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1 – 10 of over 4000The purpose of this paper is to review practices and research within the social change and community cohesion disciplines with a view to applying them in the context of British…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review practices and research within the social change and community cohesion disciplines with a view to applying them in the context of British Muslims and cricket. The paper aims to discuss the role of sport and especially cricket to help build community cohesion and bring about social change between British Muslims and the wider British society.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses an inductive and critical approach.
Findings
This paper suggests that the apolitical nature of sport and the popularity of cricket within the South‐east Asian British Muslim community can be used as an effective tool to build relationships between British Muslims and the wider British society. It calls for reflexive thought and action on the part of cricket management to engage in community projects that will enhance the image of cricket as well as genuinely benefitting the society.
Originality/value
Growth of British Muslims has created a great amount of interest from a marketing perspective. Research into Islamic marketing and British Muslim consumers is still in its infancy. This paper introduces an under‐researched area of British Muslims (to date), namely British Muslim sport spectators, and calls for cricket managers and marketers to take an active approach to embarking upon social change.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide a platform for young British Muslims in Tower Hamlets to share their perspectives on British values and identity, in light of the increased…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a platform for young British Muslims in Tower Hamlets to share their perspectives on British values and identity, in light of the increased pressure schools are facing to actively promote “British values”.
Design/methodology/approach
Three focus groups were convened of 16-18 year olds, two all-male (one with five and one with six participants) and one all-female (five participants). Discussions were audio recorded with the data subjected to a form of thematic analysis that divided the raw data into three different categories: individual, group and group interaction data.
Findings
All but one of the participants defined themselves as British, largely due to a strong connection with British values. A minority felt this understanding was reflected back to them by society. However, the majority felt that, as ethnically Bengali and as Muslims, the opposite was the case. By judging the strength of an individual’s Britishness against the strength of their adherence to British values the government’s British values agenda is only serving to reinforce the isolation of those that feel excluded.
Originality/value
While the identities of young people, British people, and Muslims have been widely explored, there is little research that looks at the intersection of all three.
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This paper aims to analyze and compare attitudes and perceptions of Muslim leadership toward society and politics based on their personal experiences in England and the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze and compare attitudes and perceptions of Muslim leadership toward society and politics based on their personal experiences in England and the Netherlands.
Design/methodology/approach
This study provides valuable insights into how Muslim leadership experiences socio-political realities from own perspectives. The comparative analysis of Muslim leadership in England and the Netherlands highlights the unique qualities of each community, while also demonstrating shared communal awareness regarding political participation and concerns regarding the rise of Islamophobia and populism.
Findings
The study reveals significant differences between Dutch and British Muslim leadership regarding attitudes toward politics. While the Dutch political system enables minorities to have political parties, British leaders prefer peaceful resistance, internal cooperation and voting power for influence. Muslim communities in both countries face similar challenges, such as access to politics, rising Islamophobia and populism. However, there are variations in leadership maturity and attitudes toward communal unification and political participation.
Research limitations/implications
Especially Dutch Muslims were much more open toward cooperation once approached. The biggest challenge was to get into the Muslim communities in England. Even though British Muslims showed a much greater aptitude toward their civic duties, British Muslims were much more careful and wished that interviews were written down instead of being recorded. But once the author was part of the community, community leaders were more accepting and tolerant towards the author's presence. From that point on, to be recommended (snowballing) became easier.
Practical implications
This research shows clearly how different ethnic Muslim communities differ across two different countries. Even though both countries have their own advantages and disadvantages, understanding how civic responsibilities and the progressive development of minority attitudes can be best approached is important to policymakers.
Social implications
One major social implication is the way minorities perceive social and political equality and how these minority expectations can be met. Research shows that there is much fear and anxiety to growing sentiments of populism and right-wing appraisals. For a better integration and inclusion, a sound assessment of social and religious expectations is crucial.
Originality/value
As far as the author knows, there are no qualitative research studies that compare Muslim minority conditions in the Netherlands and England. This research makes this even more interesting for how to create policy that contributes to a European understanding of Muslim existence in Europe and a common European identity. This is crucial for a more stable and stronger European future.
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The aim of this chapter is twofold: to provide a synopsis to the background underpinning Muslim diversity in Britain and to explicate how Muslim schools in Britain are embedded…
Abstract
The aim of this chapter is twofold: to provide a synopsis to the background underpinning Muslim diversity in Britain and to explicate how Muslim schools in Britain are embedded into their socio-political context. The process of migration and the flow of different cultural traditions beyond their nation states’ boundaries into Britain associated with late capitalism create what Featherstone coins ‘third cultures’. The process of moving backwards or forwards between an Islamic heritage, national experiences, British socio-political cultural context and global change necessitates ‘new types of flexible personal controls, dispositions and means of orientation, in effect a new type of habitus’ (Featherstone, 1990, p. 8). Accordingly, this chapter is divided into four parts. First, it relates Muslim presence in Britain contextualizing a history of migration. Second, it discusses British Muslim demographics and diversity. Third, it places Muslim schools within a British legislative context. Finally, it discusses leadership for Muslim schooling in Britain as praxis, in the Freireian sense, involving both reflection and action. This approach places Muslim schools within a socio-political context that includes a variety of contributors beyond those who initiated them.
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An accessible resource on the role of teachers in perpetuating inequality through Prevent Duty, with guidance on how to change teaching practice to empower Muslim students.
Abstract
Purpose
An accessible resource on the role of teachers in perpetuating inequality through Prevent Duty, with guidance on how to change teaching practice to empower Muslim students.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses critical race theory (CRT) to interrogate power and Whiteness in the interaction of teachers and students when complying with Prevent Duty and delivering lessons on fundamental British values. This is illustrated through a constructed narrative between three characters in a London school, and offers a Freirean approach to empowering students through Prevent delivery.
Findings
A disproportionately White profession is acting in what they perceive to be the best interest of their students, while failing to interrogate their own position of power and not creating opportunities to be guided by Muslim voices. As a consequence Muslim students continue to be oppressed.
Practical implications
Teachers can disrupt Prevent Duty while complying with its legal obligations by interrogating their own position of Whiteness. They can work with students to ensure Muslim voices lead discussion around Prevent and the inequality in society that is being reproduced by Prevent Duty.
Social implications
There is potential for good teaching practice to overcome the structural racism and continued inequality experienced by diverse Muslim communities.
Originality/value
The paper is an accessible application of CRT to Prevent Duty, a resource for teachers, students and activists. It can help in the recognition of the potential for even well-meaning teachers to act in ways that perpetuate inequalities. It provides a clear set of suggestions for teaching practices that can overcome this.
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Christopher Adam Bagley and Nader Al-Refai
The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize published studies and practice in the “integration” of ethnic and religious minorities in Britain and The Netherlands…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize published studies and practice in the “integration” of ethnic and religious minorities in Britain and The Netherlands, 1965-2015, drawing out implications for current policy and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is an evaluative review and report of results of work on citizenship education for young Muslims and their peers in English schools.
Findings
Young Muslims have positive attitudes to “good citizenship”, as Islamic socialization makes them particularly responsive to citizenship messages. But there is hard-core racial prejudice and Islamophobia in about 25 per cent of adults. In The Netherlands, this xenophobia has supported far-right politicians who are strongly anti-Muslim. This paper cites evidence that continued prejudice may lead to alienation and radicalization of some minorities.
Research limitations/implications
Unchecked prejudice concerning minorities can have negative implications for both majority and minority groups – this broad hypothesis deserves further research in both Dutch and British societies.
Practical implications
In Britain, success in Muslim schools in fostering positive citizenship implies that Muslim groups can maintain “quiet dignity” in following Islamic pathways to good citizenship.
Social implications
State support for religious-foundation schools should be offered to all religious groups and should not be withheld from Muslim minorities for “security” reasons.
Originality/value
This overview by two Muslim educators offers new insights and proposals in the acceptance of Muslim minorities in Europe.
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Paul R. Baines, Nicholas J. O'Shaughnessy, Kevin Moloney, Barry Richards, Sara Butler and Mark Gill
The purpose of this paper is to discuss exploratory research into the perceptions of British Muslims towards Islamist ideological messaging to contribute to the general debate on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss exploratory research into the perceptions of British Muslims towards Islamist ideological messaging to contribute to the general debate on “radicalisation”.
Design/methodology/approach
Four focus groups were undertaken with a mixture of Bangladeshi and Pakistani British Muslims who were shown a selection of Islamist propaganda media clips, garnered from the internet.
Findings
The paper proposess that Islamist communications focus on eliciting change in emotional states, specifically inducing the paratelic‐excitement mode, by focusing around a meta‐narrative of Muslims as a unitary grouping self‐defined as victim to Western aggression. It concludes that British Muslim respondents were unsympathetic to the Islamist ideological messaging contained in the sample of propaganda clips.
Originality/value
The paper provides an insight into how British Muslims might respond to Islamist communications, indicating that, while most are not susceptible to inducement of paratelic‐excitement, others are likely to be, dependent on which genre of clip is used, the messages contained therein, and who that clip is targeted at.
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Purpose – The chapter explores the UK’s evolving counter-radicalization program – Prevent – and its increasing alignment with a broader Counter Extremism agenda, which it argues…
Abstract
Purpose – The chapter explores the UK’s evolving counter-radicalization program – Prevent – and its increasing alignment with a broader Counter Extremism agenda, which it argues exemplifies not merely a concern with countering radicalization or terrorism, but a broader “civic turn” toward a narrow and restrictive conception of integration and citizenship.
Methodology/Approach – The chapter draws on a range of studies of Prevent and the governance of British Muslims, to examine the traces and impact of Prevent and Counter Extremism agendas across a range of governance domains, including urban governance, schooling, and public sector institutions and integration.
Findings – Prevent has undergone substantial conceptual and operational expansion that has meant that its purpose and efficacy as a counter terrorism strategy has become ambivalent. Its evolution into an element of a broader integration policy places limits on the terms of particularly Muslims’ citizenship. It also brings it into tension with other public sector duties and legal norms.
Originality/Value – The chapter extends existing studies of the permeation of security concerns across governance and public life, and the securitization of citizenship, to examine how these have been expressed in particular domains of governance and their implications for the inclusion and accommodation of Muslims. It also offers a caveat to the tendency in much of the literature to see such securitization as exemplifying a highly cohesive governing project.
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This paper's aim is to examine whether there is a causal link between “race” hate, particularly Islamophobia (defined as anti‐Muslim feeling and violence based on “race” and/or…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper's aim is to examine whether there is a causal link between “race” hate, particularly Islamophobia (defined as anti‐Muslim feeling and violence based on “race” and/or religion), and government treatment of Muslim communities in Britain in recent years.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper looks at recent legislation and other state controls to deal with terror activities.
Findings
The paper argues that government policy towards Muslim communities, including policies developed to deal with suspected terrorists has some responsibility for cultivating a hostile climate towards such communities. Moreover, this generalised hostile environment allows “race” hate and violence to thrive among sections of Britain's male white working class communities, especially where disaffection, socio‐economic exclusion and challenges to traditional forms of masculinities is evident.
Practical implications
The paper demonstrates that “race” hate and routine attacks on Muslim communities appears to be increasing and needs to be addressed by developing strategies that are inclusive of all disadvantaged communities.
Originality/value
The paper adds to the literature on “race” hate by examining these theories in the light of recent and ongoing terror attacks and their impact on Muslim communities in Britain.
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In this chapter, the relations between Muslim migrant women's bodily appearances at Western workplaces, their work choices and career development are examined through the lens of…
Abstract
In this chapter, the relations between Muslim migrant women's bodily appearances at Western workplaces, their work choices and career development are examined through the lens of embodied intersectionality. This chapter draws on exiting research reports and empirical research to also reflect on the scope of Muslim female migrants' labour market integration in the United Kingdom.
For Muslim women, wearing ethnic or religious dresses such as headscarf/‘hijab’, ‘niqaab’ or ‘burqa’ represents the quintessential identity of women belonging to their particular ethnic group or religion. These highly visible social and cultural markers are also inherently gendered. This chapter delves into understanding how Muslim migrant women wearing ethnic/religious dresses experience/encounter Western workplaces and how their embodied intersectional identities through creating barriers at the workplaces impede the process of their labour market integration, in turn, limit their work choices and further restrict their career progression/development in the long run. The discussion also shows that attention to the Muslim migrant women's workplace experiences funnelled through the process of embodied intersectionality can expose the overall racialised and gendered practices of the society, different forms of social exclusion while simultaneously indicate resistance from and agency of these Muslim women through bodily appearances in transnational contexts. This chapter also sheds lights on how these women's career and workplace experiences need to be understood outside the stereotypical Western description of gendered workplaces and how the discussion needs to be broadened in scope and encompass the spatial dynamics of migration, religion, gender and ethnicity to be able to make sense of Muslim migrant women's work choices and career in the West.
This chapter has a twofold structure – first, it looks at the relationship between self-regulating agency and voice and understanding of the embodiment of intersectional identities by the women themselves in the host country's society and labour market, and, second, how the changing time, space and contexts interact to play a role in terms of the host society and its labour market's acceptance and level of tolerance shown towards this group's embodied intersectional presence.
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