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Patterns of identity among

ethnic minority people:Diversity and commonalityJames Nazroo

a& Saffron Karlsen

a

aUniversity College London, UK

Published online: 04 Jun 2010.

To cite this article:James Nazroo & Saffron Karlsen (2003) Patterns of identity amongethnic minority people: Diversity and commonality, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 26:5,

902-930, DOI: 10.1080/0141987032000109087

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Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 26 No. 5 September 2003 pp. 902930

2003 Taylor & Francis LtdISSN 0141-9870 print/1466-4356 onlineDOI: 10.1080/0141987032000109087

Patterns of identity among ethnic

minority people: Diversity andcommonality

James Y. Nazroo and Saffron Karlsen

Abstract

This article explores the processes involved in the creation and expressionof an ethnic identity for minority groups. It uses nationally representativequantitative data from the British Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minori-ties

to describe the components that make up ethnic identity for ethnicminority people in the UK and to explore how these components are pat-terned within and between ethnic groups. Five underlying dimensions ofethnic identity were identified using factor analysis: two related to selfdescription, a traditional identity, participating in community, and being amember of a racialized group. There was considerable similarity, but also

some difference, in these dimensions across the ethnic groups included. Thearticle concludes that the structure of ethnic identity is similar across ethnicminority groups in Britain, but that there is some diversity of identity withinethnic groups; perhaps as a consequence of how the factors that structureethnic identity vary across demographic groups.

Keywords: Ethnicity; minority; identity; racism; tradition; community.

Introduction

Broad classifications of ethnicity are typically used for data collection ina variety of studies and locations. For example, in the UK we typicallyuse categories derived from the 1991 Census classification (Black Carib-bean, Black African, Black Other, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi,Chinese, Other Asian, Other), though this is being supplanted with asimilar list derived from the 2001 Census. While this is of value in termsof the research undertaken, the allocation of people into such broadundifferentiated categories is of limited use if we seek to understand the

processes that actually produce a sense of their own and others ethnicaffiliation, and hence the formation of ethnic groups themselves. To allow

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Diversity and commonality

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for this we must go beyond such tick list assessments of ethnicity toexplore what being a member of a particular ethnic group means: theinfluence of ethnicity as a form of identity.

Much of the empirical and theoretical work on ethnicity/race is

rooted in a concern to expose and understand social inequalities, whichhas led to a research focus on the external

process of identity definition,that which is imposed on a minority/less powerful group by the majority/more powerful. In particular, how and why ethnicity/race is used tosignify the other as different and how this allows the construction andmaintenance of boundaries of exclusion and hierarchical relationships.Most commentators on such a process of signification have emphasizedthe role of physical characteristics and the ideological notion of race,although it is recognized that this process also involves the reification ofcultural characteristics (e.g. Miles 1989, p. 40; Mason 1996, p. 201; Miles1996, p. 253). This process allows claims of collective origin and desig-nates ethnic/racial signifiers as natural (Miles 1996), so justifying theassociated exclusion.

However, to fully understand the processes that underlie the forma-tion of ethnic groups we must recognize that ethnic groups are not onlyformed by external labelling, but also as a consequence of individualagency. For example, Jenkins describes the internal definition, whereindividuals and groups define their own identity in addition to (andperhaps in response to) the external definition. So, in addition to work

that has focused on racism, race and race relations, more recently therehas been a growing emphasis on examining the ways in which ethnicity isalso an identity and an identity that reflects agency as well as structure.As such, it is argued that underlying the racist categorisation imposedon ethnic minority groups are: real collectivities, common and distinctiveforms of thinking and behaviour, of language, custom, religion and so on;not just modes of oppression but modes of being (Modood 1996, p. 95).Jenkins definition recognizes how groups form boundaries of inclusionthat provide a sense of identity and access to social resources, and where

the relations between ethnic groups are not necessarily

hierarchical,exploitative and conflictual (Jenkins 1996, p. 71, emphasis added).

Jenkins also describes identity as: two interacting but independententailments: a name (the nominal) and an experience (the virtual)(1994, p. 218). Defining who is

a member and what it is to be

a member ofa particular social group involves the consolidation of the internal andexternal processes just described: the external imposition of a character-ization, for example, will affect the social experience of living with thatidentity and therefore the self-image of those so defined. The process of

self-representation is such that what it means to have a particular identitywill also vary according to the external audience, for example, whethersuch identification is seen positively or not. In this way, racist oppressioncan actually structure an individuals own identity, as well as affecting the

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way in which someone with that identity interacts with others. Thereforedefining who we are, both by name and in experience, is dynamic, rela-tively ambiguous and will be heavily influenced by wider society. So,while the emphasis may appear to be on internal factors (agency and the

construction of identity), the structuring of identity by external socialfactors remains important.Of course, as just implied, ethnic identity cannot be considered as

fixed, because cultures develop and adapt and, as such, are not autono-mous and static features in an individuals life. Cultural traditions arehistorically located, they occur within particular contexts and changeover time, place and person. In addition, ethnicity is only one element ofidentity, whose significance depends on the context within which theindividual finds him/herself. For example, gender and class are alsoimportant and in certain situations may be more important aspects ofidentity than ethnicity. In the context of a critique of an essentialist use ofthe concept of culture in health research (see, for example, how culture isused in Soni Raleigh and Balarajan 1992 and Gupta et al

. 1995), Ahmadprovides a good illustration of the need to consider the dynamic natureof ethnic identity in relation to culture:

Stripped of its dynamic social, economic, gender and historical con-text, culture becomes a rigid and constraining concept which is seensomehow to mechanistically determine peoples behaviours and

actions rather than providing a flexible resource for living, foraccording meaning to what one feels, experiences and acts tochange. Cultural norms provide guidelines for understanding andaction, guidelines which are flexible and changing, open to differentinterpretations across people and across time, structured by gender,class, caste and other contexts, and which are modulated by previ-ous experiences, relationships, resources and priorities. (Ahmad1996, p. 190)

The suggestion is therefore that there is a range of identities that comeinto play in different contexts and that identity should be regarded asneither secure nor coherent (Hall 1992). So, rather than being somethinginnate and fixed, identity is something that is formed and transformed inrelation to self-representation and reaction. Hall (1992) argues thatcentral to this is the process of globalization, which, to paraphrase him,has had the effect of exposing and contesting the supposedly unified andtrans-historical boundaries of national identities. The challenge ofglobalization might then lead to a strengthening of local identities

(including white or majority identities), and the revival of cultural tradi-tionalism, perhaps in response to the experience of racism and exclusion.Alternatively, globalization might lead to the production of new hybrididentities, where identities are adapted or become incorporated with

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aspects of other (not necessarily ethnic) identities. Hall argues forexample that migration means that people are:

Obliged to come to terms with the new cultures they inhabit, without

simply assimilating to them and losing their identities completely.They bear upon them the traces of the particular cultures, traditions,languages and histories by which they were shaped ... [but] they areirrevocably the product of several interlocking histories and cultures,belong at one and the same time to several homes ... peoplebelonging to such cultures of hybridity

have had to renounce thedream or ambition of rediscovering any kind of lost cultural purity,or ethnic absolutism. They are irrevocably translated

. (Hall 1992, p.310, emphasis in the original)

There is some distance, however, between discussions of an ethnicidentity that incorporates elements of hybridity or translation and discus-sions of acculturation. While acculturation is a term that is often usedto describe how minority groups adopt the values and behaviours of thedominant society (Palinkas and Pickwell 1995), it does not contain anysense of how the process of translation affects all cultures, includingdominant ones.

An example of the processes identified by Hall (1992) can be found inJacobsons (1997) qualitative study of young British Pakistanis in

London. She found religious identity (in this case as a Muslim) to bemore important for the self-definition of these young people than theirstatus as Asian or Pakistani, a distinction which stemmed from theperceived attachment of the ethnic label to a particular place of originand to customs and traditions that were non-religious in origin, ratherthan to the purer more universal religious identity. This religiousidentity also suppressed the conflict between those who felt Pakistani orAsian in ancestry, but more at home in Britain. So, the identities ofthese young people appeared to have been translated, with their tradi-

tional national identity to some extent transformed into one that incor-porated their location in Britain. But this also appeared to involve astrengthening of their local Muslim identities, perhaps as a form ofresistance to racism and assimilation into the dominant culture.

Related to this discussion of hybrid identities is Halls discussion of acultural supermarket (1992, p. 303). Here he describes our apparentability to choose from a range of identities that we are confronted by:

Within the discourse of global consumerism, differences and cultural

distinctions which hitherto defined identity

become reducible to a sortof international lingua franca

or global currency into which all specifictraditions and distinct identities can be translated. (Hall 1992, p. 303,emphasis in the original)

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So, local identities can become translated and would appear to be acces-sible to all. But, while individual decisions about who we are and ourlifestyle choices may appear to be unbounded, they are made withinsocial constraints, what Bourdieu terms habitus (1977). Bourdieu

argues that while social practice has some purpose and practical intentfor the individual, these goals are located within an individuals ownexperience of reality, which is related to who

and what

they are and istherefore, as we suggested above, at least partially externally defined. Histheory of habitus explores the influence on behaviour of symbolic repre-sentations which relate to:

A whole body of wisdom, sayings, commonplaces, ethical precepts(thats not for the likes of us) and, at a deeper level, the unconsciousprinciples of the ethos which ... determines reasonable andunreasonable conduct for every agent. (Bourdieu 1977, p. 77)

The only means of expanding this sphere of reasonable behaviour isthrough increasing the lifestyle choices available. Access to potentiallifestyle choices is through forms of capital, which are also delimited bysocial position. Attempts by social groups to define and appropriate theirown lifestyle will thus be restrained and influenced by social structures,partly because of external constraints and, perhaps, partly through theneed to establish a lifestyle distinct from other local identities (Smaje

1996). Therefore, while aspects of ethnic identity may be internallydefined, the scope of those choices will be restricted and affected byexternal forces. Central to this is an identity that is rooted in and drawsupon a particular cultural context

, rather than a culture that is a construc-tion of identity choices or discourses (Bader 2001).

In this way, while local identities may appear universally accessible,there will be (internally and externally imposed) constraints on access tothem. One reaction to such external constraints may be for an ethnicgroup to develop a form of politicized identity:

Ethnic identity, like gender and sexuality, has become politicised andfor some people has become a primary focus of their politics. There isan ethnic assertiveness, arising out of the feelings of not beingrespected or lacking access to public space, consisting of counterpos-ing positive images against traditional or dominant stereotypes. It isa politics of projecting identities in order to challenge existing powerrelations; of seeking not just toleration for ethnic difference but alsopublic acknowledgement, resources and representation. (Modood

1997, p. 290)

Indeed, Solomos (1998) has cogently argued that an ethnic identity isessentially a political resource that can be used to further a groups

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(dominant or subordinate) interests. Here ethnicity as identity could beconstrued as a new social movement (Scott 1990), perhaps occurring in avacuum provided by the disappearance of a class-based politics (Gilroy1987). This idea of a racialized minority led commentators in the 1970s

and 1980s to use the term blackness as a metaphor for the: expressionof a common experience of exclusion and of a common political identityforged through resistance to that exclusion (Miles 1994, p. 7), althoughthe temptation to adopt this as a further means of essentializing diverseethnic minority groups into an undifferentiated whole has led to itsunpopularity among many commentators today (see Modood 1988). Thesuggestion that racial discrimination is a broadly similar experience andmay have similar effects across different ethnic minority groups, despitethe fact that it may come in different guises, suggests one way in whichthe experience of racism may become part of an ethnic minority iden-tity.

In the light of these debates, this article sets out to shed some light on thecomplex processes that are involved in the creation and expression of anethnic identity for minority groups. It is uniquely based on nationally repre-sentative and quantitative data, involving secondary analysis of the FourthNational Survey of Ethnic Minorities

[FNS] (Modood et al

. 1997), which willbe described shortly. We use these data to describe the components thatmake up ethnic identity for ethnic minority people in the UK and toexplore how these components are patterned within and between ethnic

groups. And we relate our findings to the issues outlined so far.

Methods

An empirical quantitative investigation of ethnic identity and how itmight reflect the issues outlined above is clearly not straightforward. Asthe preceding discussion illustrates, there is a requirement to be sensitiveto the internal and external processes of ethnic group formation, thenominal and virtual experiences of an ethnic identity, the contextual

nature of ethnic identity and how this is related to cultural traditionalism,translation and the emergence of new hybrid identities, and the relation-ship between ethnic identity and political movements. The need to besensitive to the contextual nature of identity alone makes it hard, if notimpossible, to operationalize underlying concepts in the relatively crudemeasurement systems required by a quantitative study.

Here we shall describe one approach to the quantitative exploration ofethnic identity that attempts to address some of these difficulties andwhich recognizes the multi-dimensional nature of ethnic identity. Our

purpose is to explore the applicability of the debates outlined above tothe reported experiences of ethnic minority people in Britain. We takeadvantage of the opportunity provided by the FNS, which included anumber of questions that might be considered to reflect elements of

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ethnic identity relevant to the discussion above, including how peopledescribed themselves, how far their behaviours and attitudes reflectedcultural traditions and affiliation to an ethnic grouping, and how far theirreported experiences and perceptions reflected being identified as a non-

white person and reactions to this. Responses to these questions are usedhere to identify underlying dimensions of ethnic identity and to explorehow these might vary within ethnic groups (reflecting the competingpulls of traditionalism and hybridization for ethnic minority people in aglobalized society) and might, or might not, vary across ethnic groups,reflecting their cultural diversity on the one hand and similarities in theircontext on the other.

The FNS was a study of the circumstances and experiences of ethnicminority and white people living in England and Wales, which wasconducted in 1993 to 1994 by the Policy Studies Institute and Social andCommunity Planning Research (now the National Centre for

SocialResearch). The methods used in the survey are described in full else-where (Modood et al

. 1997; Nazroo 1997; Smith and Prior 1997), keypoints are covered below.

The data were collected using a structured questionnaire. The inter-view schedule was translated into a variety of South Asian languages andthe interview itself was carried out in the language(s) of the respondentschoice. Topics covered in the interview included: household structure;type and quality of accommodation; social networks; racial prejudice,

discrimination and harassment; employment; education; health; andethnic identity. However, because the full interview schedule would havebeen too long, some questions were only asked of half of the respon-dents, and this included the ethnic identity section, which is the focus ofthis article.

The sampling procedures were designed to select probability samplesof both individuals and households. Sampling points were identifiedusing information from the 1991 Census, which allowed areas to beselected on the basis of the concentration of ethnic minority people

within them. In order to ensure that the sample was fully representative,areas with low concentrations of ethnic minority people were identifiedand included. Screening for ethnic minority respondents was carried outin the field using a method known as focused enumeration, which hasbeen shown to provide good coverage of the targeted populations(Brown and Ritchie 1981, Smith and Prior 1997). The groups covered bythe survey, the total number of respondents in each group in the surveyand the number of respondents in each group who are included in theidentity analysis, are shown in Table 1, which also shows response rates to

the survey. The allocation of individuals into ethnic groups in the tableand the rest of the analysis presented here was based on their response toa question asking about their family origins. Responses to this questionwere very closely correlated with responses to a question asking about

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self-assigned ethnic group membership, which was worded similarly tothe 1991 Census question (Nazroo 1997). The analysis presented here isrestricted to the Caribbean and South Asian groups, because there weretoo few respondents in the Chinese group and identity questions were

not asked of the white respondents. The initial analysis of these data(Modood et al

. 1997) showed great similarities between Pakistani andBangladeshi people, including in response to the identity questions, sofor reasons of sample size, these groups have been combined here.

The analyses reported here have concentrated on questionnaire items

relating to descriptions of ancestry and ethnic affiliation, lifestyle,experience of racism, and social and community involvement. Thisincluded questions on: attributes that were perceived to be important ina description of the respondent given by themselves and by a whiteperson; participating in customs and behaviours which may be seen astraditional to an ethnic group; membership of ethnically-specific organi-zations; experience or recognition of racist elements in British society;and the extent to which the respondents saw themselves as British andas a member of their ethnic group. The full details of these questions will

be shown when findings are reported, but they correspond with thoseincluded in the descriptive analysis of these data presented in Modood etal

. (1997), with the exception of religion (which we have explored as acorrelate of ethnic identity) and with the inclusion of racism, which weconsider to be a potentially important influence on ethnic minorityidentity in the UK.

To determine underlying dimensions of ethnicity that might contributeto a sense of identity, a factor analysis (Kim and Mueller 1979) wasconducted of responses to these questions. This is a technique thatanalyses the relationships between variables to identify any underlyingconstructs, termed factors, that sets of the variables may be tapping. Todo this, the factor analysis identifies the correlations among variables andgroups together those variables whose responses are related. These

Table 1.

Ethnic composition of respondents to the Fourth National Survey

Ethnic group

Response rate

Number ofrespondents insurvey

Number ofrespondentsincluded in identityanalysis

White 71 2867 0Caribbean 61 1205 591Indian 74 2001 1013Pakistani 73 1185 601Bangladeshi 83 591 302

Chinese

66

214

0

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groups of variables are then represented as factors, with each factor ineffect summarizing responses to the set of variables and, consequently,the underlying construct that they may be reflecting. So, in this case thefactor analysis allowed us to group together questions on ethnic identity

in such a way as to summarize the underlying dimensions of ethnicidentity that they reflected. The analysis produces factors in sequenceaccording to the amount of the total sample variance they account for,called the eigenvalue. This analysis reports only factors with an eigen-value of 1 or over (factors with a variance of less than 1 are no better thana single variable, since each variable has a variance of 1) (Kim andMueller 1979). One important statistical limitation of this approach isthat the data used in the factor analysis were categorical. The use offactor analysis with data that are not of a ratio or an interval level ofmeasurement is controversial, as implied by the use of correlationmatrices as the basic input to factor analysis, but not without precedent(Kim and Mueller 1979). Here it should be recognized that we have usedfactor analysis largely as a heuristic device, to assess whether underlyingdimensions of ethnic identity can be identified, how far they might varyacross ethnic minority groups, and how they relate to socio-demographiccharacteristics.

The initial step of the factor analysis was followed by oblique rotationto allow for correlation between the different factors (i.e. between thedifferent dimensions of ethnic identity) identified. The degree of correla-

tion between the individual factors was assessed using linear regression.Cronbachs alpha reliability coefficients were calculated for the key vari-ables clustering under the different factors to give an indication of thedegree of correlation between them. The final stage of the factor analysiswas to allocate individual respondents a score for each of the factorsidentified, which represents a summary of their responses to the indi-vidual questions that contribute to that factor.

The factor analysis was conducted for each ethnic minority groupseparately and for all of the ethnic minority respondents combined. This

allowed us both to explore potential differences in dimensions of ethnicidentity between the different ethnic groups (that is, how far the separatefactor analyses produced different dimensions across groups) and toexamine differences between ethnic groups in scores on particularfactors when a joint factor analysis was conducted.

Finally, to explore the relationship between ethnic identity, otherdimensions of identity and contextual factors, a linear regression analysiswith socio-demographic characteristics was performed separately foreach identity factor and for each of the three ethnic groups. The socio-

demographic characteristics included were: age, gender, age of migra-tion, religious affiliation for Indian people (this is not included for theother ethnic groups who are mainly affiliated to one broad religion),importance of religion, Registrar Generals occupational class, housing

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tenure, economic activity, equivalent class of highest British or overseasqualification, and a measure of urbanization.

Dimensions of ethnicity as identity

Factor analysis of the identity questions, for all the ethnic minoritygroups combined, grouped the questions into five dimensions of identity.The details of the key questions loading on to these five factors, togetherwith the reliability coefficient (Cronbachs alpha) for them, are shownnext. Each dimension has been given a working title to aid the presen-tation of results.

The questions loading heavily on the first factor, entitled nationalityimportant for self-description, were:

If you were describing yourself on the phone to a new acquaintanceof your own sex from a country you have never been to: would your nationality tell them something important about

you? would the country your family came from tell them something

important about you? If a white person who knew and liked you was describing you to

another white person, would they think it important to mention: your nationality?

the country your family came from?

Cronbachs alpha for these questions was 0.61.The questions loading heavily on the second factor, entitled

ethnicity/race important for self-description, were:

If you were describing yourself on the phone to a new acquaintanceof your own sex from a country you have never been to: would your skin colour tell them something important about

you? would the fact that you are Asian/Caribbean tell them something

important about you? If a white person who knew and liked you was describing you to

another white person, would they think it important to mention: your skin colour? that you are Asian/Caribbean?

Cronbachs alpha for these questions was 0.65.

The questions loading heavily on the third factor, entitled traditional,were:

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How often do you wear Asian clothes/something that is meant toshow a connection with the Caribbean or Africa? Never; At socialevents; At home; At work, or while shopping; All the time.

Who do you speak to in a language other than English? No-one;

Older relatives; Own-age relatives; Younger relatives; Friendsoutside work; Work friends. Would you personally mind if a close relative were to marry a white

person? I wouldnt mind; I would mind a little; I would verymuch mind.

Do you strongly agree, agree, neither agree or disagree, disagree orstrongly disagree with these statements?: In many ways I think of myself as being British In many ways I think of myself as being Asian/Caribbean

Cronbachs alpha for these questions was 0.56.The questions loading heavily on the fourth factor, entitled commu-

nity participation, covered both actual participation and whether theparticipation was within an ethnic minority organization, with higherscores reflecting participation in minority organizations. The actual ques-tions were:

Does your voluntary work bring you mainly into contact withpeople of your ethnic origin, mainly white people or about equally

with both? Dont volunteer; Mainly White; Both; Mainlypeople from my own ethnic group.

Do your activities with [organization] bring you mainly into contactwith people of your ethnic origin, mainly white people or aboutequally with both? Am not a member of an organization; MainlyWhite; Both; Mainly people from my own ethnic group.

Cronbachs alpha for these questions was 0.40.The questions loading heavily on the fifth factor, entitled member of a

racialized group, were:

Have you ever been a victim of a racially motivated attack (verbalor physical abuse to the person or property)?

Have you ever been treated unfairly at work or been refused a jobon the basis of race, colour or your religious or cultural back-ground?

How many of the employers in Britain do you think would refuse ajob to a person because of their race, colour, religion or cultural

background? None; A few; About half; Most.

Cronbachs alpha for these questions was 0.40.There is considerable consistency between the factors identified by this

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empirical analysis and theoretical discussions of ethnicity and ethnicidentity. For example, one can read into these factors elements that relateto Jenkins discussion of the nominal and virtual components of identity(Jenkins 1994). Of the dimensions of ethnic identity derived from the

factor analysis, nationality important to self-description and ethnicity/race important to self-description appear to be related to the nominalcomponent of ethnic identity. The self-descriptive elements containedwithin these factors include nationality/country of origin, skin colour anda broad ethnic descriptor (Asian or Caribbean). And the remainingfactors (traditional, community participation and member of a racializedgroup) access elements of what it is to be of

an ethnic minority group, thevirtual component of ethnic identity.

The factor that we have named traditional fits also with Halls discus-sions of tradition, translation and hybrid identities (Hall 1992). Itemscovered by this factor include: using clothes, hairstyles and other symbolsto present oneself as a member of a particular cultural group; usinglanguages other than English; attitudes to mixed marriage; and percep-tion of oneself as British and as Asian or Caribbean. A high score onthis could be considered to be similar to what Smaje (1996) terms unre-flective ethnicity, the almost automatic or passive continuance ofparticular cultural forms. However, this could also be viewed as an activepresentation of a public image as being of a particular ethnic group,traditional in Halls sense of a strengthening or revival of local traditional

identities (Hall 1992).Returning to Jenkins and his discussion of internal and external defini-

tions (1996), the items included under the tradition factor will, of course,have the potential to act as external markers of identity, signifiers thatenable boundaries of exclusion to be defined. The tradition factor mayalso operate as a boundary of inclusion, providing an internal marker ofidentity, that might be passively adopted by some and actively by others.The community participation factor could also be considered to reflect aboundary of inclusion, although a more clearly active one. The perceived

need to establish and participate in ethnically-identified groups wouldsuggest both a response to exclusion by wider society and a positivecelebration of ethnic group membership, a kind of politicized identity.

The member of a racialized group factor, which includes itemsreflecting perceptions and experience of racial harassment and discrimi-nation, is the most obvious indicator of the influence of boundaries ofexclusion and external definitions on ethnic identity. It could also beargued that those who score highly on this factor will have recognizedtheir ethnic status as one that has been racialized by the ethnic majority.

So, this factor may therefore carry connotations similar to the termblackness, as used in the 1970s and 1980s (Modood 1988; Miles 1994).The loadings of each of the variables on each factor are shown in full

in Table 2. As described in the methods section, and as Table 2 suggests,

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Table 2. Variable loadings for ethnic identity factors

Factor 1:

Nationalityimportant to self-description

Factor 2:

Ethnicity/raceimportant to self-description

Factor 3:

Traditional

Country of origin in self-description 0.572 0.168 0.028Country of origin in description by white person 0.504 0.276 0.017Nationality in self-description 0.790 0.155 0.021Nationality in description by white person 0.694 0.020 0.021

Asian/Black in self-description 0.228 0.494 0.014Asian/Black in description by white person 0.281 0.476 0.032Skin colour in self-description 0.076 0.817 0.003

Skin colour in description by white person 0.004 0.751 0.085Wear Asian/Black clothes 0.046 0.107 0.730Speak language other than English 0.160 0.219 0.643Mind mixed marriages 0.030 0.031 0.706Think of self as Asian/Black 0.084 0.150 0.474Do not think of self as British 0.044 0.071 0.415

Membership of own ethnic group organisation 0.054 0.126 0.052Voluntary work with own ethnic group 0.019 0.074 0.120

Victim of racism 0.019 0.032 0.078Discriminated at work 0.078 0.126 0.178

British employers are racist 0.042 0.052 0.120

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orthogonal rotation was used in the factor analysis to allow for theprobability that different ethnic identity factors were related to eachother. The correlations between the different identity factors are shownin Table 3.

Table 2 shows that some of the variables loaded quite heavily on tomore than one factor. So, the first two items of factor 2 (Asian/Carib-bean in description) also load quite heavily on to factor 1, the seconditem of factor 1 and the second item of factor 3 load quite heavily on tofactor 2 (the loading is negative for speak language other than English),victim of racism loads almost as equally on community participation as

on member of a racialized group, and the final two items of factor 3(think of self as Asian/Caribbean/not British) load negatively on tofactor 5 (member of a racialized group). Table 3 shows a number ofsignificant correlations between the various identity factors. Althoughmost of these are small, there is a strong correlation between the twofactors that involved self-description.

Ethnic differences in dimensions of identity

The following figures show how the outcome of the factor analysis variedacross the different ethnic groups included. For each pair of figures, thefirst shows how the loading of questionnaire items on particular factorsvaried when the factor analysis was done separately for each ethnicgroup. Only variables with a fairly large loading on the particular factor(greater than or equal to

0.2) for one or more ethnic groups areincluded in the figures. The second figure of each pair shows how thedistribution of scores on particular factors varied across ethnic groups,once the factor analysis had been done for all of the groups combined (sothe content of each factor was the same for each ethnic group). For thisthe individual factor scores have been rounded and moving averageshave been used to smooth the appearance of the distributions.

Figures 1a and 1b show the pattern for the factor nationality important

Table 3.

Correlations between ethnic identity factors

Nationality

Ethnicity/

raceTraditional

Community

Racializedgroup

Nationality 1 Ethnicity/race

0.24* 1

Traditional 0.05* 0.06* 1 Community 0.02 0.05* 0.09* 1

Racialization

0.04

0.21*

0.02

0.07*

1

*p < 0.05

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to self-description. For both variable loadings and factor scores there areremarkable similarities between the ethnic groups. However, this factordid have a wide spread of scores within

each ethnic group the distribution

is flat and its peak remains well below 6 per cent of respondents suggesting great diversity within, but not across, ethnic groups.Figures 2a and 2b repeat this for the factor ethnicity/race important

to self-description. Again the loadings of particular variables on this

Figure 1a.

Variable loadings for Nationality important to self-description

Figure 1b.

Factor scores for Nationality important to self-description

-0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

Factor loading

Think of self as Asian/Black

Speak language other than English

Asian/Black in description by white friend

Asian/Black in self-description

Nationality in description by white friend

Nationality in self-description

Country of origin in description by white friend

Country of origin in self-description

Pakistani or Bangladeshi Indian Caribbean

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factor are very similar for the different ethnic groups. Figure 2b showsthat the distribution of scores remains wide within ethnic groups

(although there is a peak of close to 7 per cent for Caribbean people), butalso that the scores for the Caribbean group are lower on average thanthose for the two South Asian groups (who are very similar to eachother) (F = 176.2, p < 0.001).

Figure 2a.

Variable loadings for Ethnicity/race important to self-description

Figure 2b.

Factor scores for Ethnicity/race important to self-description

-0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

Factor loading


Nationality in description by white friend

Nationality in self-description

Skin colour in description by white friend

Skin colour in self-description

Asian/Black in description by white friend

Asian/Black in self-description


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For the third factor (traditional Figures 3a and 3b) there were somevariations in the variable loadings across ethnic groups, with the variablecovering language use having a small negative loading for the Pakistanior Bangladeshi group, but a strong positive loading for the Indian and

Figure 3a.

Variable loadings for Traditional

Figure 3b.

Factor scores for Traditional

-0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

Factor loading

British employers are racist

Discriminated at work

Victim of racism

Do not think of self as British

Think of self as Asian/Black

Mind mixed marriages


Wear Asian/Black Clothes


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Caribbean groups. And the variable Do not think of self as Britishhaving a weaker loading for the Indian group compared with the othergroups. Again the distributions of the factor scores are wide for eachethnic group and are very similar for the Indian and the Pakistani or

Bangladeshi groups. But the scores for the Caribbean group are muchlower on average than for the two South Asian groups (F = 406.2, p

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