Citizenship Survey, 2008-09 – Religion

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Clive D. Field

On 14 September the Department for Communities and Local Government published online 2008-09 Citizenship Survey: Race, Religion and Equalities Topic Report by Chris Ferguson and David Hussey. It comprises a PDF document of 113 pages plus 105 statistical tables in Excel format. The report can be downloaded from:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/statistics/citizenshipsurvey200809equality

The Citizenship Survey is now conducted in annual cycles by face-to-face interview among a representative sample of adults aged 16 and over in England and Wales, including an ethnic minority booster sample. 14,917 interviews were conducted by NatCen between April 2008 and March 2009.

Four sub-topics are considered in the new report:

  • Race: chapter 2 and tables 1-14
  • Religion: chapter 3 and tables 15-58
  • Racial and religious harassment: chapter 4 and tables 59-88
  • Equalities: chapter 5 and tables 89-105

However, all of the chapters and a majority of the tables contain some content on religion.

The report is naturally too substantial to lend itself to extensive review here. By way of a taster, the following key findings have been abstracted from the executive summary:

  1. 82% reported having a religion, while 18% had none
  2. 80% of Muslims actively practised their faith, against 70% of Hindus, 66% of Sikhs and Buddhists and 32% of Christians
  3. The proportion of people who thought that there was more religious prejudice in Britain today than there was five years ago decreased, from 62% in 2007-08 to 52% in 2008-09
  4. Muslims were the group most commonly identified as experiencing both increases and decreases in religious prejudice; 88% of people who said that religious prejudice had increased identified Muslims
  5. 39% of people said that the Government was doing about the correct amount to protect the rights of people belonging to different religions; 26% thought it was doing too much and 27% too little
  6. 82% of people who thought that religious rights were protected too much mentioned Muslims in this context, while 52% of people who thought that religious rights were protected too little also mentioned Muslims
  7. 94% of people who said that they actively practised their religion felt that they could practise their religion freely in Britain
  8. 18% of people who had a religion said that their religion affected where they lived, 10% where they worked, 14% who their friends were, and 30% the school they sent their children to
  9. 17% of people from ethnic minority groups said that racial or religious harassment was a very or fairly big problem in their local area, compared with 8% of white people; 17% and 3% respectively had actually experienced harassment
  10. As in 2005 and 2007-08, the two groups mentioned most frequently as experiencing more racial prejudice were Asian people and Muslims (mentioned by 39% and 37% respectively)

Also published recently (on 2 September) was the technical report on the 2008-09 Citizenship Survey. At 417 pages, it is not for the faint-hearted! See:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/statistics/citizenshipsurvey200809technical

Previously published were topic reports on volunteering and charitable giving; empowered communities; and community cohesion. Each has some religious content. For introductions to these, see the earlier BRIN posts at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=71

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=268

The survey obviously affords plenty of scope for secondary analysis. For those interested in pursuing this, the dataset is already available at ESDS as SN 6388. See:

http://www.esds.ac.uk/findingData/snDescription.asp?sn=6388&key=citizenship+survey

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Muslim Integration in Scotland

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The British Council Scotland has recently released a report on Muslim Integration in Scotland, by Amy Homes, Chris McLean and Lorraine Murray, and based upon quantitative and qualitative research undertaken by Ipsos MORI Scotland. The report, commissioned under the auspices of the Council’s ‘Our Shared Europe’ programme, is available to download at:

http://www.britishcouncil.org/scotland-society-muslims-integration-in-scotland-report.pdf

The focus of the study was an examination of Muslim and non-Muslim perceptions of one another and of the extent of Muslim integration in Scotland. Potential barriers to integration were also explored and ways in which these may be overcome.

The quantitative phase of the research was a series of questions included in the Ipsos MORI Scottish Public Opinion Monitor. Telephone interviews were undertaken with a representative sample of 1,006 Scots aged 18 and over between 18 and 21 February 2010. As there are relatively few Muslims in Scotland, such a random survey is essentially of non-Muslims. Findings from this phase appear on pp. 2-7, 18-27 of the report.

The qualitative phase comprised seven focus groups, three of Muslims and four of non-Muslims, in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee between 9 and 23 March 2010. Muslim groups were composed of Muslims born in Scotland and those born elsewhere but who had lived in Scotland for varying periods of time. Non-Muslim groups were made up of non-Muslims who were white Scottish and Christian or had no religion. Findings from this phase appear on pp. 8-9, 29-41 of the report.

The quantitative research is naturally of principal interest to BRIN. Key findings include the following:

  • 66% of Scots held a favourable opinion of Muslims and 21% an unfavourable one. However, this favourability rating was lower than for all other religious groups, with 85% for Christians, 80% for Jews, 77% for Buddhists, 75% for Hindus, 72% for Sikhs and 71% for atheists.
  • 46% of Scots considered that Muslims living in Scotland were loyal to the country and 33% not. This was a higher loyalty score than for Britain, France and Germany, as recorded in the Gallup Coexist Study of 2008. 
  • 48% of Scots agreed and 41% disagreed that Scotland would begin to lose its identity if more Muslims came to live there. This compared with 50% and 31% respectively in the 2006-07 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey.
  • 59% of Scots agreed and 28% disagreed that most Muslims in Scotland were integrated into everyday Scottish life.
  • 66% agreed and 24% disagreed that the attempted bombing at Glasgow airport in 2007 had made people in Scotland less tolerant of Muslims.
  • Whereas 80% of Scots agreed that Christianity was compatible with life in Scotland, only 42% said the same in relation to Islam (and 37% disagreed).
  • On almost all questions, those living in the least deprived areas of Scotland, people under 55, readers of broadsheet newspapers and Liberal Democrat voters had the most positive views of Muslims and Muslim integration.

So, Islamophobia is clearly becoming something of a problem in Scotland. On the whole, however, as Clive Field’s analyses of British public opinion polls conducted between 2001 and 2010 have shown, it is perhaps still less of a challenge there than in England and Wales.

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Angus Reid Public Opinion Round-Up

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Angus Reid Public Opinion (ARPO, formerly Angus Reid Strategies) is the Vancouver-based public affairs practice of Vision Critical and conducts online surveys. It was originally founded in 2006 by Dr Angus Reid, a Canadian sociologist with four decades of experience in market and public opinion research.

Following considerable success in Canada, ARPO established a British adult panel (http://www.springboarduk.com) last autumn and obtained high visibility for its political polling in the run-up to the 2010 general election. But ARPO has also dipped its toes into British religious waters. Relevant questions are summarized below, with further details available at: http://www.visioncritical.com/category/public-opinion/

HALLOWEEN (fieldwork: 28-30 October 2009, n = 2,004)

Only 14% of Britons always celebrate Halloween (compared with 41% of Americans and Canadians), 41% never celebrate it and 45% sometimes do. 55% intended to carry out no Halloween-related activities during the 2009 weekend (against 26% in Canada and 14% in the USA), handing out sweets to trick-or-treaters being the commonest activity.

While 45% of Britons associated Halloween with fun, 35% regarded it as overrated. 30% saw it as harmless, but for 31% it had connotations with paganism and for 40% with witchcraft. Of the various faith alternatives to Halloween, 37% said they had participated in harvest festivals.   

ATTITUDES TO MUSLIMS – MINARETS (fieldwork: 9-12 December 2009, n = 2,002)

Following last November’s Swiss referendum which led to the prohibition on the construction of minarets on Swiss mosques, ARPO sounded out the publics of Britain, Canada and the USA on the issue. 43% of Britons claimed to have followed the story in the media.

Offered a précis of the arguments used in Switzerland, 44% agreed with the proponents of the ban and 28% with the opponents. However, 52% felt that it was unfair for the proponents to have used a poster depicting minarets as missiles.

37% of Britons said they would vote for a similar ban in our country (more than Canadians and Americans, 27% and 21% respectively), with 25% against a ban and 39% abstainers or unsure.

ATTITUDES TO MUSLIMS – RELIGIOUS DRESS (fieldwork: 20-21 January 2010, n = 2,001)

ARPO showed respondents pictures of three items of Muslim women’s dress – the burqa, the niqab and the hijab – and asked whether their use should be forbidden in the UK in public places, at airports and at schools and universities.

Large majorities agreed with banning the burqa in all three situations (ranging from 72% in public places to 87% at airports), and likewise the niqab (from 66% in public places to 85% at airports).

67% considered that garments which conceal a woman’s face are an affront to British values, although, somewhat contradictorily, 58% agreed that the Government should not be allowed to tell individuals what they can and cannot wear.

Far fewer felt it necessary to prohibit wearing of the hijab (from 22% in public places to 34% at airports).

CREATIONISM (fieldwork: 1-9 July 2010, n = 2,011)

Invited to explain the origin and development of human beings on earth, 68% of Britons opted for evolution (almost twice the proportion of Americans), 16% for creationism (one-third the US figure), with 15% unsure.

Creationists were especially plentiful in London (25%, perhaps reflecting the concentration of black-led churches and Muslims there) and thin on the ground in Scotland. Men were more likely to be evolutionists than women, partly because more women registered as unsure.

RESPECT FOR MINISTERS AND PRIESTS (fieldwork: 20-23 July 2010, n = 1,992)

Asked whether they had a great deal or fair amount of respect for each of 25 professional groups, 56% replied affirmatively for ministers and priests, leaving them in sixteenth position in a league table extending from doctors (91%) to car salesmen (12%).

There were no great differences by age and region, but gender was significant: 63% of women against 49% of men had respect for ministers and priests. At the other end of the scale, 39% had little or not much respect for the clergy, rising to 46% among men.

The survey replicated another ARPO poll between 13 and 26 August 2009, which showed respect for ministers and priests running at 57% in Britain, 65% in Canada and 82% in the USA.

Besides polling, the company is also responsible for the Angus Reid Global Monitor, which commenced in 2003. This includes a database summarizing 22,000 polls from around the world and from many different polling agencies. See http://www.angus-reid.com/

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Muslims in Britain

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Muslims in Britain: An Introduction is a long-awaited new book by Sophie Gilliat-Ray, Director of the Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK, Cardiff University (Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-521-53688-2, £19.99 paperback – also available in hardback).

The volume deliberately sets out ‘to rebalance current discourse by focusing on issues that are perhaps much closer to the “ordinary” daily lives of British Muslims’, shifting emphasis away from ‘the political, religious and social consequences of “crisis” events over the past three decades’.

Part I of the book thus covers the historical and religious roots of Islam in Britain, and Part II its contemporary dynamics, including socio-demographic profile; religious nurture and education; religious leadership; mosques; gender, religious identity and youth; and engagement and enterprise.

The contents are essentially a judicious and well-presented synthesis of recent academic research into British Islam, particularly published as monographs or journal articles in the 1990s and 2000s.

An appendix (pp. 266-72) provides a useful overview of the main categories of sources, with cross-references to the bibliography (which, as a single alphabetical listing, is otherwise somewhat difficult to navigate).

Although Islam in Britain has generated few statistics itself, partly because it lacks central structures, the quantitative interest of Muslims in Britain is somewhat greater than the inclusion of only four tables in the volume might suggest.

This is especially (but not solely) the case in chapter 5 (pp. 115-29), which summarizes the socio-demographic profile, mainly based on the 2001 census, drawing upon Serena Hussain’s Muslims on the Map (2008). As Gilliat-Ray acknowledges, this census has probably been overtaken in large part by the very rapid growth in Muslim numbers during the intervening nine years.

The one quantitative source which the author does not really deploy is national sample surveys, with the exception of the Labour Force Survey to a small extent. The Citizenship Surveys are mentioned at one point but not used.

Opinion polls among Muslims are also largely ignored, seemingly rejected (p. 269) because they are ‘crisis-driven publications’ which ‘are rarely underpinned by the normal protocols of scholarly peer review, ethical scrutiny or in-depth social scientific methodological awareness’.

This seems a somewhat extreme position to take, denying the reader the opportunity to gain potentially useful insights into Muslim thinking which are not otherwise available at national level. Some polls embrace ‘ordinary’ and ‘everyday’ matters of faith, not just attitudes to Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism and so forth. 

Hopefully, one of the exceptions to the rule which Gilliat-Ray would concede is the survey of British Muslims undertaken in February-March 2009 by Ipsos MORI on behalf of Robert Putnam (Harvard University), David Voas (University of Manchester) and David Campbell (University of Notre Dame), with funding from the John Templeton Foundation.

Intended to parallel many of the questions in the British Social Attitudes Survey for 2008, this study has yet to be reported in any detail. But, when it does appear, it will be an essential contribution to the academic literature.

Also out-of-scope for Gilliat-Ray is any substantive discussion of how the majority British population has reacted to the emergence of Islam as a major faith in Britain. For instance, the term Islamophobia gets only three entries in the index.

In these ways, while Muslims in Britain offers an excellent introduction to many aspects of the community, it by no means tells the whole story.

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More Perceptions of Islam

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Islamophobia certainly appears to be a hot topic in 2010. Ten opinion polls have already been undertaken between January and July to gauge the attitudes of adult Britons towards Islam and Muslims.

Now The Guardian of 3 August has noted another, carried out on behalf of the London-based Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA). iERA was established in 2009 as a global organization committed to presenting Islam to the wider society (a process known in Islamic theology as dawah).

The iERA investigation was conducted among a random sample of 500 English-speaking non-Muslims aged 16 and over interviewed face-to-face on the street in Britain by DJS Research in November 2009. Fieldwork seems to have occurred disproportionately in major British cities. 

The full report on the survey is entitled Perceptions on Islam & Muslims: A Study of the UK Population, with Hamza Andreas Tzortzis as the senior researcher. It can be downloaded (albeit not in a very printer-friendly form) from:   

http://www.iera.org.uk/downloads/iERA_NonMuslimPerceptionsOnIslam_and_Muslims_ResearchReport.pdf

The enquiry covers similar ground, but in rather more detail, as the YouGov poll for the Exploring Islam Foundation which we have already featured on the British Religion in Numbers website (on 8 June).

However, as iERA notes on page 5, the results of the two investigations differ in various ways. iERA attributes this to the methodological inferiority of YouGov’s approach, not least the fact that it uses a panel (deemed by iERA to constitute a self-selecting sample), obtained a low response rate and employed only closed questions.

80% of the iERA sample had no or very little knowledge of Islam, with 17% having basic knowledge and 3% a lot. 40% did not know who Allah is, 36% did not know who the Prophet Mohammed was, and just 20% had come into contact with the Koran (compared with 95% for the Bible).

Only 14% had been taught or actively sought information about Islam, in contrast to the 84% who had not. 76% had never spoken to a Muslim about Islam and 71% had never seen or heard any dawah material. Even when exposed to such material, attitudes were more likely to remain unchanged or to worsen than to improve. 77% had no desire to learn more about Islam.

27% of respondents entertained negative perceptions of Muslims, with 55% neutral and 18% positive. Around three-quarters thought that the contribution of Islam and Muslims to Britain was either non-existent or negative; and disagreed or were neutral when asked whether Muslims positively engaged with society.

For one-third Muslims were seen as the major cause of community tension, 32% being convinced they preached hatred. 24% viewed them as terrorists, with one-fifth denying they were law-abiding and peaceful. 30% were antipathetic to Sharia law and 59% agreed that Islam oppresses women.

The commentary (pages 30-39) records the more significant breaks by demographic sub-groups, although too much significance should not be attached to these disaggregations on account of the relatively small size of the overall sample. In particular, the report inclines to make more than is advisable of replies from those aged 21-24 (of whom there cannot have been more than about 45 interviewed).

The conclusion (page 10) is: ‘The general population has displayed a negative perception concerning religion, Islam and Muslims. The dawah has had limited reach and it has not improved perceptions about Islam. There has also been a consistent trend of apparent neutrality; we believe this indicates apathy and indifference coupled with genuine ignorance about religion and specifically Islam.’ Nineteen recommendations are advanced (pages 39-45) to improve this situation.

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Battle of the Burka

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Clive D. Field

As might have been expected, the recent near-unanimous vote by the lower house of the French Parliament in favour of a ban on the wearing of full-face veils in public has prompted a further test of popular opinion on the subject in Britain, the fourth this year.

The survey was commissioned by Channel 5 News from YouGov. Fieldwork took place online between 14 and 16 July, among a representative sample of 2,205 adult Britons aged 18 and over. Computer tabulations of results are available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-Channel5-burkhas-160710.pdf

Following a lengthy explanation about what the burka actually is, just one question was put to respondents: ‘To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement? “The burkha should be completely banned in Britain.”’

In other words, unlike other surveys, the question was not qualified by an explicit reference to a ban on wearing the garment in public.

In response, 67% of the total sample agreed with a ban on the burka (42% strongly and 25% somewhat), 27% disagreed and 6% had no opinion.

Support for a ban rose steadily with age, from just 46% among the 18-24s (with an identical proportion opposed) to 80% for those who were 55 and over. Figures for the intervening cohorts were: 55% for the 25-34s, 65% for the 35-44s and 71% for the 45-54s.

Other sub-groups among whom support for a ban exceeded 70% were: manual workers (71%), residents of the North of England and Wales (71% each), married persons (74%), the widowed (73%) and retired people (83%).

Disregarding the nuances of question-wording, approval of some form of ban on the burka has edged up in Britain from 52% in January to 57% in February to 62% in April-May to 67% in July.

Whatever the strength of public opinion, and notwithstanding the private member’s bill tabled by Philip Hollobone (Conservative MP for Kettering) which would make it illegal for anybody to cover their face in public, prospects for an early ban on the burka in Britain seem remote.

Damian Green, Immigration Minister in the Coalition Government, has stated recently that a ban on the burka would be ‘a rather un-British thing’, running contrary to the conventions of ‘a tolerant and mutually respectful society’.

Meanwhile, Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman has made a staunch defence of a woman’s right to wear the burka, on the grounds of freedom, even describing the garment as ‘empowering’.

It is likewise interesting to note that the lower chamber of the Spanish Parliament has just declined to follow France’s lead, rejecting the ban by 183 votes to 162. However, the lower house of the Belgian Parliament has voted in favour of a ban.

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London Bombings – Five Years On

Posted on July 14, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The fifth anniversary of the London bombings has been marked by a YouGov poll for The Sun newspaper. It was conducted among an online sample of 1,424 adult Britons aged 18 and over on 4-5 July. Headline findings were published in The Sun on 7 July, but the full data can be downloaded from:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-Sun-77-050710.pdf

In the five years since 7/7 25% feel that the threat of terrorism in Britain has increased, 53% that it has stayed the same and 17% that it has decreased. 76% rate further terrorist attacks on British soil as very or fairly likely.

Asked to think back to 7/7, and the reaction of British Muslims to the bombings, 33% recalled that it had made them feel more negative toward British Muslims, while for 60% it had made no difference. Conservative voters were twice as likely as Liberal Democrats (42% versus 20%) to have held adverse views, and the over-40s were seven points more negative than the under-40s (36% against 29%).

When questioned about the progress made by British Muslims to integrate into mainstream British society since 2005, four times as many feel that they have become less integrated than more integrated (43% compared with 10%). For 36% there has been no difference, and 12% are ‘don’t knows’. The expression of concern about less integration is most voiced by Conservatives (49%), residents of the Midlands and Wales (48%) and those aged 60 and over (47%).

This complaint about the lack of Muslim integration into British society finds echoes in other recent polls. In another YouGov survey in November 2009 21% considered that most Muslims in Britain led completely separately lives, with three-fifths saying many did so and just 13% believing most Muslims were integrated.

Similarly, interviewed by ICM in January 2008 about whether the Muslim community in Britain needed to do more to integrate, 56% agreed, with 24% deeming there had been sufficient integration and 9% too much.

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Islamophobia Unveiled

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Clive D. Field

A new opinion poll on British attitudes to Muslim women wearing full face veils was released on 8 July 2010. It is the third to be published this year.

It was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International on behalf of the Pew Global Attitudes Project. 750 Britons aged 18 and over were interviewed by telephone between 15 April and 2 May 2010.

A report on the poll is available to download at:

http://pewglobal.org/files/pdf/pew-global-attitudes-report-on-veil-ban-july-8.pdf

Only one question was posed, whether the respondent would approve or disapprove of a ban on the wearing of full face veils in public places, including schools, hospitals and government offices.

62% of adult Britons approved of such a ban, 32% disapproved and 6% expressed no opinion or refused to answer.

Approval varied considerably by age, with 71% of those aged 55 and over in favour of a ban, compared with 61% of the 35-54s and 52% of the 18-34s.

There were also differences of political ideology. Those categorized as being on the right were most supportive of a ban (69%), with centrists on 63% and leftists on 55%.

By contrast, variations by gender, education and income groups were negligible in Britain.

Approval of a ban was 34% higher in Britain than in the United States. It was also 3% more than in Spain.

However, it was 9% less than in Germany and 20% less than in France (the country which has been making the running over the ban, and where a parliamentary vote on the subject is expected on 13 July).

There are some indications that opinion in Britain may be hardening on the issue, although variations in question-wording can make comparisons difficult.

In January this year only 36% of people interviewed by ComRes wanted it to be unlawful to wear a burka in any public place (although 52% wanted some legal restrictions).

In February 2010 Harris Interactive found that 57% of Britons backed a ban on the burka veil in this country.

Even further ago, in October-November 2006 at the height of the controversy ignited by Jack Straw (then a Labour minister), who criticized the full veil as a psychological and practical barrier to integration, just over one-half the population agreed with his views, although a clear majority opposed a complete ban on wearing the veil in public.

For more information, see the BRIN news posts of 1 February and 3 March 2010 on ‘Should the burka be banned in Britain?’

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Muslims in Prison

Posted on June 8, 2010 by Clive D. Field

In December 2008 there were 9,975 Muslim prisoners in England and Wales, equivalent to 12% of the prison population. This represented a considerable increase on the 5% in 1994 and 8% in 2004 and was more than four times the proportion of professing Muslims at the 2001 census.

Muslims constituted the biggest faith group in prison in 2008 after Anglicans and Catholics, although all were dwarfed by those without any religion. The current estimate for Muslim prisoners is 10,300.

The more youthful profile of Muslims and their disproportionate concentration in lower socio-economic groups partly explain this over-representation of Muslims in prison, since criminality is especially associated with the young and with economic deprivation. 

Numbers apart, there has been considerable public focus on these Muslim prisoners as potential extremists and on prisons as the place where they may become radicalized, often through conversion to Islam.

But what is the reality? In an attempt to find some answers, Her Majesty’s (independent) Inspectorate of Prisons has researched and today published a 116-page thematic report on Muslim Prisoners’ Experiences, which is available to download from:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/inspectorates/hmi-prisons/docs/Muslim_prisoners_2010_rps.pdf

The evidence base for the report derives from a wide variety of quantitative and qualitative sources. Among the former are surveys completed by 9,027 prisoners (including 1,049 Muslims) between September 2006 and April 2009, and in-depth semi-structured interviews with 164 Muslim male prisoners.

Detailed statistics from the surveys, covering answers to 200 questions by religion and ethnicity, comprise more than half the document (Appendix IX).

The headline finding is that Muslim prisoners report more negatively on their prison experience, and particularly their safety and relationship with staff, than other prisoners. Differential perceptions are widest in high security dispersal prisons, where the focus on security and extremism is sharpest.

Race and ethnicity were important factors in Muslim prisoners’ negative experiences and perceptions, especially since Muslims were over four times more likely than non-Muslims to be from a minority ethnic group.

However, within each of the four ethnic groups covered (Asian, black, white and mixed heritage), Muslims reported significantly less positively than non-Muslims, suggesting that religion adds a further clear layer of perceived disadvantage.

One of the main grievances of Muslim prisoners is that prison staff members have a tendency to think of them as a homogeneous group, rather than individuals, and too often through the lens of extremism and terrorism, although less than 1% of them are actually detained for terrorist-related offences.

In her summation, the Chief Inspector of Prisons agrees that the security agenda is often better resourced, better understood and more prevalent in prison than concerns for diversity. She urges a better balance, to avoid ‘a real risk of a self-fulfilling prophecy, that the prison experience will create or entrench alienation and disaffection’ among Muslims.

On the positive side, Muslims were more likely than non-Muslims to report their faith needs were met in prisons, reflecting the strengthening of the role of Muslim chaplains. Indeed, more Muslim prisoners than non-Muslims felt their religious beliefs were respected and that they could speak to a religious leader from their faith in private.

30% of the 164 interviewees were converts to Islam, some evidently attracted by perceptions of the material advantages from identifying as Muslim in prison.

This has naturally been picked up by the media, prompting headlines such as ‘Lags Go Muslim for Better Food’ (The Sun) and ‘Prisoners Convert to Islam to Win Perks and Get Protection from Powerful Muslim Gangs’ (Daily Mail).

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Muslims in Leicester

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Last December the Open Society Institute (OSI) published Muslims in Europe: A Report on 11 EU Cities, deriving from its At Home in Europe Project. Now in a second edition (ISBN 978-1-936133-01-7), this is available for download at:

http://www.soros.org/initiatives/home/articles_publications/publications/muslims-europe-20091215

This document is a summation of research into the level and nature of integration of Muslims undertaken in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Leicester, London, Marseille, Paris, Rotterdam, and Stockholm.

The media headlines at the time were exemplified by the Sunday Times of 13 December: ‘UK Muslims are Europe’s Most Patriotic’. This referred to the fact that Leicester and London (Waltham Forest) had topped the list of Muslims identifying with their country of residence, 82% and 72% respectively, compared (at the other end of the scale) with 25% in Berlin and 22% in Hamburg.

OSI has now started to release the full reports on each individual city. Leicester and Berlin are the first to be made available in this way. Leicester is one of the most ethnically-diverse populations in the UK outside London, and it is predicted to become the country’s first ‘plural city’, with no overall ethnic majority. Muslims in Leicester (ISBN 978-1-936133-13-0) runs to 153 pages and is available to download at:

http://www.soros.org/initiatives/home/articles_publications/publications/leicester-report-20100422

The Leicester report embodies a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research data, collected in the city (largely by the Policy Research Centre) between January and July 2008. The principal focus is three of Leicester’s 22 wards (Evington, Spinney Hills and Stoneygate), where 102 Muslims and 98 non-Muslims were interviewed. Six focus groups were also conducted there, and 31 experts/key stakeholders were interviewed across the city.

The core of the report explores the experiences of Muslim communities in Leicester from eight perspectives: identity, belonging and interaction; education; employment; housing; health; policing and security; participation and citizenship; and the role of the media. There is also a series of recommendations in these, and other, areas.

A key finding is that ‘the majority of Muslims in Leicester possess a strong British identity and sense of belonging to the city as well as the country, holding many values in common with non-Muslims’. While Muslims have a keen sense of religious allegiance, 82% see themselves as British and 70% want to be seen as British. However, 60% of Muslims do not feel that others view them as British.

75% of Muslims have a strong sense of belonging to Leicester (five points more than for non-Muslims). 56% also have confidence in the city council, in stark contrast to the 27% who say the same about the national government (twelve points less than among non-Muslims). 63% of Muslims have no or limited confidence in the government, compared with 54% of non-Muslims. Similarly, while 37% of non-Muslims have trust in Parliament, this is true of just 25% of Muslims, 62% having no or limited confidence.

Approximately half of both Muslims and non-Muslims believe that there is significant racial discrimination in the UK and over 70% that there is a fair amount of religious prejudice, which is said to have increased over the past five years.

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