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)