A reactionary voice: nuanced views on multiculturalism

Hopes and Fears: Community Cohesion and the ‘White Working Class’ in One of the ‘Failed Spaces’ of Multiculturalism

“…Preferential treatment of ethnic minorities, and particularly ‘Asians’, was another prominent theme: one that has long been a feature of White backlash against demographic change and the politics of multiculturalism (Beider, 2011; Busher, 2015; Hewitt, 2005). Such claims were made during conversations about a range of different issues and social contexts.…”

“…Goodhart (2013) notes the ‘asymmetrical’ nature of British multiculturalism, arguing that while support has been targeted at ethnic minority civil society, an absence of a concomitant focus on class-based differences and inequalities has contributed to the political marginalisation of poor White communities. Beider (2011, 2015), meanwhile, identifies how weak civil society in many marginalised White communities, hollowed out by de-industrialisation and the neo-liberal re-shaping of the state, left such communities ill-equipped to participate in cohesion work and lacking either leadership or organisations that would enable them to do so.…”

“…A theme in the research that remains underexplored and often overlooked, however, concerns findings of sometimes significant support within low income White communities for greater and improved inter-ethnic contact. Beider (2011: 36), for example, found that ‘residents wanted to increase interaction with different people in their neighbourhood’, while the Open Society Foundation (2014: 18) identified that ‘focus group participants in several cities expressed openness towards people of different cultural backgrounds and a willingness to interact with them’. It is the apparent tensions in these accounts of low income White communities and the need to explore how they fit in relation to emerging policy agendas that prompted this research.…”

“…This, however, was largely ignored in subsequent policy implementation. Latterly, White majority attitudes towards and engagement with these issues (Beider, 2011, 2015; Open Society Foundation, 2014; Rhodes, 2012; Thomas and Sanderson, 2013) have been explored but this literature remains embryonic and based almost exclusively on qualitative research. The mixed methods case study data presented here address this deficit.…”

Class Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Immigration and Race Among Working‐Class Whites1

“…Working‐class identity is often treated as a clearly bounded, uniform status. With few exceptions (e.g., Beider, Harwood, & Chahal, ), attempts to define working‐class identity have hinged upon factors such as the self‐recognition of the group as an entity with agency or as a single basis for political action. The variegated nature of this identity is not often discussed.…”