Youth, Multiculturalism and Community Cohesion

PAUL THOMAS Senior Lecturer in Youth and Community Work at the School of Education and Professional Development, University of Huddersfield, UK. Previously he was Youth Campaigns Officer at the Commission for Racial Equality in the north of England, and worked for a national voluntary sector youth work organisation.

• Acknowledgments Introduction: Community Cohesion – A New British Policy Agenda The Emergence of Community Cohesion Going with the Flow? International Comparisons Community Cohesion – The Death of the British Model of Multiculturalism? Myths and Realities – Community Cohesion in Practice Community Cohesion – More than Ethnicity? Unwilling Citizens? Muslim Young People and Identity White Young People and Community Cohesion – The Refusniks? A Contradiction to Community Cohesion? The Preventing Violent Extremism Agenda Conclusion – Community Cohesion as a New Phase of British Multiculturalism Bibliography

"[Thomas] questions the singular policy emphasis of academics on difference rather than commonality...and that ethno-racial social processes need to be understood locally as well as nationally, and in terms of their actual practice rather than seen through an ideological lens. These insights are usefully extended in discussions of class, gender, and territory in ethno-racial relations among young people." - Contemporary Sociology "An important and much-needed contribution to the debates about multiculturalism...I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in developing a critical understanding of this contested territory" - Youth & Policy "[It] makes a contribution to the literature on community cohesion by challenging myths and assumptions about key debates and terms, and by problematizing the boundaries of 'progressive' critiques and actions against ethnic inequalities and racism...this book also provides an important historical policy background to these debates" - Sociological Review