United Kingdom - Executive summary
BACKGROUND RESEARCH REPORT
Download full report
Executive summary
While a Muslim presence in Britain can be traced back over 300 years to the sailors from the Indian subcontinent that were employed by the British East India Company, large scale migration of unskilled male workers from South Asia took place in the 1960s. Many of these men were later joined by their families. A significant number of Muslims were also among the East African Asians who began arriving in the late 1960s and early 1970s under pressure from the 'Africanisation' policies in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Since the 1980s, Muslims also began to arrive in the UK in significant numbers as refugees from the Balkans, East Africa, the Middle East, and Turkey.
Since the 1980s, research studies have tracked the growing salience of religion in the identity of Muslims. These studies provide a picture of the complex and diverse reasons for the foregrounding of religion in the identity of Muslims. These range from the impact of experiences of discrimination, prejudice, violence and disparagement of religion in creating in-group solidarity, through to the role of Muslim identity in the empowerment of young women and men.
The question in the 2001 Census on religious identity provides a rich source of data on Muslims. It shows that in 2001 there were 1.6 million Muslims in Great Britain. In terms of age structure, Muslims have the youngest demographic profile as a faith group in England and Wales. Over 60 per cent of all Muslims are under the age of 30. Approximately half of Muslims living in Britain were born in the UK. The Census data demonstrated that there are Muslims in every local authority in the UK except the Isle of Scilly. 75 per cent live in 24 cities or authorities, in the five major conurbations of Greater London, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, and the East Midlands. Birmingham is the local authority area with the largest number of Muslims in absolute terms. The five local authorities with the highest proportions of Muslims are Tower Hamlets, Newham, Blackburn, Bradford, and Waltham Forest. Muslims in the UK are disproportionately represented in the most deprived urban communities. One third of the Muslim population live in the 10 per cent most deprived neighbourhoods.
Most academic research on minorities in education has focused on ethnic groups rather than Muslims as a group. Muslims of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, who constitute 50 per cent of Britain’s Muslim population, have been the main reference groups in research when looking at the educational attainment of Muslims. Research in education, on Muslims as a religious group, rather than ethnic groups, has focused largely on state-funded faith schools and the experiences of Muslim women in education. Literature on the latter has explored Muslim women’s aspirations, the value placed on educational qualifications for women by Muslim communities and within Islam, single sex schools and obstacles faced by Muslim women within the education system. The Census does provide some baseline data on levels of education among the UK population which can be disaggregated by religion.
Read on...
|
 |
|
Amnesty International Report 2009: Europe and Central Asia
2009-05-28
·
Amnesty International (AI)
Amnesty International’s Report 2009 draws attention to the fact that at the beginning of August 2008, two European states went to war for the first time in almost a decade. The report states that since the conflicts of the early 1990s, Europe had assumed a degree of stability in terms of its economy, security and embedding the rule of law, but these events showed how potentially fragile the security assumptions underpinning post-Cold War Europe could ...
The Gallup Coexist Index 2009: A Global Study of Interfaith Relations
2009-05-08
·
Gallup
The Gallup Coexist Index 2009: A Global Study of Interfaith
Relations is Gallup’s first report of public perceptions visà-
vis people of different faiths. This analysis provides the
reader with insight into the state of relations between people of different religions spanning four continents. The report also explores attitudes and perceptions among Muslims and the general public in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom about issues of coexistence, integration, values, identity, and radicalization.
Racism: Europeans ought to be more self-critical
2009-04-14
·
Policy Dialogue International
This article is by Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. Hammarberg seeks to highlight the fact that Europe is not a racism-free zone. During his visits to European countries, Hammarberg recounts meeting people who are victims of racist acts, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance. Among them are the Roma, Sinti and Travellers, Africans or persons of African descent, members of Jewish communities, members of Muslim communities, national, ethnic or religious ...
Violence Against Muslims
2009-04-07
·
Human Rights First
This document is an excerpt from Human Rights First’s 2008 Hate Crime Survey, which includes sections examining six facets of violent hate crime in the 56 countries that comprise the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE): Violence Based on Racism and Xenophobia, Antisemitic Violence, Violence Against Muslims, Violence Based on Religious Intolerance, Violence Against Roma, and Violence Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Bias. The Survey also examines government responses to violent ...
The Securitisation of Islam in Europe
2009-04
·
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
This paper by Jocelyne Cesari summarizes the main hypotheses and results of the research on the securitization of Islam. It posits that the securitization of Islam is not only a speech act but also a policymaking process that affects the making of immigration laws, multicultural policies, antidiscrimination measures and security policies. The paper deconstructs and analyses the premises of such policies as well as their consequences on the civic and political participation of Muslims. The ...
|
|
Feedback
Subscribe
