What happens after segmented assimilation? An exploration of intermarriage and ‘mixed race’ young people in Britain

Abstract

Theorizing on segmented assimilation has usefully spurred debate about the experiences and positions of the second generation in the US and, more recently, Europe. This theory has focused primarily on how young people fare in secondary school and the crucial role that families and ethnic social networks can play in supporting second-generation individuals. But what happens when young people leave home and enter into mainstream higher education institutions? Theorizing on segmented assimilation does not address either the implications of intermarriage for integration and upward mobility or how we should conceptualize the experiences of the growing numbers of ‘mixed race’ individuals. In this paper, I first consider the question of whether intermarriage is linked with upward mobility in the British context. I then explore the racial identifications and experiences of disparate types of mixed race young people in Britain. How do such young people identify themselves, and what may their identifications reveal about their sense of belonging in Britain?

Keywords:

• Mixed race
• intermarriage
• segmented assimilation
• integration
• young people
• Britain

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Maurice Crul and Jens Schneider, the editors of this special issue, for their valuable suggestions.

Notes

1. Platt's analysis of the Labour Force Survey notes that ‘inter-ethnic partnerships are defined as those where one partner regards themselves as belonging to a different one of the 15 ethnic group categories to that claimed by the other partner’ (2009, p. 13). Given the wide range of fifteen ethnic groups, inter-ethnic unions were not necessarily ones involving a white partner, though many of them probably do. Also, only a third of black Caribbean women and something over half of black Caribbean men are married or cohabiting (Platt 2009).

2. Most of this black group (316,000) is comprised of black Caribbean/white individuals.

3. This ESRC-funded project, ‘The Ethnic Options of Mixed Race People in Britain’, was conducted with Peter Aspinall and Ferhana Hashem (both from CHSS, University of Kent), and was carried out between March 2006 and July 2008.

4. In fact, 33 per cent of mixed people in Britain lived in London in 2001 when the census was taken (Bradford 2006). Most of the respondents were between 18 and 29, with 258 women and sixty-eight men. This significant gender imbalance mirrors the gendered patterns of participation found in other studies of mixed race.

5. Black/white 17; East Asian/white 16; South Asian/white 10; Arab/white 15; minority mix 7. Total = 65.