The £400,000 academic study will be led by the University of Derby over three years to investigate how attitudes and experiences of different religious and non-religious groups in England and Wales have evolved since 1999.
Derby has secured funding from the Religion and Society programme, which contributes to the multi-disciplinary Global Uncertainties Research Councils UK Programme.
The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council, and will include academics from the University of Oxford and the University of Manchester.
The study will build on previous research led by Derby and commissioned by the Home Office in 1999, which found evidence of unfair treatment especially in education, employment and media, particularly as reported by Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus.
Paul Weller, Professor of Inter-Religious Relations at the University of Derby, headed the original project and report and will be the principal investigator for the new study.
He said the new project would consider legal and policy developments on religion and human rights in which the category of ‘religious discrimination’ has become more widely accepted, while modified by reference to ‘belief’ and an emerging policy focus on shared values, social cohesion and 'Britishness'.
It will also take into account the ‘social policy shock’ of the 7/7 London bombings and their impact on the discourses, policies and practices of ‘multi-culturalism’, and consider the effects on these issues of the ‘preventing violent extremism’ initiatives to counter the threat of religiously justified terror.
