Can we really measure racial prejudice?

Alison Park, research group director at NatCen Social Research and co-director of the British Social Attitudes survey, says: "The British Social Attitudes survey records self-reported levels of racism. We ask during a face-to-face interview: 'How would you describe yourself … as very prejudiced against people of other races, a little prejudiced, or not prejudiced at all?' To get to the findings that have made headlines today, we grouped those who describe themselves as 'a little' and 'very' prejudiced into a single category ('some prejudice').

"To get our sample each year, addresses are randomly selected from the Post Office’s postcode address file. We write to the inhabitants, and then it is up to our interviewers to knock on their doors and convince people to take part. We usually interview around 3,300 people each year. Once the survey is over we compare the profile of the people we have spoken to with the true demographic makeup of Britain (as recorded by the census) to make sure that our results are properly representative."