The report highlights the policy context surrounding the men's attitudes towards various aspects of their lives, including marriage, family, work, the city of Bradford in general, and their own neighbourhoods. It reveals that while there was some generational continuity of cultural values and norms, significant changes also appeared to be taking place.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attack, Bradford has been a focus for anxieties around ethnic relations. The report was undertaken to shed light on the experiences of Bradford-born Pakistani men for local and national policy-makers, academics and students, politicians and those working in the community.

The report is one output drawn from a 21-month qualitative research project and analyses the views of 25 research subjects obtained through interviews, having first gained the subjects’ trust.

The views of the people taking part in the research do not give the impression of people adrift from their homeland and culture, on the contrary they give a strong impression of individuals who are grounded in Bradford and their own social networks. Their relation to Islam is varied, but seldom non-committal.

Some implications for policy-makers are: that the assimilationist aspect of the government’s multiculturalism is dangerous and denies the success of pluralist multiculturalism; in particular it may deny the strong regional civic neighbourhood identities which fragment a common Britishness and give vitality to engaging with citizenship; that it is arrogant to assume that racial exclusion and Islamophobia are not major determining forces in defining people’s lives; and that the government’s multiculturalism shows distrust of British democracy to address the needs of all citizens and to engage them in a diverse civil society.

Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Phone: +44 1904 629241
info@jrf.org.uk

01/11/2006

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M.Y. Alam, Charles Husband

research

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Integration of social groups

Ethnic minorities