Negotiating race and ethnicity: Exploring the implications of the 1991 census

Even though the inclusion of an ethnic question has undoubtedly added an important new dimension to the [UK] Census deciding how data associated with the new ethnic group variable can best be interpreted is by no means a straightforward task.... My central objective is to bring the underlying issues into clearer analytical focus. To this end I begin with a brief review of the current state of racial inequality and ethnic diversity in Britain--both to set the issues in a wider context and to highlight the differing significance of the concepts of race and ethnicity--and then move on to consider the way in which the question itself was constructed. (EXCERPT)