Ethnic Classification in Global Perspective: A Cross-National Survey of the 2000 Census Round

Abstract

Census, Classification, Ethnicity, International, Race,

Naming and Classifying: Theory, Evidence, and Equity in Education

“…Were similar levels of attention paid to assessing measurement complexities of any of the other sociodemographic dimensions (e.g., institution quality to improve the measurement of educational attainment), analysts would produce far more dividends in understanding than they produce by continued probing of the various possible ways of placing people into what is, when conceived in essentializing biological terms, an inherently infinite categorical scheme owing to the genesis of schoolchildren in the mating patterns of current generations, the concomitant lack of a biological basis for any classificatory demarcations, and the necessary yet largely unpredictable social basis of any categorization scheme one may adopt (but see Morning, 2008, for an intriguing discussion of multiple dimensions of racial classification systems). This is not to suggest that nothing can be learned from further research on racial classification, but it is to state emphatically that the marginal gain is low compared to that available for bringing the same intensity of scrutiny to other sociodemographic dimensions that reveal far larger discrepancies and problems of measurement.…”

Ethnicity in England: What Parents' Country of Birth Can and Can't Tell Us about Their Children's Ethnic Identification

“…Similarly phrased questions are used in the USA, Canada, Australia, China, India and several other countries (Morning 2008). Note that North American countries typically focus on shared physical characteristics (rather than shared cultural factors), and so use the term 'race' rather than ethnicity.…”

“…Moreover, in some countries, the collection of such data has been considered controversial because it is seen as reaffirming social cleavages along ethnic lines or detracting from the project of nation-building (Morning 2008;Simon 2012). Recent developments show little signs of convergence.…”

Identity, dislocation and belonging: Chinese/European narratives of mixedness in Aotearoa/New Zealand

“…In parallel, popular understandings of what it means to belong to a racial group or to multiple racial groups have also developed and changed. Addressing these shifts, New Zealand now maintains a dynamic system of classifying and defining race and ethnicity (see Morning 2008). Race is seldom used in official discourse, having been replaced by 'ethnicity' in official documentation and measurement, including the national census.…”