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Modifying Schelling's Model of Segregation to Investigate Linguistically Diverse Communities
In summer 2024, I helped Linhao Chen, a visiting PhD candidate (philosophy) from South China Normal University, secure funding from the China Scholarship Council. Supported by the scholarship, Linhao moved to Hull in October 2024 to spend a year with me and Dr Dionysios Demetis (Hull University Business School).
I taught Linhao the Python programming language and guided him as he coded Schelling's model of segregation. Then, we modified it by incorporating linguistic dimensions, including linguistic capital and comprehension skills, which parameterise bilateral interactions between two agents. Based on the expanded model, we set up tens of thousands of social simulations in linguistically diverse artificial societies. In the simulations, different segregation dynamics emerged depending on how race and language interacted to influence agent-agent interactions.
The results reveal major differences between segregation by race and segregation by language. For example, when language is the axis of differentiation, integration is at the expense of fragmentation.
