All to often the popular understanding is that a 'minority group' refers to a groups size in respect of numbers. Indeed, looking at the categories suggested in the previous page, ethnic minorities make up about 6% of the total population of the UK.

However, the term indicates that minorities are those groups in subordinate positions irrespective of their relative size. There are, however, difficulties with this option. There is a danger, particularly within formally democratic political systems, that the term 'minority' may embody the implication that the designated group is numerically, and hence politically and morally, less significant than the 'majority'. Moreover, this terminology is confusing and, to some, offensive since it involves, for example, using the term minority to refer to women - a majority of the population in Britain - and to black people in South Africa - an overwhelming numerical majority.

In Britain the term 'minority' is rarely used on its own but is usually qualified with the word 'ethnic'. This term is widely understood in Britain to denote a category of people whose recent origins lie in the countries of the New Commonwealth and Pakistan; in other words, in former British colonies in the Indian subcontinent, the Caribbean, Africa, and, sometimes the so called Far East. Two points seem to be significant here.

• The first is that, despite the implicit reference to cultural difference entailed in the term 'ethnic', not every group having a distinctive culture and constituting a minority in the British population is normally included. Thus, the large communities of people of Polish, Ukrainian, and Italian origin to be found in many British cities are rarely thought of as constituting ethnic minorities.
• The second point, which follows from the first is that, in fact the criterion which distinguishes those to whom the term normally refers is skin colour.