Mixed-race families

Thinking Allowed

• Episode: Mixed-race families
• Website: Thinking Allowed
• Feed URL: http://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/b006qy05.rss
• Duration: 00:28:03
• Published: 2018-04-04 18:03

'Mixed-race' is the fastest growing ethnic group in the UK. But how do multiracial parents identify their own children? When is a mixed-race heritage passed down to the next generation and when is it not? Miri Song, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent tackles these questions in her new book, Multiracial Parents: Mixed Families, Generational Change, and the Future of Race (2017). Joining the discussion is socio-linguist Marta Wilczek-Watson whose work on trans-national relationships finds there has traditionally been too great a focus on the apparent difficulties faced by couples who come from different countries. And we hear from one of those tasked with recording the UK's shifting demographics in the British Census, Pete Benton, Director of Population and Public Policy Operations at the Office of National Statistics.