Exploring perceptions of ethnic terminology: A mixed methods study

Current research indicates that the term Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic (BAME) does not accurately represent all individuals that identify as being non-White. The acronym BAME categorises all non-White individuals together, which has been argued to minimise the unique cultural, ethnic identity and experiences of individual ethnic groups. A mixed-methods approach was utilised to observe what collective term is preferred by Black, Asian and Mixed/Dual-Heritage individuals in the United Kingdom. The study was pre-registered on the OSF website ( https://osf.io/ejg7z ). A total of 119 participants completed an online questionnaire to rate their preference for six terms (BAME, Ethnic Minority (EM), Marginalised Ethnic Group (MEG), Racially Minoritised (RM), Marginalised Majority (MM) and Culturally and Ethnically Diverse (CED)). Findings revealed that the term Culturally and Ethnically Diverse (CED) was the preferred term. Additionally, in the free-text box section, participants discussed that, when possible, they would want researchers to specify their ethnicity, for instance, Black or Asian, rather than using a collective term such as BAME or Culturally and Ethnically Diverse.