Iceland, John <br/><br/>
Measuring Racial and Ethnic Segregation in Residential Areas 

 -  2006.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 45 
<br/><br/> Measuring Racial and Ethnic Residential Segregation This paper discusses the multidimensional nature of segregation and alternative measures available to social scientists, focusing on segregation research in the United States. Measuring segregation requires making choices about how to measure racial and ethnic groups, what the appropriate geographic units of analysis are, and what types of residential patterns one wishes to describe. There is precedent that helps inform these choices, though the measurement of segregation continues to evolve, especially as new techniques are developed and the social context changes (such as through increasing immigration). This paper provides an overview of these issues, describes a few commonly used segregation measures, discusses some new developments in segregation measurement research, and presents a brief empirical analysis of segregation patterns and trends in the United States in order to illustrate how different measures shed light on different aspects of residential patterns.