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2020 Vol.55, Issue 1 Preview Page

Research Article

Counting Together or Separately? : The Hazard of Aggregating Asian American Groups within Research Using Ethnic Geography’s Dissimilarity Index

통합 또는 분리? : 에스닉 지리의 상이지수를 활용한 연구에서 아시아계 미국인 그룹을 집계하는 문제

Ethan Yorgasona*
요거슨 이슨 a*
aAssociate Professor, Department of Geography, Kyungpook National University
* Corresponding Author
29 February 2020. pp. 43-65
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Abstract

This paper explores the impact of aggregating Asian nationality groups within the United States on the dissimilarity index, a commonly used measure of distributional unevenness and segregation within ethnic geography and demography. Most use of the index combines all Asian groups together when comparing their level of segregation within the USA to other minority groups, such as blacks and Hispanics. The article argues that this aggregating convention is deeply problematic. I make this argument in part by comparing an aggregated and four disaggregated Asian groups (Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino) through five quantitative, empirical explorations using US Census data: 1) temporal trends since 1970; 2) the role of different areal units, disaggregated by spatial scale; 3) variation of dissimilarity-index values by both regional size and percentage of minority group; 4) regression analysis of various independent variables that contribute to variation in dissimilarity-index values; and 5) mapping the variation of these values by US state. In addition, I demonstrate that, because of the phenomenon of ecological correlation, an aggregated Asian-dissimilarity-index value will almost always misrepresent the values of the individual, disaggregated Asian groups.

Keywords
ethnic aggregation
Asian Americans
dissimilarity index
segregation
ecological correlation
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Information
  • Publisher :The Korean Geographical Society
  • Publisher(Ko) :대한지리학회
  • Journal Title :Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
  • Journal Title(Ko) :대한지리학회지
  • Volume : 55
  • No :1
  • Pages :43-65
  • Received Date : 2019-12-09
  • Revised Date : 2020-01-10
  • Accepted Date : 2020-01-17
  • DOI :https://doi.org/10.22776/kgs.2020.55.1.43
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