REPORTS

YMAG’s response to the Seen and not Heard Research

In summary

Seen and Not Heard, Voices of Young British Muslims is an important piece of research which aimed, primarily, to identify the areas of concern that young Muslims feel are particularly pertinent to their lives. As the title suggests, the research is centred on the dialogue that took place with young Muslims which provides this piece of research with the veracity of unmediated perspectives.

What the research says

Seen and Not Heard asks critical questions about why young Muslims often feel excluded and what it is that creates such a culture of exclusion and non-engagement. The field research was preceded by a hypothesis that the areas of concern that would emerge would include education, identity, belonging and citizenship, the media, community leadership as well as discrimination, delinquency and policing. The hypothesis was tested through desk-based research and nine focus groups across England, Scotland and Wales in which these themes were explored. The focus groups comprised of young Muslims from a variety of ethnic backgrounds (although, as a reflection of the composition of the Muslim community in Britain, a large proportion of the participants were of Pakistani origin) and with an almost equal male-female ratio.

Why it is relevant to us and you

The findings have been formulated into a set of comprehensive recommendations for all stakeholders including central and local government, local service providers, educational establishments, the Muslim voluntary sector and mosques, the media and the police force. Broadly, the recommendations call for more specific provisions in the youth services that deal with young Muslims, for schools to provide a more holistic understanding of world history which takes into account the contributions of the different Muslim communities and to offer a natural setting for ‘community cohesion’, and for Muslim voluntary organisations and mosques to provide better youth skills training to their practitioners and imams.

What we are going to do

The Young Muslim Advisory Group is keen to support an endeavour of this nature and we hope to incorporate some of the suggestions for further research into our forthcoming piece of research. We will be addressing the need to look into terminology such as cohesion and PVE which hinder engagement but are currently used popularly by the government, its agencies and the media. Seen and Not Heard sets the groundwork for not only YMAG’s research project but for all research on young British Muslims in the near future.