Immigration in Britain
Now this is an interesting research:
Using the UK Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities, we explore the determinants of religious identity for Muslims and non-Muslims. We find that Muslims integrate less and more slowly than non-Muslims. A Muslim born in the UK and having spent there more than 50 years shows a comparable level of probability of having a strong religious identity than a non-Muslim just arrived in the country. Furthermore, Muslims seem to follow a different integration pattern than other ethnic and religious minorities. Specifically, high levels of income as well as high on-the-job qualifications increase the Muslims’ sense of identity. We also find no evidence that segregated neighborhoods breed intense religious and cultural identities for ethnic minorities, especially for Muslims. This result casts doubts on the foundations of the integration policies in Europe.
A paper all the political leaders in the West should read. According to the researchers, mixed neighborhoods are not better than segregated ones and education does nothing to let Muslim immigrants integrate (quicker and better). Strangely, although immigrants who are non-Muslim integrate better when they are better educated and have a high paying job, the reverse can be said for Muslim immigrants. Education, however, has no influence on Muslim immigrants whatsoever and Muslim immigrants who earn a lot of money are less integrated, or at least identify themselves more as ‘Muslim,’ compared to Muslim immigrants with a lower income.
Read more at The Gazette.
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3 Responses to “Immigration in Britain”
That certainly seems to be different from what was recently reported in research on Muslims in the United States. Perhaps there’s some notable difference between the Muslim experience in the UK from that in the US.
Very interesting, and in the case of Muslims in higher paying jobs, very counter-intuitive. I had always assumed that part of the reason that Europe has less integration of Muslims than the US was because the US got Muslims of greater education, more middle class urban and less lower class rural. This study casts a lot of doubt on that, though it would serve to explain the terrorists-medical doctor.
Still, I think that in order to make the results really significant, they would have to be done for “British identity” and not so much for “Muslim identity”. I’m fairly willing to believe that the stronger the Muslim identity the weaker the national identity, but it strikes me that this correlation probably has a lot of exceptions. As far as how potentially dangerous non-integration of Muslims is, I think it’s so for those who don’t really feel connected to the country they live in. I wouldn’t be surprised that if you felt “very British” you’d be no danger to anyone, no matter how Muslim you felt.
The study is what it is and provides food for thought.
I’m not at all sure what it means, though.
If you asked some very devout and devoted Christians if they think of htemselves first as Christians or as Americans, what would they answer?
Terrorism has also served to separate Muslims into their own psychological and social enclave, as I suspect,and many have expressed., Being aware that they’re looked at with fear and suspiciton, there would be a natural tendency to circle the wagons and to stick with the safety and acceptance of their own kind. There might well be a push and pull aspect to all this.
But beyond all that, I’m not sure how being inegrated is defined. In the US, for example, there are segregated neighborhoods, schools and social groupings. Actively seeking integration and diversity is increasingly met with strident resistance.
Are there parallels between race relations and the situation with Muslims?
The bottom line question is about loyalty, I presume.
To get to hat issue through the prism of integration requires more in-depth study, the kind summay overviews can;t provide.
This would seem to be fertile ground for budding as well as established sociologists. I thope many of them turn to it for much needed study. We all talk about it, wax eloquesnt about it and form definitive opinions about it, but no one really understands it, IMO. .