams (31%…
How educational systems structure ethnic inequality among young labour market participants in Europe
The interplay of spatial diffusion and marital assimilation of Mexicans in the United States, 1980-2011
Christoph Spörleina*, Ted Mouwb & Ricardo Martinez-Schuldtba Lehrstuhl für Soziologie, insb. Sozialstrukturanalyse, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Bamberg, Germanyb Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Destination Choices of Recent Pan–American Migrants
This study examines the destination choices of pan-American migrants using census data for migrants from 23 Latin-American and Caribbean origin groups opting for one of ten North and South American destination countries. Descriptive findings suggests that Caribbean and Central American migrants overwhelmingly migrate to the United States, while South Americans are characterized by more diverse choice patterns. Using discrete choice models, the mu…
The occupational status of immigrants in Western and non-Western societies
This study examines existing hypotheses on cross-national differences in immigrants’ labor market integration. Unlike previous research, which focused on Western countries, we study the occupational status of immigrants in both Western and non-Western countries. We use census data for 45 Western and non-Western destination countries and test hypotheses derived from human capital and discrimination theory applying multilevel modeling. The analysis…
Ethnic intermarriage in longitudinal perspective
The dynamics of recent refugees' language acquisition
Do the processes underlying destination-language acquisition differ between recently arrived refugees and other new immigrants? Based on a well-established model of language learning according to which language fluency is a function of efficiency, incentives, and exposure, this study addresses general processes of language learning as well as conditions specific to refugees. Longitudinal data on refugees (IAB-BAMF-SOEP Sample of Refugees in Germa…
Selectivity profiles of recently arrived refugees and labour migrants in Germany
Migrant selectivity refers to the idea that immigrants differ in certain characteristics from individuals who stay behind in their country of origin. In this article, we describe the selectivity profiles of recent migrants to Germany with respect to educational attainment, age and sex. We illustrate how refugees differ from labour migrants, and we compare the profiles of Syrian refugees who successfully completed the long journey to Europe to Syr…
The occupational status of immigrants in Western and non-Western societies
This study examines existing hypotheses on cross-national differences in immigrants’ labor market integration. Unlike previous research, which focused on Western countries, we study the occupational status of immigrants in both Western and non-Western countries. We use census data for 45 Western and non-Western destination countries and test hypotheses derived from human capital and discrimination theory applying multilevel modeling. The analysis…
Why We Should Care About Regional Origins
Immigrant selectivity describes the notion that migrants are not a random sample of the population at origin, but differ in certain traits such as educational attainment from individuals who stay behind. In this article, we move away from group-level descriptions of educational selectivity and measure it as an individual's relative position in the age- and gender-specific educational distribution of the country of origin. We describe the extent o…
Educational Selectivity and Language Acquisition among Recently Arrived Immigrants
This article investigates destination language proficiency upon arrival and subsequent proficiency growth among recently arrived immigrants in Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland. We introduce selectivity considerations to a model of language acquisition, arguing that positively selected individuals should display higher levels of language skills upon arrival and faster growth in destination language proficiency thereafter. The results show that …
Ethnic intermarriage in longitudinal perspective
Residential Segregation and Social Trust of Immigrants and Natives
This study examines the relationship between residential segregation and social trust of immigrants and natives in the Netherlands. Building on previous studies that have found evidence for a negative segregation-trust link, we present a nuanced narrative by (i) distinguishing between an ethnic minority and majority perspective, (ii) elaborating theoretical foundations on the moderating role of individual exposure in the form of ethnic minority c…
Ethnic Insults in YouTube Comments
In this article, we investigate the extent to which ethnic insults propagate through comment networks in YouTube videos from four German political talk shows with the largest audience reach. We argue that comments using ethnic insults signal social norms and embolden others to emulate offensive behaviour, therefore potentially contributing the contagiousness of insulting commenting. Moreover, periods of highly salient intergroup conflict (i.e. se…
Catalyst of hate? Ethnic insulting on YouTube in the aftermath of terror attacks in France, Germany and the United Kingdom 2014-2017
In the last 20 years, several major terror attacks conducted in the name of political Islam hit Western Europe. We examine the impact of such terror attacks on hostile behaviour on social media from a cross-national perspective. To this end, we draw upon time-stamped, behavioural data from YouTube and focus on the frequency and popularity (‘likes’) of ethnically insulting comments among a corpus of approximately one hundred thousand comments. We …
Destination Choices of Recent Pan–American Migrants
This study examines the destination choices of pan-American migrants using census data for migrants from 23 Latin-American and Caribbean origin groups opting for one of ten North and South American destination countries. Descriptive findings suggests that Caribbean and Central American migrants overwhelmingly migrate to the United States, while South Americans are characterized by more diverse choice patterns. Using discrete choice models, the mu…
How Much Do “Local Policies” Matter for Refugee Integration? An Analytical Model and Evidence from a Highly Decentralized Country
A growing number of studies have recently postulated a so-called local turn in the study of immigrant and refugee integration policy. A fundamental, yet untested, assumption of this body of research is that local (sub-national) policies and administrations shape how migrants and refugees integrate into society. We develop and apply an analytical model using multilevel modeling techniques based on large-N, longitudinal survey data ( N > 9000) with…
Explaining Immigrants' Worries About Ethnic Harassment
What factors shape immigrants’ worries about becoming targets of ethnic harassment? This is an important question to ask, but most previous studies restricted their focus to the microlevel only. By contrast, few if any studies examined the possible macrolevel antecedents driving harassment-related worries among immigrants. This study aims to help fill this gap. Focusing on a 20-year period from 1986 to 2004 in Germany, we apply multilevel regress…
How educational systems structure ethnic inequality among young labour market participants in Europe
The interplay of spatial diffusion and marital assimilation of Mexicans in the United States, 1980-2011
Christoph Spörleina*, Ted Mouwb & Ricardo Martinez-Schuldtba Lehrstuhl für Soziologie, insb. Sozialstrukturanalyse, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Bamberg, Germanyb Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
The occupational status of immigrants in Western and non-Western societies
This study examines existing hypotheses on cross-national differences in immigrants’ labor market integration. Unlike previous research, which focused on Western countries, we study the occupational status of immigrants in both Western and non-Western countries. We use census data for 45 Western and non-Western destination countries and test hypotheses derived from human capital and discrimination theory applying multilevel modeling. The analysis…
Ethnic intermarriage in longitudinal perspective
Destination Choices of Recent Pan–American Migrants
This study examines the destination choices of pan-American migrants using census data for migrants from 23 Latin-American and Caribbean origin groups opting for one of ten North and South American destination countries. Descriptive findings suggests that Caribbean and Central American migrants overwhelmingly migrate to the United States, while South Americans are characterized by more diverse choice patterns. Using discrete choice models, the mu…
The interplay of spatial diffusion and marital assimilation of Mexicans in the United States, 1980-2011
Christoph Spörleina*, Ted Mouwb & Ricardo Martinez-Schuldtba Lehrstuhl für Soziologie, insb. Sozialstrukturanalyse, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Bamberg, Germanyb Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Many Analysts, One Data Set
Twenty-nine teams involving 61 analysts used the same data set to address the same research question: whether soccer referees are more likely to give red cards to dark-skin-toned players than to light-skin-toned players. Analytic approaches varied widely across the teams, and the estimated effect sizes ranged from 0.89 to 2.93 ( Mdn = 1.31) in odds-ratio units. Twenty teams (69%) found a statistically significant positive effect, and 9 teams (31%…
How educational systems structure ethnic inequality among young labour market participants in Europe
Why We Should Care About Regional Origins
Immigrant selectivity describes the notion that migrants are not a random sample of the population at origin, but differ in certain traits such as educational attainment from individuals who stay behind. In this article, we move away from group-level descriptions of educational selectivity and measure it as an individual's relative position in the age- and gender-specific educational distribution of the country of origin. We describe the extent o…
Educational Selectivity and Language Acquisition among Recently Arrived Immigrants
This article investigates destination language proficiency upon arrival and subsequent proficiency growth among recently arrived immigrants in Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland. We introduce selectivity considerations to a model of language acquisition, arguing that positively selected individuals should display higher levels of language skills upon arrival and faster growth in destination language proficiency thereafter. The results show that …
Explaining Immigrants' Worries About Ethnic Harassment
What factors shape immigrants’ worries about becoming targets of ethnic harassment? This is an important question to ask, but most previous studies restricted their focus to the microlevel only. By contrast, few if any studies examined the possible macrolevel antecedents driving harassment-related worries among immigrants. This study aims to help fill this gap. Focusing on a 20-year period from 1986 to 2004 in Germany, we apply multilevel regress…
Residential Segregation and Social Trust of Immigrants and Natives
This study examines the relationship between residential segregation and social trust of immigrants and natives in the Netherlands. Building on previous studies that have found evidence for a negative segregation-trust link, we present a nuanced narrative by (i) distinguishing between an ethnic minority and majority perspective, (ii) elaborating theoretical foundations on the moderating role of individual exposure in the form of ethnic minority c…
Selectivity profiles of recently arrived refugees and labour migrants in Germany
Migrant selectivity refers to the idea that immigrants differ in certain characteristics from individuals who stay behind in their country of origin. In this article, we describe the selectivity profiles of recent migrants to Germany with respect to educational attainment, age and sex. We illustrate how refugees differ from labour migrants, and we compare the profiles of Syrian refugees who successfully completed the long journey to Europe to Syr…
Ethnic Insults in YouTube Comments
In this article, we investigate the extent to which ethnic insults propagate through comment networks in YouTube videos from four German political talk shows with the largest audience reach. We argue that comments using ethnic insults signal social norms and embolden others to emulate offensive behaviour, therefore potentially contributing the contagiousness of insulting commenting. Moreover, periods of highly salient intergroup conflict (i.e. se…
The dynamics of recent refugees' language acquisition
Do the processes underlying destination-language acquisition differ between recently arrived refugees and other new immigrants? Based on a well-established model of language learning according to which language fluency is a function of efficiency, incentives, and exposure, this study addresses general processes of language learning as well as conditions specific to refugees. Longitudinal data on refugees (IAB-BAMF-SOEP Sample of Refugees in Germa…
A many-analysts approach to the relation between religiosity and well-being
The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N=10,535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-…
Catalyst of hate? Ethnic insulting on YouTube in the aftermath of terror attacks in France, Germany and the United Kingdom 2014-2017
In the last 20 years, several major terror attacks conducted in the name of political Islam hit Western Europe. We examine the impact of such terror attacks on hostile behaviour on social media from a cross-national perspective. To this end, we draw upon time-stamped, behavioural data from YouTube and focus on the frequency and popularity (‘likes’) of ethnically insulting comments among a corpus of approximately one hundred thousand comments. We …
Who benefits from school-to-work linkages in the labour market? A comparison between natives, migrants educated abroad, and those educated domestically
Recent research suggests that people with more occupation-specific qualifications (i.e. qualifications that link to a smaller set of occupations) experience greater benefits in the labour market. Based on human capital, signalling and credentialing theory, we argue that these benefits may vary between the native majority population, individuals with a migration background who hold a foreign qualification, and individuals with a migration backgrou…
Eine soziologische Einführung in die Verhaltensgenetik
Die Verhaltensgenetik blickt auf eine gut replizierte Studienlage. Daher wird es zunehmend schwerer, sie in den Sozialwissenschaften zu ignorieren und gleichzeitig den Anspruch zu erheben, kausale Muster der Entstehung und Reproduktion sozialer Ungleichheit zu identifizieren. Der erste von zwei Teilen dieses Lehrbuchs gibt einen einleitenden, aber kritischen Überblick über die zentralen Ideen, analytischen Mechanismen und methodologischen Ansätze…
The intergenerational transmission of risk and trust attitudes
This replication revisits an influential contribution on the intergenerational transmission of risk and trust attitudes, which, based on data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP), reveals a positive correlation between parents' and children's attitudes. The authors of the original study argue that socialization in the family is important in the transmission process. The replication is motivated by mounting evidence indicating that within-f…
How successfully do immigrant parents transfer their voting behavior to their offspring
This study integrates political socialization theory and behavioral genetics to disentangle the mechanisms underlying differences in the intergenerational transmission of voter turnout in majority and immigrant families. The pathways shaping the intergenerational transmission of electoral participation are examined through variations in political exposure within families, offspring’s social engagement in the host country, and the socioeconomic st…
How Much Do “Local Policies” Matter for Refugee Integration? An Analytical Model and Evidence from a Highly Decentralized Country
A growing number of studies have recently postulated a so-called local turn in the study of immigrant and refugee integration policy. A fundamental, yet untested, assumption of this body of research is that local (sub-national) policies and administrations shape how migrants and refugees integrate into society. We develop and apply an analytical model using multilevel modeling techniques based on large-N, longitudinal survey data ( N > 9000) with…
Did social change strengthen genetic associations? Gendered educational attainment before and after German reunification
The rural-urban gap in educational inequality
While educational systems have expanded, regional and social disparities in attainment remain remarkably persistent. This study integrates social stratification research with behavioural genetics to examine how macro-level regional opportunity structures and micro-level family environments moderate the genetic influence on education. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and a Polygenic Index (…
Immigration (14 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Economics (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Demographic economics (12 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (11 works) · Geography (9 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Demography (8 works) · Ethnic group (7 works)