Development of the race and ethnic items for the 1990 Census.

1988 
The development pretesting and final questions to be placed on the 1990 U.S. Census about race and ethnic origin is summarized. This is the 1st decennial Census questionnaire that will contain questions on Hispanic ethnic origin. The date were needed to implement Federal laws for social and economic needs of local governments for private organizations and for researchers. Extensive testing was done to develop the best possible questions given conflicting legislative and program needs. Some of the difficulties were finding terms that could be understood all over the country and would not affect reporting to pose questions that balanced data needs and that would fit in the allowed space on the form. Six pretests were conducted on the race and ethnic questions: a survey of 2000 households in Chicago a national sample of 45000 households a complete census of Central Los Angeles County a complete census of East Central Mississippi a special urban survey of 27000 households in 6 metropolitan areas and a series of focus group sessions. All but the focus groups were mail surveys with re-interviews. The final questions ask the respondents race that he considers himself to be with checkoffs for 7 races and write-in blanks to further characterize the Asian of Pacific Island origin for the American Indian tribe and other races; asks is the person Spanish/Hispanic with 5 checks and a blank; and asks the persons ancestry or ethnic origin giving National descriptions as examples.
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