Ruth’s Sociology Resources Blog

This is a fascinating article looking at some of the statistics and realities for “mixed race” individuals in the UK.  The ethnic identities of children who have heritage in more than one ethnic group are rarely considered in society’s quest to neatly define people and their social and cultural characteristics (too often sociologists also fall into this trap).

While we often talk about the hybrid identities of 2nd and 3rd generation immigrant ethnic groups who find themselves split between their parents’ culture and the host culture, this is another form of hybrid identity that is often ignored.  Think about all the statistics you see regarding ethnicity and educational achievement, crime, health … how often do you see statistics for individuals of mixed ethnicity?

This article points to the need to look beyond neat, distinct categories of ethnicity, as well as to the complexity of identities and the ways in which identity is defined both by a sense of belonging and a sense of “other”.

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