Generational status: A Canadian response to the editors' consortium statement with regard to race/ethnicity

In response to the American Editors' Consortium Statement (1996) with regar d to a minimal classification scheme for describing race/ethnicity, the pre sent study investigated a potential supplementary scheme. Having reviewed t he conceptual, theoretical and methodological concerns about the Consortium 's scheme, data from 1,071 first-year Canadian university students were exa mined with regard to demographics, relationships with parents, and psycholo gical well-being. Participants revealed 94 countries of origin, 69 language s spoken at home, identification with 203 cultural or ethnic groups, and an idiosyncratic use of the term "visible minority". The supplementary classi fication scheme proposed is based on immigrant Generational Status-Canadian (GS-C). The data were analyzed according to both the race/ethnicity and GS -C schemes. Results indicated that GS-C differentiated meaningful significa nt differences on 10 nondemographic variables. Race/ethnicity was confounde d dth GS-C and, when the confound was addressed, only produced one signific ant difference. The implications are discussed.