Very considerable problems of nomenclature arise in writing about British race relations. Questions of nomenclature are of even greater pertinence for a study which is specifically concerned with British discourse about race and which seeks on occasion to make points about other people's usage. Requirements which have affected the choice of terms in this context are mutual intelligibility, familiar and respectable usage, political acceptability, descriptive accuracy, suitable levels of differentiation, logical compatibility of different schema, conciseness of expression and style.

Terms used by the author must be clearly understood by the reader. But frequently, members of the academic or political community do not share or agree on particular word usages. Another difficulty in the study of race relations is the changing connotation of significant words which increases the user's chances of being misinterpreted. In a sociological text which seeks to explore the categories used by social actors, there is also a danger that the social observer will be accredited with those terms he is forced to use to communicate with, or to describe the language of the actors he has chosen to study.

The term ‘black’ has been selected to refer generally to those people, usually of Afro-Caribbean and Indian sub-continent geographical origin who have black or brown skin colouring. The term focuses on skin colour as the important factor in categorising people as either black or white, a distinction that is of social significance because it is used as a basis for social action.