From Strange to Normal: Computational Approaches to Examining Immigrant Incorporation through Shifts in the Mainstream

Autor/inn/en	Voyer, Andrea; Kline, Zachary D.; Danton, Madison; Volkova, Tatiana
Titel	From Strange to Normal: Computational Approaches to Examining Immigrant Incorporation through Shifts in the Mainstream
Quelle	In: Sociological Methods & Research, 51 (2022) 4, S.1540-1579 (40 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Voyer, Andrea) ORCID (Kline, Zachary D.)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0049-1241
DOI	10.1177/00491241221122596
Schlagwörter	Immigrants; United States History; Discourse Analysis; Acculturation; Social Integration; Catholics; Jews; Mexicans; Muslims; Foreign Countries; Books; Social Attitudes; Behavior Standards; Computation; Social Behavior; Attitude Change; Ireland; Italy; China + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Immigrant; Immigrantin; Immigranten; Diskursanalyse; Akkulturation; Soziale Integration; Katholik; Jew; Jude; Jüdin; Juden; Mexikaner; Muslim; Muslimin; Ausland; Book; Buch; Monographie; Monografie; Social attidude; Soziale Einstellung; Social behaviour; Soziales Verhalten; Attitudinal change; Einstellungsänderung; Irland; Italien
Abstract	This article presents a computational approach to examining immigrant incorporation through shifts in the social "mainstream." Analyzing a historical corpus of American etiquette books, texts from 1922-2017 describing social norms, we identify mainstream shifts related to long-standing groups which once were and may currently still be seen as immigrant outsiders in the United States: Catholic, Chinese, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Mexican, and Muslim groups. The analysis takes a computational grounded theory approach, combining qualitative readings and computational text analyses. Using word embeddings, we operationalize the chosen groups as focal group concepts. We extract sections of text that are salient to the focal group concepts to create group-specific text corpora. Two computational approaches make it possible to examine mainstream shifts in these corpora. First, we use sentiment analysis to observe the positive sentiment in each corpus and its change over time. Second, we observe changes in each corpus's position on a semantic dimension represented by the poles of "strange" and "normal." The results indicate mainstream shifts through increases in positive sentiment and movement from strange to normal over time for most of the group-specific corpora. These research techniques can be adapted to other studies of social sentiment and symbolic inclusion. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01