Developing ethnic identity questions for Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study

Abstract

This report describes the process of development of a series of new ethnic identity questions, fielded in Wave 2 of Understanding Society. We describe the key features of Understanding Society and the rationale for asking respondents about ethnic identity, before detailing the process by which the ultimate set of questions was eventually arrived at. That process involved learning from existing research, focus groups, semi-structured interviews and cognitive testing of the final set of questions proposed. The suite of questions proposed for inclusion in Wave 2 of Understanding Society can be found as Annex E to this report.