Meaning and Dimension of Ethnicity and Residential Segregation

Ethnicity

Ethnicity is a concept that is purely social in meaning. Ethnic refers to the cultural practices and outlooks of a given community of people that set them apart from others. It is a shared (perceived or actual) racial, linguistic or national identity of a social group. It is an imprecise term which has given rise to some degree of conceptual confusion.

According to Smith, 1986 

“An ethnic group or ethnicity is a population of humans whose members identify with each other, usually on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry."

Jary and Jary said that “Ethnicity is an imprecise term which has given rise to some degree of conceptual confusion.”

According to Oxford Dictionary of Sociology  

“Ethnicity defines individuals who consider themselves or are considered by other to share common characteristics which differentiate them from the other collectivities in a society within which they develop distinct cultural behavior."

The Jews in the United since they are include individuals of different racial origins and they share a common Jewish identity. Indians in Britain constitute an ethnic group although as individuals in India they would be seen to be members of quite different groups in terms of caste and language.

Residential Segregation

The most important cause of residential segregation is immigration. Most black families have remained within predominantly black neighborhoods primarily because they have been effectively excluded from white residential area.

Class	Gender	Ethnicity
Upper Class	Men Women	White
Middle Class		Protestant
Lower Class		Hispania non protestant
Under Class		Blacks

Dimension of Ethnicity and Residential  Segregation

Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton (1993: 74-77) identify five distinct dimensions that may characterize the spatial arrangement of ethnic communities across a metropolitan region.

1. Unevenness: African Americans may be distributed so that they are over represented in some areas and underrepresented in other areas.
2. Isolation: African Americans may be distributing. So that they have little interaction with other groups.
3. Clustered: Black neighborhoods may be tightly clustered to form one contiguous enclave or they may be scattered about in checker board fashion.
4. Concentrated: Black, neighborhoods may be concentrated with in a very small area or they may be settled sparsely throughout the urban.
5. Centralization: Black neighborhoods may be spatially centralized around the urban core or spread out along the periphery.

These five dimensions together define geographic traits that social scientists think of when they consider segregation. As segregation accumulates across multiple dimensions.