Sunday, May 30, 2010

Census definitions of race and ethnicity

Since we are discussing definitions, here is something interesting I stumbled across...

This year as most would know by now is our population census year. This is when the government goes out to find out as much as possible about all of us... One would expect they would have gotten all their definitions down pat by now. But there in the glossary, I found this section about how the census will define race and ethnicity.

Note that the title of this section reads "Ethnicity/Dialect Group". Really? Are they capturing ethnicity or dialect groups? Then it goes down further to tell you how dialect groups are defined within the ethnic groups..... and in the subsection are all kinds of terms, most of which wouldn't be considered dialect groups.

The first sentence of the section adds to the confusion...."Ethnic groups refer to a person's race". Hmmmmmm........ We have discussed this issue a bit before. While the two terms may often be used interchangeably, they really refer to separate entities. Race has biological connotations, and really shouldn't be used anymore to classify people (see UNESCO 1950). Ethnicity refers to identifiable common social-cultural characteristics of a group of people. Usually when the gahment comments on these issues, it is really talking about ethnicity rather than race.

But here, in this masterpiece of confusion, the census definitions essentially says Race = Ethnicity = Dialect Groups. So one wonders what data is actually being collected. It's time they tossed out their archaic world view.

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