ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the meaning and use of the terms race, ethnicity and racism in the context of British social policy. It outlines the shift from a ‘race relations’ policy discourse initiated in the 1960s to an ‘ethnic integration’ and ‘community cohesion’ discourse in the 2000s and 2010s. It then considers the ethnic composition of the population and the ethnic categories used by policy makers. This is followed by discussion of possibly the most important field for this topic, immigration and refugee policy, because it essentially involves racialised barriers to accessing the welfare state. This is complemented in the subsequent section by critical discussion of anti-discrimination measures. The remainder of the chapter deals with three major areas of social policy in which issues of racism and anti-racism have been prominent: incomes and employment, policing and the criminal justice system, and schooling. The chapter concludes that different elements of social policy pull in different directions in different contexts, both ameliorating and strengthening racial and ethnic divisions and injustices.
