Community Cohesion and the ‘death of Multiculturalism’

1. Community Cohesion and the ‘death of Multiculturalism’ Dr.Paul Thomas, School of Education and Professional Development

2. Content • Introduction – the ‘death of multiculturalism’? • The themes and concerns of Community Cohesion • Evidence from work with young people in Oldham and Rochdale • What this evidence suggests • Conclusion – a death much- exaggerated?

3. The ‘death of multiculturalism’? • 2001 riots were a watershed for ‘race relations’ policy approaches • Post-2001 focus on Community Cohesion, Integration and shared values and Identities (including ‘Britishness’) • Growing focus on Muslim communities, with the 7/7 bombings and PVE programmes • Overt attacks on ‘multiculturalism’ by some equality campaigners

4. Themes and concerns of Community Cohesion • Cantle 2001 report was highly influential but is less of a policy departure than is claimed • Key focus on ethnic segregation, both physical and cultural, and impact on lack of shared identities • Suggests excessive ‘bonding social capital’, with a need for more cross-community contact • Significant concern with ‘agency’ and the need for individual and community responsibility • A critique of past policies, particularly ‘anti-racism’ or political multiculturalism, which have over-emphasised ethnicity and ‘essentialised’ ethnic identity

5. Criticisms of Community Cohesion • Cohesion is seeing segregation as a cause, rather than as a symptom of racism and inequality? • A racialised discourse that has focussed exclusively on the supposed faults of Asian communities • The focus on shared identities and values is a denial of diversity and represents a forcible return to assimilationism (the ‘death of multiculturalism’) • Race Equality is off the agenda, with the fudge of ‘human rights’? • A lot of these criticisms are evidence-free!!

6. Evidence from Oldham and Rochdale • Field research with youth workers from a range of agencies in Oldham on how they actually understand and implement Community Cohesion • Further research with young people in Oldham and Rochdale about their understanding of ‘Identity’ • Work around evaluation of the PVE agenda

7. Evidence from Oldham and Rochdale • Youth Workers accept and understand the key themes of Community Cohesion, and young people confirm the extent to which ethnic segregation affects and limits their lives • Youth Work practice has been radically altered as a result, with key emphasis on direct contact across ethnic and social lines • Renewed concern with experiential education, fun and shared identities • This practice builds on and accepts separate ethnic identities, using the principles of ‘contact theory’

8. Evidence from Oldham and Rochdale • What this work does, through joint programmes, residentials, etc is create conditions for ‘rooting and shifting’ of identities, whereby attitudes can change because own identity is not under threat • Accepting the continued reality of racism and the need to engage with it has not disappeared • Concerned with class, territory and social issues and identities as much as ethnicity • Young Muslims do not see any conflict between religious identity and Britishness

9. What this evidence suggests • Ethnic segregation is a real and negative issue for practitioners and young people, but overcoming it cannot be the end in itself • Past policy approaches had limitations and Community Cohesion has been enthusiastically received by practitioners – it speaks to their lived experiences • Practice with young people has changed significantly in the name of Community Cohesion • Ethnic differences are not denied in this practice, but positively accepted and worked with

10. What this evidence suggests • Wider forms of experience and identity are being incorporated in to this practice • This is consistent with government’s ‘human rights’ approach, which seeks to augment existing identities with over-arching, shared identities and the importance of individual rights • This evidence- based examination of Community Cohesion reaches very different conclusion to much of the evidence-free criticisms of it

11. Multiculturalism: A death much-exaggerated? • Community Cohesion practice is accepting and working with ethnic differences and identities- shared identities are an addition, not a replacement. • This is a new phase of ‘critical multiculturalism’ that consider class, territory and social factors also without ‘essentialising’ • Equality measures continue to be developed locally and nationally, accepting ethnic difference • PVE programmes have wrongly focussed on Muslims only – an unreconstructed and simplistic multiculturalism

12. Further Details • Research/writing that this presentation has been based on can be sourced via: http://www2.hud.ac.uk/edu/staff/sedudpt.php • Paul Thomas : d.p.thomas@hud.ac.uk Tel: 01484 478267