Lack of religious census categories hid Muslims within ethnic and birth-country data

Evidence

The availability of ‘hard facts’ on Muslims was argued by the Muslim Council of Britain as an important step in recognizing the needs of this faith group in a more meaningful way. Active campaigning took place for the inclusion in government surveys of an official category for religious minorities, as many Muslims continued to be hidden among ethnic and countryof-birth categories. Britons of Turkish descent, for example, ticked ‘White’ when presented with no specific category of their own. It was therefore impossible to know how many Muslims there were in Britain using ethnicity data alone, or what their needs as a faith group were. — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 186

Categorization

• XREF: The measurement gap here is the administrative precursor to the same visibility problem Bleich’s social-scientific definition tries to solve — concept formation driven by data availability. — connects to: Ethnic categories fail to capture the distinct experience of British Muslims. — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 59; Existing census ethnicity categories fail to capture Muslim experience as a distinct category. — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 118; Muslim organizations won religion’s inclusion in the UK census. — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 142 (+10 more)

Related

• Muslim organizations won religion’s inclusion in the UK census. (similarity 0.91)
• Census ethnicity categories poorly capture British Muslim experience as proxies (similarity 0.90)
• Existing census ethnicity categories fail to capture Muslim experience as a distinct category. (similarity 0.90)
• Ethnic categories fail to capture the distinct experience of British Muslims. (similarity 0.88)
• Ethnic data categories cannot capture the Muslim penalty in British institutions (similarity 0.86)
• Religious and ethnic disadvantages in Britain must be separated analytically to explain Muslim outcomes. (similarity 0.84)
• British Muslims were ethnicized before being recognized as a faith group (similarity 0.83)
• British ‘ethnic minority’ communities are internally diverse and not segregated ghettos (similarity 0.83)
• The 2001 census religion question laid groundwork for targeting policies at Muslims (similarity 0.81)
• Religious identity grew more salient than ethnicity among later-generation British Muslims (similarity 0.80)
• The ethnic makeup of Muslims varies widely by region in England. (similarity 0.79)
• Aggregate housing statistics mask sharp variation among different Muslim groups. (similarity 0.79)
• British racial categories for Muslims changed labels while retaining racist content. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• British Muslims were ethnicized before being recognized as a faith group #corroborates (0.85) — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 185
• Religious identity racializes Arab and South Asian Muslims along shared lines #corroborates (0.80)
• Religious identity grew more salient than ethnicity among later-generation British Muslims #corroborates (0.75) — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 182
• British-born Muslims replaced ancestral ethnicity with religious identity #corroborates (0.75) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 51
• Media mapping erased the distinction between real and imagined Muslims #corroborates (0.70) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 240