What is ethnicity

Ethnicity is a complex term ethnicity is a multifaceted and changing phenomenon, various possible ways of measuring ethnic groups are available and have been used over time. The ONS have highlighted that this can include country of birth, nationality, language spoken at home, skin colour (an aspect for consideration for some and not for others), national/geographical origin and religion. What seems to be generally accepted, however, is that ethnicity includes all these aspects, and others, in combination. communities

Collecting data on ethnic group is complex because of the subjective, multifaceted and changing nature of ethnic identification. There is no consensus on what constitutes an ethnic group and membership is something that is self-defined and subjectively meaningful to the person concerned.

The terminology used to describe ethnic groups has changed markedly over time, and however defined or measured, tends to evolve in the context of social and political attitudes or developments. Ethnic group is also very diverse, encompassing common ancestry and elements of culture, identity, religion, language and physical appearance.

In general we capture data on ethnicity using the Office of National Statistic ethnic categories used in the census to allow us to benchmark against local and national data, however we recognise that this has limitations and some ethnic communities such as the Latino ethnic community are not recorded currently in these grouping.