Dear Members,
I have posted below part of a discussion re.Ethnic monitoring taken from
the archives-nra listserv. What's your take? I can post any replies from
this listserv back to archives nra. Roiyah
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 01:01:15 -0700
From: "Boardman, Carl - Cultural Services"
<[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Ethnic monitoring
In Oxfordshire we are being asked to show the relevance of our services to
ethnic minorities by (inter al) reference to the number of ethnic minority
users who visit the Record Office. This is leaving us with a problem on how
we measure such a thing. To ask everyone who enters the Office to tell us
their ethnic group is potentially insulting, and at best sounds like
something out of the darker days of the European dictatorships - we might
have the best of intentions, but I could understand anyone from a background
which has experienced racial harassment getting very edgy about it. If we
make it voluntary, any statistics will be meaningless. There are even Data
Protection issues involved - for what practical purpose do we need this
information, how are we going to use it, and when are we going to destroy
it?
Has anyone else faced this question, and if so how did they tackle it?
Incidentally, I have suggested that different cultures have different
attitudes towards history, and to expect a culture to conform to the
intellectual justifications behind a record office network is in itself
suspect - you can make available, as we have tried to do by printing
leaflets in various languages, but have to be careful this doesn't spill
into pressurising. Certain self-proclaimed proponents of racial equality
seem to have difficulty with this one.
Carl Boardman
Oxfordshire Record Office
Oxfordshire Record Office is a section of Cultural Services in Oxfordshire
County Council. This message is intended only for the addressee, and OCC can
take no responsibility for the accuracy of the information contained
therein, nor should the message be held as having any legal validity.
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 11:02:59 +0100
From: Leonard Mcdonald <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Ethnic monitoring
Be careful of this one. Hospitals use a set of questions like this. I enjoy
confusing them by describing myself as White, African, 'cos that's where I
was born and grew up. I think I faced a similar quandary in the Census
question.
Len McDonald
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Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 08:32:49 -0700
From: "Boardman, Carl - Cultural Services"
<[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Ethnic Monitoring: the summary
Thanks to those who replied to my query this morning - further responses are
still welcomed.
This is an issue which is causing concern; others have been told to do
something similar and have identical problems with it. Two respondents
pointed out that the PSQG survey picks up on the ethnic issue, but not too
systematically - covering a very short period, being voluntary, and seeking
information on what everyone seems agreed is a very small user group, all it
needs is to be based on the wrong fortnight and it could easily miss every
ethnic minority user in an Office. It was suggested I flag up the issue to
the Data Protection list for feedback in that area, which I have done, but
without result so far. But a strong viewpoint was that the whole business is
getting out of hand; that it is not acceptable to ask people that sort of
question, that you couldn't guarantee they wouldn't amuse themselves at your
expense anyway, and that record office users are going to be those people
for whom the contents of the Office have some meaning - which in our case is
neither a recent immigrant from the Middle East, nor yet a family historian
whose family for the past three centuries have all lived in Lancashire.
True, there are issues surrounding the acquisition of sources reflecting the
changing ethnic makeup of the county, and the matter of ensuring that no one
is actively excluded from use of the service, but neither of these is
addressed by simple "bean-counting".
The problem remains that we and others are being asked to do something which
is (a) largely impossible in itself, and (b) unsuitable for purpose -
assuming the purpose is to prevent discrimination - in that the number of
people of any type walking through the door is not going to reflect how much
the Office welcomes them but how far the Office can provide what they
require. First acquire the material of interest, then ask whether people are
coming to use it - but of course that requires much greater resources which
our employers are not always willing to provide than simply counting heads.
Carl Boardman
Oxfordshire Record Office
Oxfordshire Record Office is a section of Cultural Services in Oxfordshire
County Council. This message is intended only for the addressee, and OCC can
take no responsibility for the accuracy of the information contained
therein, nor should the message be held as having any legal validity.
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