Substantive racial integration depends on both access to cross-race friendship opportunities (demographic integration) and the development of stable and rewarding social relations (social integration). Yet, we know little about the relative stability of cross-race friendship nominations over time. Cross-race friendships are also experienced within social contexts, where other individual, dyadic, and contextual factors may simultaneously affect whether such ties persist. Based on longitudinal network data on over 2,000 students in multiple communities, we test whether cross-race friendships are more or less stable than same-race friendships. We find that cross-race friendships at first glance appear less likely to persist than same-race friendships, but cross-race ties become no less stable than same-race ties after accounting for other social factors, including reciprocity and shared friends. This pattern suggests a threshold process where strong, socially recognized ties embedded among peers face less threat to maintaining friendship stability.

中文翻译：

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我们的朋友让我们在一起：青少年跨种族友谊的稳定性

实质性的种族融合取决于获得跨种族友谊的机会（人口融合）和稳定且有益的社会关系的发展（社会融合）。然而，我们对跨种族友谊提名随着时间的推移的相对稳定性知之甚少。跨种族友谊也在社会环境中经历，其中其他个人、二元和环境因素可能同时影响这种联系是否持续。基于多个社区 2000 多名学生的纵向网络数据，我们测试了跨种族友谊是否比同种族友谊更稳定或更不稳定。我们发现，乍一看，跨种族友谊似乎不如同种族友谊持久，但在考虑了其他社会因素（包括互惠和共同朋友）后，跨种族关系的稳定性并不亚于同种族关系。这种模式表明了一个阈值过程，在这个过程中，同伴之间嵌入的牢固的、社会认可的联系对维持友谊稳定所面临的威胁较小。