Mixedness and Mixing: Day 1, Equality (4 September 2007)

This is a printable version of the Mixedness & Mixing website page Topics for Day 1

Day 1: equality

On the first day we were considering the inequalities faced by Britain's mixed-race population, and how these may be overcome as well as discussing how the concept of mixedness fits in with our understanding of ethnicity more generally.

Read our panel's
opinions on these
papers

What do we 'know' about the 'Mixed' population?

Statistics, Charlie Owen
The Diversity of the Mixed Race population, Miri Song
Gendering Mixed-Race, Deconstructing Mixedness, Dr Suki Ali

Specific issues: education, health and adoption

Meeting the Educational Needs of Mixed Heritage Pupils: Challenges for Policy and Practice, Professor Leon Tikly
Mixed Heritage: Perspectives On Health And Welfare, Mark R D Johnson
Black and Minority Ethnic health inequalities and the 'mixed-race' population, Ayo Bakare
The judgement of Solomon, Savita De Sousa & John Simmonds

FORUM: Read the
discussions of
these themes

How have people's experiences of equality changed over time?

Mixed Goals, Leon Mann
First person: Eve Ahmed, Eve Ahmed
A white woman's experience of "mixing", Gill Lawrence
A mixed society should be a positive society, Graham Suppiah

Does mixedness change our understanding of ethnicity generally?

Mixed race - The future's bright, the future's blended, Dr Nathalie van Meurs
Mixed-race theory for everyone, Dr Jin Haritaworn
Dodging the -ism, Dr Sarita Malik
Against the use of the term 'mixed-race', Linda Bellos
Racial Identity - to have or to be, Isabel Adonis
You wouldn't let it lie, Dr Daniel McNeil

See abstracts for all these papers

Equality

Equality means that everyone is treated equally and has a right to fair outcomes, and that no one should expect privileges because of what they are.

However, it also recognises that, in some instances, there may be grounds for treating people differently in order to create a level playing field.

Equality is one of the three necessary conditions of integration; people who feel they are second-class citizens cannot be expected to integrate. As long as unequal treatment and unlawful discrimination continue to be commonplace, no integration will be possible.

The state has a responsibility to uphold the right to fair and equal treatment of all who live and work lawfully in the country, and it is the CRE's statutory responsibility, under the Race Relations Act 1976, to make sure the law providing for protection from racial discrimination is enforced, and to promote good practice that derives from this law.