ABSTRACT
Issues around ‘race’ and ethnicity have become pervasive within social policy in Britain as society has increasingly become multi-racial and multi-ethnic since the Second World War. This chapter examines some of the most prominent aspects of recent discourse and policy-making by:
■ reviewing the meaning and use of the terms ‘race’, ethnicity, and racism in the context of British social policy;
■ examining the shift from a ‘race relations’ policy discourse inaugurated in the 1960s to an ‘ethnic integration’ discourse in the 2000s/2010s;
■ considering data on the ethnic composition of the population and the ethnic categories used by policy-makers;
■ discussing possibly the most important fi eld for this topic – immigration and refugee policy, because it essentially involves racialised barriers to accessing the welfare state;
■ complementing this with consideration of anti-discrimination measures;
■ considering four major areas of social policy in which issues of racism and anti-racism have been prominent – employment/income, policing, schooling, and housing.
