Mixed Race Studies

Answer Formats in British Census and Survey Ethnicity Questions: Does Open Response Better Capture ‘Superdiversity’?

Sociology
Volume 46, Number 2 (April 2012)
pages 354-364
DOI: 10.1177/0038038511419195

Peter J. Aspinall, Reader in Population Health at the Centre for Health Services Studies
University of Kent, UK

During a period of unprecedented ethnicity data collection in Britain, an almost universal characteristic of this practice has been the mandated use of the decennial census ethnicity classifications. In Canada and the USA a greater plurality of methods has included open response, now recommended for the 2020 US Census. As the ethnic diversity of Britain has increased, driven by immigration dynamics and population mixing leading to ‘superdiversity’, the census is no longer able to capture the new populations. The validity and utility of unprompted open response is examined in several ‘mixed race’ datasets. It is argued that open response can be a modus operandi for large-scale ethnicity data collection and that the lack of consistency in recording of such responses need not necessarily be viewed as a drawback. Open response offers substantial insights into the country’s superdiversity in a way that ethnicity categorization alone cannot.

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University of Kent research reveals diversity of multiracial identification and experience in Britain today

University of Kent
Press Office
2010-11-04

Research from the University has revealed that while there is evidence of a growing consciousness and interest in mixed race identities among 18-25 year olds in Britain today, Britain cannot yet speak of a coherent or unified mixed group or experience.

The research, which was conducted by Peter Aspinall, Dr. Miri Song and Dr. Ferhana Hashem from the University’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR), set out to explore the ways in which mixed race young adults thought about and understood their ethnic and racial identifications.

Key Findings Include:…

• …In a ‘forced choice’ question (where respondents were forced to choose the group, or ‘race’, which was most important to them), many were not able (or unwilling) to prioritise only one group. This suggests the growing prominence of ‘mixed’, hybrid identification. Furthermore, some respondents who refused to choose claimed to transcend racial identification and categorization completely.
• In general, the identity options perceived and experienced by Black/White mixed young people were more constrained than those of other mixes involving ‘White’, such as ‘Chinese and White’ , ‘South Asian and White’, and ‘Arab and White’. Many, though not all, part-Black respondents reported that they were seen as monoracially Black. This finding is interesting, since Britain has never had a codified ‘one-drop rule’ (in which anyone with a known Black ancestor was known as Black) as in the USA. The differences were statistically significant…

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Does the British State’s Categorisation of ‘Mixed Race’ Meet Public Policy Needs?

Social Policy & Society
Volume 9, Number 1 (January 2010)
pages 55-69
DOI:10.1017/S1474746409990194

Peter J. Aspinall, Reader in Population Health at the Centre for Health Services Studies
University of Kent, UK

The England and Wales 2001 Census was the first to include ‘Mixed’ categories which have now been adopted across government. The four ‘cultural background’ options were highly prescriptive, specifying combinations of groups. This paper assesses how satisfactorily these analytical categories captured self-ascribed cultural affiliation based on the criteria of validity, reliability and utility of the data for public services. Finally, the paper asks whether we now need a census question on ethnic origin/ancestry in addition to—or instead of—ethnic group or whether multi-ticking or a focus on family origins might give more useful public policy data and better measure the population’s ethnic diversity.

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The Future of Ethnicity Classifications 

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Volume 35, Issue 9
November 2009
pages 1417 – 1435
DOI: 10.1080/13691830903125901

Peter J. Aspinall, Senior Research Fellow
Centre for Health Services Studies (CHSS)
University of Kent

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, ‘diversity’ has emerged as a key value in its own right, celebrated through human rights and similar policies promoting identity and providing an additional focus to that of the more traditional equalities agenda and its concern with ‘statistical proportionality’. It has been conjectured that classifications rooted in diversity policy will either propel data collection practices into the use of finer-grained distinctions or that these measurement systems will collapse under their own weight. In Britain pressure to increase the number of categories in ethnicity classifications highlights the tension between the validity of granular categories and their utility (in terms of practicality of data collection). Similarly, the interest in identity evokes a trade-off between the selective attribution of such measures and the greater stability of operationally defined ethnicity. In meeting the challenge of the diversity agenda, a number of approaches—innovative for Britain—are now being debated to accommodate greater numbers of categories in census collections. These include multi-ticking across categories (thereby capturing multiplicity) and the shift from classifications framed by colour to those privileging ethnic background (but attended by category proliferation). Conceptually, the measurement of the multiple dimensions of ethnicity has found favour but not so far encompassing ethnic origin/ancestry collected in US and Canadian Censuses. While some have argued that ethnicity classifications are already unwieldy and that retrenchment is needed, validity—increasingly insisted upon by the collectivities themselves and other non-state organisations—is seen as winning out. The demands of inclusiveness and identity visibility indicate that classifications are headed in the direction of greater complexity. 

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