to think that children shouldn't have to give their ethnicity when filling in library surveys?

[bookwormmum]

Not sure if this is going to post twice as I hit the enter key by mistake!

My dd took part in a children's activity in the local library today, making their own decorated truck which ties in with the exhibition in the branch library, of the Grand Truck road that runs through India/Pakistan.

Dd duly completed her colourful truck and was presented with a children's survey form to complete by the librarian. She whizzed through it until she came to the last question which asked her ethnicity. Cue one confused daughter. She had no idea what ethnicity meant although perhaps it was the word itself that threw her (I was trying to work out a way to explain it myself having spent the past seven years saying that everyone was equal regardless of where they were born or what colour their skin was). I can see why they want to know which people in the community are taking part in these events but on the other hand, I resent being pigeon-holed like this and I often refuse to state my ethnicity. Children are children IMHO. Does it matter if they're Asian- British, Asian-European or Asian-other?? To pick the first three examples of the list - there were about 20 categories .

'The librarian present would have seen what 'ethnicities' were accessing her activities as well.'

Unless we assume that we can always guess somebodies ethnicity from their appearance....or that people who appear white can't/don't belong to an ethnic group... or that if you appear white then you are 'white,British'...then there was no way the librarian could have done this.

?

Tbh bookwoom...we need it because the sadly the not everyone is like you..and they aren't colour-blind and aren't necessarily bringing up their children to regard everyone as equal.

By asking you to fill in this form,it's not saying we aren't equal...it's about being different and equal with the same rights and the same opportunities. It's saying we want to make sure that we are encouraging that.

I like it...it's about inclusion for me...not a negative thing at all.

Personally, I wouldn't keep records of people's race at all but I would imagine that they have that information about registered library users already (if they answered that question on joining. When I joined the library it was so long ago, I doubt if ethnicity questions had been thought about). If they ran events which were solely attended by children from one social grouping (for want of a better word) then it would present a case for evaluating relative attendance from social groupings but that hasn't appeared to be the case in nearly 8 years of my dd taking library workshops....

ah, but would all the children be reigstered library users? Was the event aimed at children who don;t usually use the library service?

The special events are only part of the story. They need to know what books to buy too.

No, all their events are open to all children from any borough but I imagine that they'd be hoping to bring a few more joiners into the fold as a sideline.

I don't think I would be happy for children to be asked the question.
It is on a school outing, the library will have access to know which school is attending that afternoon, if they are bothered about the stats as part of the school forms they could be asked to submit "numbers and ethnic origin of children attending"

I don't like it because at the moment DS1 is nearly 4, he knows we have treasures in the house that Grandma and Grandad have bought from China, that Grandma and Grandad were born in China but much more than that we haven't told him.

He knows we celebrate Chinese New year but he doesn't realise that his other class mates don't.

At some point his awareness will increase and we will answer any questions he puts to us and we are also planning on taking him to HK to see relatives but this is in our own time. I don't want to feel rushed into it. I am not denying his ethnic heritage. I just feel it is something we can do in our own way.

Hmm

Sorry - what's this about a school outing? I agree that schools will have information on children and that information should not be collected twice, but I don't think that's a particular issue here.

The categorisations used will all be the same as those used for the last census b the way, as this is the population info that the library will be using to compare who uses it's services with the general local population. I do agree that ideas of cultural and ethnic identities are not as clear cut as filling in a box might appear.

I'm not sure I like those forms, tbh, but as a (presumably*) White British person my views probably don't mean much. Maybe if I were Asian or something else they would matter to me, dunno.

What puts me off are the overtones - my Godmother and her friends who went through WW2 are very opposed as it just smacks of the Nazi obsession with race.

*presumably as my mother is adopted so God alone knows what our heritage is... If it was particularly exciting it might have shown up by now, but I've seen stories about genealogists who have discovered Black ancestors they knew nothing about. So we may never know.

I think it's a good idea for those who organize such things to know whether their services are being accessed by all parts of the community and thie is the only way to find out. Can't see the problem, myself.

Since the specific activity was about the Grand Trunk Road in India/Pakistan, perhaps the library were trying to find out whether they had managed to attract a different range of people than usual to this event? They would want figures which they could compare with some other children's event which was not related to a specific ethnic group, perhaps to help in planning/advertising events in future.

By cory on Thu 21-Feb-08 21:10:12
"I have absolutely nothing against questions of ethnicity- I just wish somebody would explain what they mean!!! "

The list of ethnic groups we use is the same one as the census uses. We had a man kick up a mighty fuss insisting that he was English, not British and that it was only Scots who'd want to be called British as they wouldn't want to be identified as Scottish (said to scottish member of staff)

it's just ticking a flippin box for goodness sake!

Interesting to note that most of those who object are 'white british', anyone not w/b on here who objects? I certainly don't.

I'm not white british and I objected

Ah, a subject close to my heart!

We live in Singapore. Husband and I are White British, our adored (adopted) son is mixed (various races) Asian.

Singapore is OBSESSED with categorising race, such that when you go to the dentist you have to declare race (we put human).

In the UK people are very good at not visibly reacting to the fact that DS is a different colour to us, but in Singapore we get a lot of people stopping in the street to gawp with their mouths open (I kid you not!). As you can imagine, this is somewhat irritating!

Complete strangers ask us what race he is, and there's no easy answer (partly because we don't entirely know). We wento to a kiddie birthday party and a total stranger asked us this then "Could you pick what race you wanted?" "Er, we didn't care".

At the moment he doesn't understand, but quite concerned how to politely tell nosy strangers to sod off when he does.

Have thought of "Well we hoped he'd be human, but as it turns out we think he may be superhuman" but that may be too subtle. Or possibly we'll whip out a card and read off "12.7% Indian, 12.1% Hungarian, 4.5% Chinese, 6.8% Polish etc etc".

In the meantime, am going to get DS a tee-shirt that says "No I'm not Brad Pitt....."

And on the back ".... and she sure as hell ain't Angelina Jolie".