Expansive Demography: Piloting a Write-in Demographics Form to Explore Multiple Marginalized Identities

Background and Purpose: Demography, a statistical study of human populations, typically explores the distribution, size, and composition of a population. In social work, demography is typically used for two purposes: needs assessment and program evaluation used to categorize participants for data collection purposes (Chiang & Lin, 2022). Typical categories in which demographics data is gathered includes age, gender, race/ethnicity, residential/geographic area, education and income level gathered in surveys in which one, or multiple boxes can be selected within different population categories. However, ‘checking the boxes’ has multiple layers of complexity leading to what Fernandez et al. (2016) refer to as ‘binning’, in which individuals are categorized by others, rather than their own personal definitions of identities. Perhaps one of the greatest challenges in the creation of demographic instrument is that demographics information is deeply personal, inherently subjective and often chosen by the research team rather than the participant.

Methods: This study piloted a write-in demographics form as a more inclusive, anti-oppressive method of gathering demographic information as part of a larger study related to holding and navigating multiple marginalized identities. Zoom interviews were conducted and transcribed through Otter.AI with a second round of hand transcription and content analysis was used to develop the codebook. Inclusion criteria included all full-time faculty at accredited schools of social work with active email address in the United States. In total, 38 participants completed the piloted 'open-ended demographics form and semi-structured interviews. The form included fourteen write in questions about racial identity, ethnic identity, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, professional identity and economic status. Participants had the opportunity into add any demographic identity that they wanted and to add any other thoughts specific to a write-in demographics form. In total, 51 codes were developed relating to the structured write-in questions and write-in responses related other identities, which totaled an additional 100 labels/categories self-identified by participants and included references to identities related to weight, disability, family/parenting roles, and specific sub-categories related to immigration status and socio-economic status.

Results: Approximately half of respondents had very clear, positive feedback about their experience completing the write-in form which included positively towards liking the expanded categories, finding it more flexible, and appreciated the opportunity to share nuances about their details. About twenty percent of participants felt neutral and five participants provided critical feedback about challenges experienced with the form. All participants provided extensive feedback as to their experience collecting demographic data in this manner.

Conclusions and Implications: There remains a need to challenge traditional, closed-ended demographics forms that accompany research projects including development of more refined and nuanced categories to represent the complexity of multiple social identities and caution on the part of the quantitative researchers related to how data is disaggregated and disseminated. Open-ended demography forms can enhance the story told by the multiple identities held by research participants. Challenges include the time-consuming nature of the findings, and participant socialization to typically 'binned' demographic forms. Limitations included self-selected participants, and the exploratory nature of this study, which limits generalizability.