Robbin, Alice Classifying racial and ethnic group data: The politics of negotiation and accommodation. Journal of Government Information, 2000, vol. 27, n. 2, pp. 129-156. [Journal article (Paginated)]
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English abstract
"Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity," formerly known as "Statistical Policy Directive 15," is a classification system that has formed the basis of the U.S. government's collection and presentation of data on race and ethnicity since 1977. During the mid-1990s, it underwent a public evaluation to determine whether the racial and ethnic group categories should be revised. This article examines the history of Statistical Policy Directive 15 from its origins through October 1997 and evaluates its consequences on political, economic, and social life. Among the many lessons that government information specialists can take away from the history of Statistical Policy Directive 15 is that classification systems are not neutral tools that objectively reflect and measure the empirical world. Classification systems cannot be isolated from the larger political setting. They are tightly linked to public policies, and, in the case of racial and ethnic group classification, they constitute highly contested social policy about which there is little public consensus.
Item type: | Journal article (Paginated) |
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Keywords: | Federal statistics; Decennial census; Race and ethnicity; Minority groups; Multiracial identity |
Subjects: | B. Information use and sociology of information > BD. Information society. B. Information use and sociology of information > BF. Information policy |
Depositing user: | Alice Robbin |
Date deposited: | 30 Mar 2008 |
Last modified: | 02 Oct 2014 12:11 |
URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/10760/11341 |
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