Hi Paul,

I think the consequences of not seeking racial or ethnic data in studies conducted in societies in which race and ethnicity are of vital importance in the socialization process is to render your research completely useless.  Indeed, in studies conducted on North American subjects, the race and ethnicity of the researcher is vitally important in terms of the validity of the researcher's interpretation of the data collected from ethnic, racial (and/or religious) minorities.  Moreover, to eliminate the possibility of false identification or characterization (intentional or unintentional), where possible in situ qualitative studies should be preferred over relying strictly on anonymous quantitative data collection. 

Gwen

Hi Gwendolyn,

Thanks for your response.

Seeking to desegregate data based on racial origin has been important for our research on democracy and education. Since we conduct research in English, French and Spanish, I am always intrigued as to the reaction in relation to the French-language audience when discussing such an approach. For the past ten years, I have consistently seen a very different critique, engagement with, and appreciation for the use of demographic data related to race when presenting in French, especially in Europe but also in Canada. It should be noted that the resistance almost always comes from White francophones.

At a very basic level, we have found that, just based on the racial variable, the understanding of, conceptualization of, and relationship to democracy for pre-service teachers varies when race is considered. However, there is a lot of nuance here as well when the intersectionality of identity is incorporated. This leads to questions about how institutions, which preach "colour-blindness," are able to identify, assess and engage with issues, problems and concerns.

Best regards,

Paul

Dear Paul, You always have such keen insights into social conundrums.  I will be interested to see how our colleagues respond to this problem.  It certainly could turn into an interesting paper that could inform our so called color blind research community.  Kudos to you sir!!! Best, Sheila

Dear Paul, although living in Brazil, which, as everybody knows, is a country of people of color (Indigenous, Brazilians, Portugueses, and immigrants from Europe mainly), the majority of researchers do not consider this issue in their studies. In fact we have here a so called color blind research community. In fields such sociology and education there is good scholars and studies concern with this aspect. We have improved a lot in terms of affirmative policies, particularly related to Higher Education. I published this chapter about Brazilian society, Multiracial Reality, White Data: the Hidden Relations of the Racial Democracy and Education in Brazil. In: Grant, Carl; Lei, Joy. (Org.). Global constructions of Multicultural Education: Theories and realities.

Hi Alvaro,

It's good to hear from you.

I'm glad you raised the issue of research in Brazil because the international dimensions of racialization involve diverse historical, cultural, political and epistemological dimensions. 

A different but related question might be: How does race, racial origin and racialization affect the type of research undertaken? Not only the topic and formulation but also at the level of analysis?

All the best, Alvaro.

Paul

Paul here in Australia race and ethnicity are always the "elephant in the room". Like many other western countries, race and/or ethnicity issues are closely linked with class. Australia has a long brutal history of racial discrimination - from bloody attacks on Indigenous and Chinese people to the current Islamaphobia and anti-Semistism.  It is vital in social research to understand how issues of race/ethnicity/gender and sexual preference impact on peoples social and cultural capital.

Hi David,

Thanks for your thoughts on this important issue. When Gina and I were in Australia in 2013, we were able to witness the Aus-rules football player who was confronted by the racial heckling of a 13-year-old girl at a game, which launched  very interesting debate about racism in Australian society. I'm wondering how fare the debate went? Like in Canada, it is always easy to acknowledge the First Nations when it is meant to bolster national pride but less easy when it comes to addressing bone fide, longstanding concerns. Does the research of Aboriginal peoples in Australia have a resonance in Australian society, or is it considered to be marginal, and even potentially tainted because of the identity posture?

Hope all is well, David, and talk to you soon.

Paul

Australia is still struggling to come to grips with its Black past and future - while there is significant public support for "closing gaps" between Indigenous and White Australia there is also strong resentment about the amount of money spent on communities without any seeming advance.

notes from Sweden:

if you are talking about surveys, I don't think I have seen a single one where the concept of race, skin-colour or something like it is used. Only far-right extremists talk of it, and even they seldom in public.

Still, ethnicity is generally considered as vital to include as e.g. gender and age as background factors in labour market studies, for instance. but what is measured/asked for is generally not ethnicity, but own/parents country of origin (first/second generation immigrant) classificed as Sweden, rest of Nordic countries, Europe outside the nordic countries, rest of the world. 

In larger surveys, this is genrally done using register-data so that you do not have to ask people and perhaps offend them (some refuse to answer the question).

An interesting alternative (with some ethical considerations) is a dissertation by Moa Bursell.2012. ethic discrimiation, name change and labor market inequality. she sent out paired fake CV (one swedish sounding name, one 'foreign') to a lot of companies and investigated who got called to jobs interviews.

this link hopefully gets you there: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?dswid=-3779&pid=diva2%3A561919&c=3&searchType=SIMPLE&language=sv&query=moa+bursell&af=[]&aq=[[]]&aq2=[[]]&aqe=[]&noOfRows=50&sortOrder=author_sort_asc&onlyFullText=false&sf=all&jfwid=-3779

Greetings Fredrik,

The international dimensions of this problematic are extremely interesting and pertinent.

Increasingly, in North America, data on race are gathered in order to better understand how race plays out in society. For example, among the many variables presented in surveys and data-collection in the Toronto Board of Education, the racial origin question has facilitated an understanding of educational experience; it was found in the 1990s, and is probably the same today, that three times the number of Black students dropped out versus the number of White students. If course, all kinds of other types of analysis are required but it would be impossible to not investigate how race plays out within this context: is the education system racist, overtly or covertly? are there particular issues related to particular ethno-cultural and racial groups that need to be further fleshed out? how does race place out in society that is connected to the educational experience, etc.?

Once again, caution, preparation and acumen are required but the non-collection of data can falsely give the illusion that there is no racism. If there is no racism, then there is no racism but in contemporary societies it would be difficult to come to that conclusion.

I would be interested to learn more about how racialization plays out in Sweden. My colleague Carl James, at York U. in Toronto, has been doing work in Sweden for some fifteen years on anti-racism, and his experience is worth exploring.

Your point about extremist groups misusing data is well taken, and I think that is a rationale for researchers to engage more intensely with the problematic.

Thanks for your comments, and best regards.

Paul

Hi Paul,

Before I comment on your question ... I am working on a draft of my PhD dissertation (University of Regina, Saskatchewan - A narrative inquiry into experiences of foreign certified teachers' professional experiences in rural Saskatchewan schools). I have found your work on racism and colonial discourses very helpful (I have used postcolonial framework). When I meet with my supervisor next, I'll drop your name as a possible external examiner.  I think I have read almost all your published work.  

Thanks for the insights.  Best regards

James Oloo ([email protected])

James,

Thanks for the message. Who's your superviser? Good luck with your dissertation. George Dei's work, whom I'm sure you're aware of, is also a great inspiration. If you read French, I have also done some work with Gina Thésée that focuses on decolonial issues and problems.

Best regards

Paul

Hi Paul, 

Thanks.  I saw your work with Thésée but could not read it.  Je ne lis pas en français.

I am familiar with Dei's work.

My supervisor is Dr. Ken Montgomery http://www.uregina.ca/education/faculty-staff/faculty/montgomery-ken.html

Regards

James

Dr. Carr:

I think that in general research is risky.  We can rarely know the consequences of our questions and types of assessment on our participants.  

You might consider using qualitative narrative methods to assess how a sample of your intended population would perceive "race" related inquiries (e.g., focus groups).  It is likely that the consequences would relate to the meaning of race for a particular cultural or race/ethnic group.  Qualitative data related to your question with two or three focus groups might give you more useful information.

In general if you ask about "race" make sure to ask whether or not participants actually identify with a racial/ethnic group as well as to list some specific groups or have them write in the group(s) (if any) with which they identify.  In this instance, you are not referring to biological definitions but recognizing that racial self-identification is often socially constructed and is likely to influence your findings; particularly for those who do view themselves as belonging to a particular group or groups.  

These are a few of my thoughts.

All the best,

S. Harris

Dear Shanette,

Many thanks for your thoughtful comments.

I agree that the contextual realities of race and racialization cloud the spectrum, and also that discussing race can lead to much resistance and consternation.

In the democracy research I have been engaged with, I have tried to balance out the request for racial identity (through self-identification) with a range of other demographic markers.

Interestingly, in the meta-questionnaire that our team sends out about 10 days after completing the questionnaire, we ask participants what they felt were the most difficult, helpful, problematic and engaging questions (something like that anyway; I could check but that's how I recall it for the moment), and it is noteworthy that a number of participants discuss the racial angle. In further deconstructing the analysis, we have found that a significant number of participants raised important concerns about their not having fully reflected on the connection between democracy and education, which also connects with our concerns related to social justice and antiracism. If you're interested, more on the research can be found here: www.education4democracy.net

Best regards, and thanks for your comments!

Paul

In the current study that I am conducting along with Amy Tishelman, Ph.D., of forensic interviewers' perceptions of the importance of culture on their interviews and work in general, we provide a short demographic questionnaire (8 questions) AFTER the longer interview, which lasts about an hour. Usually, people end up describing their culture and/or race during the interview itself, which makes the asking of "racial" questions at the end a little superfluous. I much prefer asking these questions at the end. As part of the interview itself, we do ask people, "How do you identify culturally?" and then we ask in what ways it is easier/harder to interview children from their own group. Asking how they identify culturally has provided a much broader range of responses than the demographic questionnaire at the end. We ask for the demographics at the end because the literature on narrative interviewing shows that "training" people in giving short answers at the beginning of an interview (such as through a demographic questionnaire) encourages them to provide shorter and less elaborated answers in the interview itself.

All very fascinating, thanks! Our problems here in South Africa when working with people of "first people" descent is very complex and die to the long perod of acculturation and a loss of language. Not to mention that the language of most descendants is Afrikaans which ties them to the Apartheid structure as largely Afrikaans dominated (though not solely!), there is stigma attached in all sorts of ways. Today with a resurgence of pride in Khoisan heritage which is melding many different ethnic groups together, mainiy on the basis of NOT being black African and Nguni, the difficulty lies in that many "others" simply do not actually know who they are or what affiliations they could or would like to belong to. Being "coloured" is a very hard and difficult position to be in today but many still embrace that as what they grew up with. Will read further from your papers and am interested to see how you deal with these questions and hopw to find some ideas and inspiratons. I seldom use written questionnaires and start talking about famiy names going back as far as possible and where those families were located prevously, this usually leads in th end to a sort of clarity about group identity or mainly in fact blood connections often made clearer from both first and surnames. 

My work is primarily with Indigenous peoples and I would agree with some of the observations made by Prof. van Wijk - asking direct questions about racial identity in this so-called postcolonial period is not only complicated but can be distressing and even traumatizing to individuals. Another complication that I have noted in Canada and the US is that the First Peoples - however they identify themselves (Aboriginal, Indigenous, American Indian, Native American, by tribal/band/nation...) - will acknowledge the experience of racism without necessarily identifying directly as "members of a race." Not sure if I'm articulating this clearly as it is a research question I've tossed around off and on but not followed up.

 Let me make this simple for you: you can use racial categories if you are identifying non-whites as "victims" of white racism, or if you are identifying whites as "racists," or if you are writing about the great achievements of non-whites.

But don't you ever use racial categories if you are writing, for example, about the disproportionate number of crimes committed by blacks in the US in comparison to whites and Asians. And don't you ever use racial categories if you are writing about white achievements.

If you follow these double standards, you will be OK. 

I think that even I--when asked in situations about race in gender,--hesitate or even provide false or misleading answers over 10 % of the time.  

I think more sensitive peoples might be even more inclined to not answer straightforwardly or truthfully.    Just recall that women in Spokane, WA who claimed to be black for years but was recently kicked out of the NAACP for not telling truth about race.