Abstract
The religious and belief landscape of Britain is increasingly complex and diverse. Since the turn of the century it has become ‘more secular, less Christian and more religiously plural’ (p. 38). In such circumstances, how to accommodate the competing religious (and non-religious) beliefs and values of different groups is an urgent question. Weller et al.’s book Religion or Belief, Discrimination and Equality makes an important and timely contribution to the debate.
The book is based on two studies (one conducted 1999–2001 and the other 2010–2012), which provide a unique record of perceptions and experiences of religious or belief discrimination in England and Wales in the first decade of the 21st century. The authors give a careful and detailed account of the mixed method approach to their research, which included sample surveys of religious organisations, interviews and focus groups. For the purposes of data collection, ‘discrimination’ was broadly understood as ‘unfair treatment’ in order to capture as many discriminatory grievances people had experienced as possible. The authors’ extension of the discussion from ‘religious discrimination’ to ‘belief discrimination’ is important because it enables individuals with secular, agnostic and atheist beliefs to be represented as well as religious believers.
The early chapters provide the context to the empirical work. The authors give a succinct profile of religious change in Britain and highlight examples of religious discrimination and persecution that have occurred in the distant and recent past. Particularly helpful to readers who may be unfamiliar with discrimination and equality legislation is a chapter which charts post-war changes in the law in England and Wales and the international influences which have shaped them.
The authors go on to provide three chapters of accounts of unfair treatment as perceived by individuals and groups in a range of areas including, among others: education, employment, criminal justice and immigration, housing and health care. In all of the areas it seems that instances of unfair treatment have declined between the first and second study. Legislation and social policies have helped to bring this about. However, the authors point out that unfair treatment is still ‘substantial’ and impacts on people’s lives. The range and types of grievances documented indicate the difficulty of accommodating competing belief needs. For example, dress codes or the recognition of religious festivals may be seen as privileging some people whilst discriminating against others; media coverage may be regarded as negative by some groups whilst others complain of being ignored. The grievances reported varied in seriousness and effect, although the authors argue that subjectively all are important. The notion of unfairness is a broad category. Indeed, it is possibly too broad as minor grumbles risk detracting from graver cases of discrimination and exclusion. In this respect the notion of ‘unfairness’ would benefit from more discussion and interrogation. The authors do note that not all grievances recorded are necessarily discriminatory, but what would ‘fair treatment’ look like to people? How do notions of hospitality, service and the ‘golden rule’ embraced by many religious and non-religious believers fit with the respondents’ understandings of unfair treatment? To complicate matters, instances of religious or belief discrimination are sometimes tied up with unfair treatment due to race or one of a number of other legally protected characteristics.
To guide the reader through the various ways in which unfair treatment manifests itself, the authors provide an ‘analytical spectrum’ of seven types of religious or belief discrimination. In short, these are: ‘Religion and belief naivety’, where unfair treatment is down to people’s ignorance of others’ needs; ‘prejudice’ and ‘hatred’, where negative stereotyping leads to exclusion and harassment of people or to threatening and violent behaviour. ‘Religious or belief disadvantage’ is a fourth category, which refers to structurally embedded forms of unfair treatment. For example, the established nature of the Church of England may afford Anglican beliefs a more privileged position in policy-making than other faith groups. ‘Direct discrimination’ describes individuals denied opportunities and services because of their religion or beliefs. ‘Indirect discrimination’ identifies usually unintentional unfair treatment resulting from embedded social practices that have not kept pace of religious pluralism. Finally, ‘institutional discrimination’ refers to failure within an organisation to act fairly towards its constituent members.
The analytical spectrum is a helpful tool to enable researchers and policy-makers to think through different cases of discrimination and unfairness in order to consider ways of addressing them. The last chapter of the book begins to take up the challenge by emphasising the need for a variety of educational approaches to tackle unfair treatment. However, solutions are not easily come by when the needs of one group are opposite to the needs of another. Weller and colleagues have done well to set out the nature and scope of the problem; it is down to us all to work out fair and sustainable solutions.