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I would imagine that the lack of appeal of the SMR to ethnic minorities has something to do with the fact the archaeology of the UK has little to do with your average non-European person.  My contact with ethnic minoroties (which growing up in and originally working in  multi-cultural Leicester is quite extensive), has made it clear to me that that the archaeology of the UK is so far removed from their own culture that it is fairly meaningless.  I think that if Best Value is pushing you towards trying to tap into the ethnic minority 'market', you are going to have an uphill (and probably fairly pointless) struggle.  Whilst it might be nice to tap into such a user base, it is a bit arrogant to assume that the archaeology of an alien culture is of interest/relevance.  It may be PC to target ethnic minorities, but you run a risk of patronising them by assuming that they may find the subject in its widest form of interest, let alone the SMR, which to honest, can seem a bit of a turn off even to archaeologists!

I would suggest that if you can, you should ignore this edict and get on with more important work - that is widening the appeal to all sectors of the community regardless of ethnic background.  Bad and ill applied PC thinking is worse than a disregard of PC thinking.

Rob Bourn

>>> SMR <[log in to unmask]> 02/04/00 03:18pm >>>
Implementation of Best Value in West Yorkshire has identified the fact that
the County SMR is underused by ethnic minorities. If it can be taken as a
given that SMRs in general need to broaden this section of their user-base,
has anyone any ideas on how this might be achieved?

Ian Sanderson
WYAS Advisory Service



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