Further Comments on Differences Between Displacement and Separation

Abstract

In Chap. 6 I documented that displacement (D) and separation (S) routinely diverge by large amounts in some empirical analyses. Then in Chap. 7 I provided technical discussions to clarify how D and S can vary independently. I also stressed that the combination of high-D, low-S – which occurs when displacement from uneven distribution is dispersed rather than concentrated – has important sociological implications and I advised researchers to check for this pattern and guard against incorrectly assuming that high levels of displacement (D) are accompanied by high levels of group separation (S). In this chapter I try to encourage researchers to follow this advice by discussing three topics relevant to measuring separation and understanding how it may diverge from displacement.