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could not have been possible, or would have been substantially more difficult to conduct had I not been Chinese with a social network already established within the Chinese community in Britain. At every stage I traded on my ethnic characteristics, e.g. using my Chinese name on cover letters, and speaking Cantonese in telephone conversations with informants whenever possible. The ethnic familiarity (name, language) was intended to arouse a sense of ethnic identification in the respondents, which in turn would hopefully help to produce a feeling of ethnic obligation to cooperate with my call for assistance in this survey,
In any research project selecting a representative sample, for example, is always difficult, but in the case of the Chinese it is particularly acute. Many earlier researchers had documented this problem of sampling. Until data from the 1991 Census was made available, there was a total absence of any reliable statistical information on this population. For example, Baxter in 1988 complained of the lack of the most basic information such as the size and distribution of the Chinese community in Britain.
The frustrating methodological problem of sampling caused by lack of statistical information on the Chinese population in Britain has been a major contributory factor in the emergence of a certain type of research which has been carried out on the Chinese in Britain. One of the characteristics is that they tend to be qualitative in nature. That is, there is a tendency for data to be collected through interviews or through observation and case study techniques, such as those studies conducted by Watson (1977) and Ng (1965). Another feature is that most of the studies usually focus on the Chinese in a particular locale. This may be the result of the fact that the sampling problems described above are compounded by the geographical dispersion of the Chinese over Britain. Not only are the Chinese one of the smallest ethnic groups in Britain, they also have the most dispersed pattern of settlement compared to any other ethnic group in Britain (Owen, 1992). This additional problem for the researcher of locating the Chinese, therefore partly explains why many previous researchers have opted to study the Chinese in areas in which they are most concentrated. However, this does not reflect Chinese settlement in Britain, which due to the nature of the Chinese catering business and its reliance on the indigenous population for custom, distributes itself spatially to reduce competition. The third characteristic of existing studies of the Chinese is that the researchers who conduct the investigations are usually themselves of ethnic Chinese origin. The reason
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could not have been possible, or would have been substantially more difficult to conduct had I not been Chinese with a social network already established within the Chinese community in Britain. At every stage I traded on my ethme characteristics, eg using my Chinese name on cover letters, and speaking Cantonese in telephone conversations with informants whenever possible. The ethnie familiarity (name, language) was intended to arouse a sense of ethme identification in the respondents, which in turn would hopefully help to produce a feeling of ethnic obligation to cooperate with my call for assistance in this survey,
In any research project selecting a representative sample, for example, is always difficult, but in the case of the Chinese it is particularly acute, Many carlier researchers had documented this problem of sampling. Until data from the 1991 Census was made available, there was a total absence of any reliable statistical information on this population. For example, Baxter in 1988 complained of the lack of the most basic information such as the size and distribution of the Chinese community in Britain.
The frustrating methodological problem of sampling caused by lack of statistical information on the Chinese population in Britain has been a major contributory factor in the emergence of a certain type of research which has been carried out on the Chinese in Britain One of the characteristics is that they tend to be qualitative in nature. That is, there is a tendency for data to be collected through interviews or through observation and case study techniques, such as those studies conducted by Watson (1977) and Ng (1965). Another feature is that most of the studies usually focus on the Chiese in a particular locale This may be the result of the fact that the sampling problems described above are compounded by the geographical dispersion of the Chinese over Britain. Not only are the Chinese one of the smallest ethnic groups in Britain, they also have the most dispersed pattern of settlement compared to any other ethnic group in Britain (Owen, 1992). This additional problem for the researcher of locating the Chinese, therefore partly explains why many previous researchers have opted to study the Chinese in areas in which they are most concentrated. However, this does not reflect Chinese settlement in Britain, which due to the nature of the Chinese catering business and its reliance on the indigenous population for custom, distributes itself spatially to reduce competition. The third characteristic of existing studies of the Chinese is that the researchers who conduct the investigations are usually themselves of ethnic Chinese origin The reason
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