Research in Ethnic Segregation I: Causal Factors

Abstract

As a topic of study, segregation is both controversial and complex. Segregation is often seen to mark a failure of assimilation and a process that spatially victimizes certain minority groups. Eliminating segregation is a normative goal in many societies hoping to end the division of their urban areas on the basis of race and ethnicity. Research is often marshaled to uncover how segregation develops and how it may be mitigated. A second area of controversy involves the construction of the categories upon which segregation is measured. Current social scientific research articulates how racial and ethnic categories are formed and how these categorizations are then reified. The classification of some groups as “racial” and others as “ethnic” affirms the power of categorizations and the ascription of difference to groups of people (Boal, 2000). The basis by which we measure segregation often depends on categories delineated by official statistical agencies (see Berry and Henderson, 2002; Forest, 2002). The U.S. Census defines “racial categories,” ethnic categories based on Hispanic status, and categories based on ancestry data. Other countries officially designate groups on the basis of religion or nationality or choose not to distinguish some groups at all. Any study of segregation involves a group in a context. Most research focuses on one group/context dyad but some studies are more comparative. Groups vary considerably, not only in their cultural makeup but also in the financial, human, and other resources they possess. Context generally refers to a place and accordingly accounts for a wide variety of factors relating to history, culture, economic opportunity, and the political state. In any event, the group-context relationship ensures that the potential for variation is enormous. This progress report is the first of three dealing with segregation research in geography. We have decided to divide our overview of segregation into the factors that produce it, the varied meanings ascribed to it, and the manifold consequences of group separation. In this first report, we examine research related to the causes of segregation. The second report will focus more explicitly on the multiple meanings ascribed to segregation and the relationship between segregation and ethnic identity. The third report will look at the consequences of segregation.