Racial Segregation

Although racial segregation is inherently a geographic phenomenon, social scientists from numerous disciplines continue to contribute to the research literature. Today, racial residential segregation researchers make their homes in numerous disciplines such as geography, sociology, demography, political science, and urban studies. Research on racial residential segregation shares a history with the examinations of immigrant settlement and assimilation, which began with the Chicago School of Sociology in the early 20th century. Historically, spatial integration of foreign-born groups with the white majority population has long been viewed as reflective of a broader structural assimilation. However, numerous critiques have been leveled at many of the assumptions underlying the now multiple variants of immigrant assimilation models, many of which trace the geographic trajectories of residential settlement over time.

The vast ...