Background/Context: The United States is becoming increasingly racially and ethnically diverse, and increasingly racially isolated across race-ethnic boundaries. Researchers have argued that both diversity and racial isolation serve to undermine the social cohesion needed to bind American citizens to one another and to society at large. Focus of…

Background/Context: Perpetuation theory predicts that attending a racially segregated school paves the way for a lifetime of segregated experiences in neighborhoods, schools, and jobs. Research conducted in the 1970s and 1980s linked racial isolation in high schools with later racial isolation in many social settings among African-American…

The qualitative or nominal-level indicators of diversity with units of observation such as census tracts are examined which (1) are operative in the polytomous situation and, (2) measure within-suit diversity rather than divergences among units. Six qualitative indicators are explained and compared both theoretically and by example. (Author/JM)