Research Project
2446988
DESCRIPTION (Applicant's Abstract): The long-term objective of this research is to understand the origins of conflict and cooperation between groups, especially between ethnic and national groups. The specific objective of the proposed research is to develop a new measure of integration/segregation of two groups in everyday social behavior. This measure is an adaptation of a measure--the exposure index--used by sociologists and demographers to assess the level of integration and segregation in census tracts. The practicality of the new measure, its reliability, and initial indication of its validity will be tested by applying it to interactions between ethnic groups at Bryn Mawr College, an all-female undergraduate institution with strong support for ethnic diversity. Integration/isolation will be measured for four minority groups (African-Americans, East Asians, South Asians, Latinas) in relation to the majority group (Whites), in each of the four social roommates). Analysis of results will include attention to statistical issues involved in testing the significance of departures of interaction from random mixing across ethnic boundaries.
