ARIE Research: Expanding Demographic Categories and Variables in Surveys

How many times have you rolled your eyes when asked to describe your race or ethnicity on a survey?

The importance of creating meaningful, inclusive demographic categories is an important part of research. The topic of anti-racism in data collection continues to garner much-needed attention, as evidenced by the first Anti-Racism Data Act Progress Report and the Guide on Using Categorical Race & Ethnicity Variables; these have been recently released by the BC Government to mark the one year anniversary of the Anti-Racism Data Act. As we work on the survey collection portion of CREAN’s Anti-Racism in Education (ARIE) project, we have found that other researchers and organizations are encountering similar questions and issues while trying to create culturally appropriate and relevant demographic survey questions.

Understanding the lived experience of racialized peoples is an integral part of qualitative research, especially for the ARIE project. While surveys can be a useful tool for collecting large amounts of anonymous data, they can also necessitate categorizing types of people. To allow for high-quality survey information to be gathered, providing people with appropriate and relevant categories to self-identify is a must. Creating categories which encompass the intersectional lived experiences of Indigenous, Black, and People of Colour (IBPOC) in a way that is genuine and nuanced is also necessary.

Janice Gassam Asare points out the generational trauma, internalized racism, and socioeconomic differences between the lives of each group. Along with these differences, Gassam Asare highlights the aspects of diversity of culture and knowledge The cultures of these groups vary based on their history and placement within the world. Distinctions between African American and Afro-caribbean vary as well: Afro-caribbean refers to people with a culmination of Caribbean, European, and African cultural traits. African American/ Canadian is in reference to people coming from a specific African country with distinct cultural traits. Generalizing between groups and only having a category for “Black” on a survey can erase the diversity of lived experiences amongst these groups. For CREAN, expanding the demographic categories to include more than just a singular Black experience was important to the ARIE survey. Feeling represented is important: a lack of terminology or category which does not explain your lived experience is frustrating and disheartening. It is important to get this right and to respect your survey respondents, especially because race-based data is essential in creating productive and effective anti-racism initiatives.

Having open dialogue, continuing to research, learn, understand, and integrate knowledge, can offer a foundation for meaningful change. CREAN would like to contribute to the dialogue on culturally safe data collection by suggesting that beyond just one category for Black folks on a survey, researchers should make sure they do their research ahead of time and know what groups and populations they are hoping to engage with. Looking at reports or newsletters from local organizations or government, community plans, census data, and reading news articles and papers, are some different ways that researchers could put together a balanced and informed understanding of who lives where. An example of a survey question about race in Victoria, BC, could be as follows (noting that categories should be reviewed and updated if new information comes in!):