So would it be possible to get data for Ethnicity (we have Attributes for Ethnicity - and allow multiple selections) in Analytics? Maybe Custom Data?
This is a regular request for grants/board meetings etc.
then we can be all fancy and have gender and ethnicity charts automatically update!~
Mary,
Here is an article discussing the Use of geocoding and surname analysis to estimate race and ethnicity.
Here is another The use of census data for determining race and education as SES indicators: a validation study.
I've not tried this my self. The idea is that you could say thing like if you live in this area and have a last name like this you have an 80% chance of being Asian and a 20% chance of being African American... If you have 100 people from that area presumably 80 would be Asian and 20 would be African America. There are probably services who will sell you this kind of information as a data enrichment. They are likely using similar approaches. One could do this oneself with some efforts. The key thing to note is that these are only estimations.
The next question I have, is would I really want to do this? This feels awkward to me. What does this say about our current world/culture, that this can be done this way? And that folks find it important? I have no answers on this myself.
I hope this is helpful.
--Tom
Tom - we only use self reported data - for areas we are required to report out on for funding.