using qualitative and quantitative methods to develop ethnic identity questions in the uk alita...

Using qualitative and quantitative methods to develop ethnic identity questions in the UK

Alita Nandi and Lucinda PlattISER, University of Essex

with thanks to Liz Spencer, Punita Chowbey, Heidi Mirza, Heather Laurie, Noah Uhrig,

Emily Kean, Sarah Budd and Alison Patterson and our respondents

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Key questions

What do we mean by ethnic groups and ethnic identity?

How do we measure these?

First step: Review existing measures and studies

Research Methods Festival 2010, Oxford

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Ethnic groups?

Ethnic group is a group of people who believe that they share a common descent based on real or imagined shared attributes (Weber, Schermerhorn, Anderson,..)

Defining one ethnic group by definition requires defining another ethnic group

Both commonality within groups and contrast with other groups are key to group recognition


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Ethnic identification?

Ethnic identification: Ethnic identity is conceived of as being part of social identity (Phinney 1992)

Social Identity: “social identity will be understood as that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership” (Tajfel 1981)

Components of ‘state of ethnic identity’ (Phinney 1990):– Self-identification as a group member– Ethnicity (parental background)– Sense of belonging to the group– Attitude towards own group– Participation in own group activities

Ethnic identity formation is a process – change is expected and is of interest in its own right


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Existing measures of ethnic identity in censuses and surveys?

Development of measures of ethnic categories/groups in censuses has been subject to extensive testing, development and both pre-and post-evaluation as well as ongoing refinement.

The focus of these questions is to count demographic groups for monitoring discrimination and inequalities in opportunities and outcomes and differences in health outcomes– Necessary requirement for evaluation of implementation of anti-

discrimination/equal opportunities policies (Equality Act 2010, UK Race Relations Acts, US Civil Rights Monitoring and Enforcement)


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And so the goals are to find/use measures that are– Consistent /Reliable (who reports, context, place does not matter)– Relatively stable over time– Uni-dimensional– Include categories that are mutually exclusive

The acceptable method of measurement is self-identification

– strong sense of identification with the group is not required. It is sufficient to self-categorize

(Burton, Nandi and Platt 2009)


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To achieve these goals, questions to measure ethnic groups ask individuals to choose from

Fixed-ish (over time) categories

‘Mutually exclusive’ categories, so one choiceMultiple choice may be allowed for mixed persons. But generally there are rules to transform responses into single categories

– In US 2000 census reports, ‘white’ includes all those who chose white irrespective of what other categories they chose & also includes those who wrote in Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish

(Burton, Nandi and Platt 2009)


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Lessons learnt from review

(Burton, Nandi and Platt 2009) There is a lack of consensus among researchers as

to what constitutes an ethnic group. It is possibly multi-dimensional (nationality, religion, language,..)

(Strength of) ethnic identity possibly changes with time/experience, place and context

‘State of ethnic identity’ possibly has different components – personal identification, belonging, practice/behavior, attitudes


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Lessons learnt from review

Census categories may be ‘learnt’ responses rather than groups that people identity with (Werbner 1990, cited in Aspinall 2007)

Persons of mixed parentage and recent immigrants find it hard to identify with these pre-existing groups (Harris and Sim 2000)

– Mixed categories and multiple response options mitigate some of these frustrations

Ethnic identity is different from ethnic group self-categorization and so there is a need to develop measures of ethnic identity


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For existing categorical questions: What will this person choose?

Black British?

Other?

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But what we still needed to know

Do respondents agree on what constitutes an ethnic group or their ethnic identity? Is ethnic identity multi-dimensional?

How do respondents interact and associate with these ethnic groups? Is ethnic identity multi-component?

How best to measure ethnic identity?


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What did we do?Used a multi-pronged approach

Qualitative: Focus groups to understand some conceptual questions about ethnic identity

Qualitative: Testing of suite of questions emerging from this process in in-depth interviews

Qualitative/Quantitative: Testing wording of a question using a self-completion on a convenience sample – Identity Quiz


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What did we do?Used a multi-pronged approach

Quantitative: Testing some prototype Identity questions in the Innovation Panel (2nd wave)

Qualitative: Cognitive Testing of final set of questions

[Qualitative: Used results from the cognitive testing prior to Understanding Society main stage wave 1 to ascertain how people respond to multiple response questions (Gray et. al. 2008)]


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Focus groups: What we did

London Young men and women

Middle to lower social class

Different non-white ethnic groups

London Young men and women

Middle to higher social class

White and Ethnic minority groups

London Older men Middle to lower Different non-white ethnic groups

Colchester Young men and women

Mixed educational levels White

Colchester Older men and women


White

Sheffield Older and middle aged Women


Pakistani

Sheffield Older and middle aged Women


Black African and Black Caribbean


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Focus groups: What we found (1)

For minorities, centrality of ethnic identity“Ethnicity for me is as important as my name because it is my identity. It’s a part- on a larger scale it is my identity.”

For majority (and to a certain extent for white minorities), ethnicity was a property of ‘others’ (typically immigrants)“I don’t think much about my ethnic group…. It’s the obvious thing for me, I’m white, I cannot change it and probably it influenced who I am at the moment, shaped me somehow, but I just don’t know.”

Salience to ethnic identity of being from a minority“It always matters where you come from what origin you are; and tradition and culture it changes with time.”


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Focus groups: What we found (2)

Centrality of skin colour to others’ – and to self perception“So the Black comes with the British for me.”

Strong attachment to regional locations“I wouldn’t see it in terms of nationality, wouldn’t be like I’m British or Irish, I wouldn’t be proud of that. It wouldn’t kind of occur to me. I’d much rather describe myself, for example, as a Londoner”

Pride in ethnicity but opposition to being categorised Importance of values and value systems to ethnic

identity Importance of patterns of association to ethnic

identity Importance of food / diet to identification

(spontaneous)


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Conclusions up until now…

It is important to

To provide flexibility for researchers in constructing ‘ethnic groups’

To allow respondents to identify with multiple dimensions of ethnic identity rather than imposing a choice

To capture various components of ethnic identity that go beyond allocation to a particular group - belonging, identification, attitude, behaviour & practice


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Quantitative Testing: Prototype ‘identity’ questions in the Innovation Panel 2nd wave

Do these questions ‘work’ for majority population, i.e., measuring extent of item non-response.

Are distributions of responses by socio-demographic characteristics as expected?

Do responses vary systematically by the interview mode? EXPERIMENT: Telephone Vs Face-to-Face


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Innovation Panel

Household Panel survey of approximately 1500 householdsStratified, clustered sample (with an epsem design): 2730 addresses selected from 120 areas in UK (excluding Northern Ireland and North of Caledonian Canal) 1489 Households & 2384 individuals interviewed in wave 1 (1660 individuals in wave 2)Wave 1 in 2008, Wave 2 in 2009 (we use data from wave 2)


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Quantitative Testing: Prototype questions to be tested

Suite of ‘identity’ type questions from the Citizenship Survey

SHOWCARD

We’d like to know how important various things are to your sense of who you are. Please think about each thing I mention, and tell me how important it is to your sense of who you are? Please choose your answer from the card.

Your occupation?(1) Very important(2) Quite important(3) Not very important(4) Not at all importantDON’T KNOW

(occupation, ethnic or racial background, religion, national identity, where you live, your interests, family, social class (working, middle), The country your family came from originally, gender, age and life stage, level of income, level of education)


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Quantitative Testing: Innovation Panel suite of identity questions

We’d like to know how important various things are to your sense of who you are. Please think about each thing I mention, and tell me whether you think it is important, not very important or not important to your sense of who you are?

READ OUT EACH AND CODE (1) Important (2) Not very important (3) Not at all important

(a) Your occupation? INTERVIEWER: IF DK PROBE: Is that because you are retired?

(ethnic or racial background, religion, national identity, political beliefs, family, father’s ethnic group, mother’s ethnic group (if different from father’s), marital or partnership status, gender, age and life stage, level of education, sexual orientation)


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Quantitative Testing: Results (1)

Do these questions ‘work’ for majority population? MOSTLY YES

Item non-response: % of Don’t Knows are less than 1% for all except for

– occupation/profession (2%)– for those over 60 years of age: DK for occupation is

4.6%– gender (1.4%) – sexual orientation (1.1%)


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Are distributions of responses by socio-demographic characteristics as expected? YES

Ethnic or Racial background is important for – 74% for non-white/mixed groups – 53% for white

Occupation is important for

– 49% for 60+ – 80% for others

Marital or Partnership Status is important for – 27% of those who are single– 41% of separated/divorced/widowed – 88% of those who are currently married or in a partnership


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Do responses vary systematically by the interview mode? YES, FOR SOME QUESTIONS

Response category: IMPORTANT– Ethnic or racial background (F2F 56.3% > Tel 51.2%)– Political beliefs (F2F 33.4% < Tel 42.6 %)– Gender (F2F 79% > Tel 73.8%)– Education (F2F 69.3% < Tel 79.8%)– Sexual Orientation (F2F 66.9% > Tel 62.1%)– Occupation/Profession (F2F 64% < Tel 68%)


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Interviews: What we wanted to do

Explore similar issues around ethnicity, but in more depth esp. for those types who had not participated in focus groups such as professionals who had strong alternative occupational identities

Test wordings of questions about ethnic identity

Explore different dimensions of ethnic identity (such as religion, language, country of birth, land of ancestors, skin colour,…)

Explore different components of ethnic identity (such as personal identification with group, group belonging, shared values, pride, patterns of association)


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Interviews: How we initially conceptualised ethnic identity


Personal Identification to

“own group”

Attitude towards “own group”

Participation in “own group”

activities

Affiliation with a group “Own group”

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Interviews: what we (wanted) tested

Set of questions to capture affiliation to a group based on language, religion, country of birth, …

And then based on this “own group”, questions on

Identity (“importance to your sense of who you are….) with the group

Shared values and beliefs with members of the group

Pride in the group

Interaction with members of the group


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How to measure affiliation to a group, groupness? So, initially we…

Carried out an ‘identity quiz’ (short self-completion questionnaire) where we examined this.

We compared responses to sense of belonging, connection, and closeness to different potential domains of ethnic identity

On a non-random (work-based) sample of 46 colleagues


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Identity Quiz

1) Do you feel a sense of

belonging to

2) Do you feel a connection to

3) Do you feel a sense of closeness

to

Yes No Yes No Yes No

A those who speak English (or a dialect of English)?

B those who speak the same language you were brought up in?

C those who are of the same religion as you are?

D those who live in the same city/region that you do?

E the country where you were born?

F the region in the country where you were brought up?

G the country where your father was born?


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The Identity Quiz: What we found

Generally a gradation between stronger (closeness) and weaker (connection) terms but quite a lot of variation

Many respondents wanted to be able to answer yes

Giving irrelevant response categories provoked some frustration

Desire for graduated rather than yes/no responses


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So, then for the interviews:

We concluded that groupness wasn’t necessarily a prior for identity

We would ask objective measures on the different dimensions (religion, country of birth,...)

Then ask these as follow-ups:• How important is your religion to your sense of who you are

Similarly,• Do you feel proud of your religion?• Do you interact a lot with those who have the same religion

as you?• Do you share many values and beliefs with those who have

the same religion as you?


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So, then for the interviews:

We also asked ‘feel a sense of belonging to..’ as an alternative to ‘sense of who you are’ questions in a probe to see if respondents interpreted these as same or different concepts

Later interviews asked questions on ‘happy to meet someone who comes from….’ to measure closeness/belonging


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Interviews: What we concluded (1)

Personal identification and belonging are distinct and both relevant and important

Expression of ‘importance to sense of self’ appeared to work for personal identification; as did ‘happy to meet someone who…’ for belonging

Black rarely used in its one-time political sense – predominantly understood as reflecting African or Caribbean heritage.

Colour important – even if self-evident and no indication that discomfort in answering, though there could be confusion for those who were not African or Caribbean or South Asian


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Interviews: What we concluded (2)

Food was spontaneously reported as an integral part of ethnic identity

Interaction should be measured directly – not appropriate to measure through subjective appraisal. [DISCARD]

Values and beliefs – an empirical question, not attitudinal, whether common across ‘groups’ [DISCARD]

Pride produced varied responses – suggests it can differentiate – for some obvious for others difficult or too sweeping


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[Earlier Cognitive testing]

Tested a multiple response categorical question on ethnic group (Gray et. al. 2008),

Respondents liked the opportunity for multiple responses to reflect different aspects of themselves – though they didn’t like the choice of categories

“you are not “locked in” to any one category, you can choose more than one”


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Cognitive testing later: What we did

22 cognitive interviews with respondents varying in ethnicity, age and generation

Tested a limited set of responses for potentially longer question sets. Questions covered:– language (the “missing dimension”)– Identification: ‘importance to sense of self’– Closeness/belonging: ‘happy when you meet someone

who…’– Pride– Food and dress habits


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Cognitive testing later: What we did

Probes covered

Ease/difficulty of answering questions

what phrases/terms meant (‘important to my sense of I am’ Vs ‘important to me’, ‘typical food’, ‘meet someone’)

Preferences for different response options

Degree of comfort with some specific questions


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Cognitive testing later: What we found

Respondents didn’t have many difficulties with the questions, and didn’t seem to find them uncomfortable

Appeared to understand the questions and be able to interpret them as relating to self – even if hard to explain them back sometimes

Food questions worked better than clothing questions

Tended to prefer range of responses rather than simple yes/no


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Combining the quantitative and qualitative findings Qualitative findings

– ‘Ethnic identity’ or ‘ethnicity’ meant different things to different people: country of origin, religion, language, land of ancestors, skin color… And so to allow respondents to identify with multiple dimensions of ethnic identity rather than imposing a choice

– Ethnic identity was a multi-dimensional, multi-component concept (confirming our findings from a review of the literature) And so to capture various components of ethnic identity that go beyond allocation to a particular group - belonging, identification, attitude, behaviour & practice


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Combining the quantitative and qualitative findings

Quantitative findings

– Showed the potential of identity questions to be asked regardless of mode

– Showed that these questions worked well, given the responses varied by socio-demographic characteristics in expected ways and low levels of item non-response

Qualitative results reinforced or enhanced the quantitative results

– confirming the acceptability and comprehensibility of identity questions

– indicating the ability of respondents to distinguish between ‘important to sense of who I am’ and ‘importance to me’ – even if difficult to express the difference – reinforced the validity of the questions


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Combining the quantitative and qualitative findings

Qualitative findings

– were reassuring about the low ‘sensitivity’ of such questions (particularly among minorities)

– indicated that questions on other dimensions of identity – belonging, pride and food – worked well

– ‘Ethnic identity’ or ‘ethnicity’ meant different things to different people: country of origin, religion, language, land of ancestors, skin color…

– confirmed the complexity of the task undertaken but did not appear to render it impossible!


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Ideal for inclusion in the Understanding Society: UK Household Longitudinal Study

Ethnicity is a core element of this study

Particular focus on questions relevant to ethnicity related research, including questions on ethnic background and identity

Extra five minutes of dedicated question time

The proposed ethnic identity questions (for inclusion in 2nd wave) will be able to draw on stable information collected in 1st wave such as country of birth, religion, language

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Ideal for inclusion in the Understanding Society: UK Household Longitudinal Study

Longitudinal study will facilitate research into formation and change of ethnic identity

Household survey will facilitate research into effects of household context on ethnic identity

Large ethnic minority sample will facilitate research on ethnic identity and heterogeneity across different groups. Ethnic minority boost: – at least 1000-1200 adults in each of the five groups African,

Bangladeshi, Caribbean, Indian, Pakistani – Plus around 800 adults in other ethnic minority groups identified

during screening


Thank you!http://www.understandingsociety.org.uk/[email protected]@essex.ac.uk

http://www.understandingsociety.org.uk/

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

using qualitative and quantitative methods to develop ethnic identity questions in the uk alita...

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