This chapter is a little different from others in this volume. It has a broader scope. Such a focus, however, makes a great deal of sense. There is little discussion and much less research exploring ethnicity and fertility. This is perhaps not surprising and represents a more general problem: research rarely responds to the multiethnic nature of developed countries, while policy and practice struggle to engage with minority ethnic populations. At best this means the perspectives and needs as defined by minority ethnic people and their families do not adequately inform the priorities of public services. At worst it means that policy and practice are informed by racist myths and stereotypes.

This is why, when trying to understand a particular issue such as growing up with fertility difficulties, we need to begin by exploring the context in which we come to make sense of ideas such as diversity, difference and disadvantage. This provides an initial framework in which to understand the experience of young people and their families as they negotiate transitions to adulthood. It also ensures that any future debates about fertility and ethnicity are not only appropriately contextualized with ongoing theoretical debates but also able to make use of, and develop, transferable empirical insights gained from the more general literature.

Taking this as our starting point, this chapter offers an agenda for future engagement for those wishing to explore fertility, sexuality and ethnicity in which broader concepts such as citizenship, social justice and identity assume prominence. In adopting such a position our aim is not to offer ‘essentialized’ cultural accounts that treat minority ethnic populations as the ‘other’. Our chapter, therefore, will not offer neat prescriptive cultural sildenafil Canada descriptions that purport to explain ‘ethnicity’ and fertility. Not everything can be reduced to culture. Our concern is to offer a broader discussion that appropriately contextualizes diversity and difference in a way that enables fertility policy, practice and research to engage with, and understand, minority ethnic populations without recourse to simplistic explanations and naive solutions that perpetuate disadvantage and discrimination.

We begin with an account of institutional racism – a concept that has assumed recent legitimacy in explaining disadvantage and discrimination. We then specifically explore what is meant by diversity and difference and end by reflecting on the importance of using evidence to improve outcomes. Throughout the chapter we draw out differences and similarities between the experience of minority ethnic people and the dominant ethnic population and introduce relevant empirical examples.