The coloured population in Britain tend to settle in her main ports and form distinct social groupings. Their origin and development are similar in most cases. The core of these settlements was established by coloured seamen and their population grew by gradual increases during normal periods and by large influxes of various categories of coloured men, resulting from two world wars. The groups also increased in size and were stabilized by miscegenation between the immigrants and white women or British born coloured women. Only during the last twenty-five years has interest been aroused in sociological studies of this section of the British population. Little's survey of the Cardiff Negro community is the first comprehensive study of its kind in the United Kingdom. Since then, studies have been made by Richmond, Silberman and Spice; and others are in progress. Little traced the historical development of colour prejudice in Britain from 1660 A.D. to the present time. He pointed out the social and cultural factors giving rise to these attitudes, and how they operate against coloured people resident in Britain to-day. Silberman and Spice made a study of the relationship between coloured and white children in six Liverpool schools by applying the 'Friendship and Rejection' psychological tests. From the results obtained, they concluded that prejudice is not generally experienced by mixed racial groups of children. Richmond was concerned with the adjustment and assimilation of West Indian workers into British society. He calls his investigation a case history study based mainly on records of individual case files and other reports and documents. A number of interviews were also made. He has shown how economic insecurity and 'stereotype' influence racial prejudice. His main thesis, however, is to show the correlation between the high degree of skill in the West Indian worker and his adjustment to British society. The relevance of these studies to the problem of social integration is obvious. As Little has shown, colour prejudice is one of the principal obstacles to the assimilation of coloured minorities into British society. His work is a major contribution to the field of race relations as it establishes a base from which other racial problems may be investigated. Richmond's research is concerned with one category of coloured people only, that is, selected West Indians who were skilled men. The data is of value to this study for purposes of comparison with the adjustment of other categories and groups of coloured persons, such as workers who are unskilled or are of other ethnic groups. The findings of Silberman and Spice would have been more convincing had the data been more adequate. Nevertheless, the study sheds light on an important aspect of race relations. These studies, with the exception of the last mentioned, are concerned primarily with Negroes. The Moslem population had still to be examined.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:552742 |
| Date | January 1952 |
| Creators | Collins, Sydney Fitzgerald |
| Contributors | Piddington, Ralph : Little, Kenneth |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/8351 |
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