How organizational minorities form and use social ties: Evidence from teachers in majority-white and majority-black schools

This article draws on 11 months of multisite ethnographic fieldwork and 103 interviews to investigate how teachers in school faculty of varying racial compositions form and use their social ties to secure professional, political, and emotional resources at work. Findings show that, in general, white teachers in the numerical minority in their schools secured all resource types through their same-race ties, while black teachers in the numerical minority secured primarily emotional resources from their same-race ties. Given these observed differences, the author shows how the form and use of the two minority groups’ social ties stem in large part from distinctive organizational practices. In turn, the tie differences can account for differences in social integration and resource access in the organization. The data allow for comparisons to patterns among majority groups.