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Ethnic, Religious and Language Groups: Towards a Set of Rules for Data Collection and Statistical Analysis
Author(s) -
Haug Werner
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
international statistical review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.051
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1751-5823
pISSN - 0306-7734
DOI - 10.1111/j.1751-5823.2001.tb00460.x
Subject(s) - ethnic group , multinational corporation , set (abstract data type) , data collection , context (archaeology) , population , sociology , social science , computer science , geography , political science , law , anthropology , demography , archaeology , programming language
Summary The establishment of reliable and authoritative figures on ethnic, religious and language groups plays a prominent role in efforts to fight discrimination and foster individual human rights as well as minority rights. But how is an ethnic or religious group defined? Who belongs to it? How can we measure its characteristics? There is no consensus concerning these questions among statisticians, demographers and the social sciences at large. The article builds on the rich experience of Europe, including the multinational empires of the past. It identifies the background of diverging concepts and definitions, different data sources and measurement problems of ethnic, religious and language groups. The conclusion presents a set of rules and guidelines for the improvement of data collection, especially in the context population censuses and sample surveys, as well as for data analysis.