Written Evidence Submitted by
Dr Stephen H. Jones, Institute for STEMM in Culture and Society, University of Birmingham
(DIV0043)
The Institute for STEMM in Culture and Society is a major research institute based in the University of Birmingham. It comprises 13 staff along with affiliates from across the University and partner institutions. The Institute focuses on all aspects of the relationship between science and society, with a particular interest in inequality and exclusion in STEMM and access to technology. Stephen H. Jones is a Lecturer and currently interim Deputy Director of the Institute. He is a sociologist with expertise in inclusion in higher education and ethnic and religious inequalities. He leads the Institute’s Diversity in STEMM and Innovation Research Group.
This submission seeks to highlight evidence relating to religion and belief inequalities and prejudices within STEMM contexts. Although they have gained greater recognition and legal protections in the UK in the last twenty years, inequalities relating to religion and belief have been widely neglected within the vast literature on STEMM. Indeed, the theme of religion and belief is not mentioned at all in the APPG on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM’s most recent report (2020) or the Call for Evidence.
What makes this surprising is that a growing body of literature has emerged in the last five years highlighting profound religious inequalities within STEMM-focused contexts and more broadly in UK society, with this evidence pointing especially the impacts of anti-Muslim sentiment within medicine, science communication and other contexts. The lack of discussion of religion and belief in literatures on STEMM and inclusion means that much less evidence is available on religious inequality than inequalities rooted in class, gender or ethnicity. Nevertheless, there is sufficient information to build a compelling case for religious inequality being a major problem. We present this briefly below and encourage the Science and Technology Committee to incorporate inequalities relating to religion and belief alongside other equalities strands.
Ethno-religious background has a strong influence on educational and occupational attainment in the UK (Khattab, 2009). Presently, the religious group that stands out in the UK as suffering from specific penalties are British Muslims, whose high levels of deprivation are widely recognised. Importantly, there is compelling evidence to suggest that Muslims’ deprivation has specific religious elements and cannot simply be explained as a facet of ethnic disadvantage (Khattab and Modood, 2015). Indeed, one analysis of Labour Force Survey data finds that Muslims suffer the most profound penalties in the workplace of any ethnic or religious group (Khattab and Johnston, 2015). This is at least in part due to the prevalence of Islamophobia in the UK, which remains popular even among people who are generally tolerant (Storm et al., 2017).
Given this situation in the UK, it is unsurprising that we find similar inequalities in STEMM courses and professions, even in spite of the limited data available. While there is a broad literature on the ‘awarding gap’ in UK higher education, religion was, until 2020, excluded from analysis. Analysis of this data, however, suggests a Muslim disadvantage in the awarding of degrees, with 64.4 per cent of Muslim students receiving a 2:1 compared with 79.8 for non-religious students (Loke, 2020). New studies specifically of Muslims in UK higher education have consistently uncovered experiences, among both staff and students, of Islamophobia and alienation relating to religion (Akel, 2021; Guest et al., 2020; Ramadan, 2021; Scott-Baumann et al., 2020).
To the best of my knowledge, only small, mostly qualitative studies exist that focus upon those working in STEMM professions. These nevertheless point to similar experiences of disadvantage and exclusion (Avraamidou, 2020), as well as outright hostility in contexts such as medicine (Javid, 2019). Importantly, these accounts also at times point to the prevalence in universities of what Scott-Baumann et al call ‘intellectual’ Islamophobia – that is, the presumption, often found in secular contexts, that affiliation with Islam is equivalent to irrationalism and makes one unable to effectively work in science. Indeed, in my own research I and my colleagues have found evidence of the prevalence of anti-Muslims stereotypes linked to science (Jones et al., 2019) and of Islamophobia being linked to personal identification with science (Jones et al., 2020). There is a dire need for far more research in this area, but the extant research clearly points to serious exclusions that so far have been ignored in policy spheres.
Akel S (2021) Institutionalised: The Rise of Islamophobia in Higher Education. London: London Metropolitan University. Available at: https://www.londonmet.ac.uk/media/london-metropolitan-university/london-met-documents/professional-service-departments/centre-for-equity-and-inclusion/research-reports/Institutionalised--%C3%82%C2%A0The-Rise-of-Islamophobia-in-Higher-Education.pdf (accessed 18 January 2021).
APPG on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM (2020) The State of the Sector: Diversity and representation in STEM industries in the UK. November. London: APPG on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM. Available at: https://www.britishscienceassociation.org/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=d7899dce-22d5-4880-bbcf-669c0c35bda6.
Avraamidou L (2020) “I am a young immigrant woman doing physics and on top of that I am Muslim”: Identities, intersections, and negotiations. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 57(3): 311–341. DOI: 10.1002/tea.21593.
Guest M, Scott-Baumann A, Cheruvallil-Contractor S, et al. (2020) Islam and Muslims on UK University Campuses: Perceptions and Challenges. Durham: Durham University.
Javid H (2019) Islamophobia in the NHS. In: Doctors’ Association UK. Available at: https://www.dauk.org/blog/2019/11/10/guest-blog-by-hina-javid-islamophobia-in-the-nhs (accessed 25 September 2020).
Jones SH, Catto R, Kaden T, et al. (2019) ‘That’s how Muslims are required to view the world’: Race, culture and belief in non-Muslims’ descriptions of Islam and science. The Sociological Review 67(1): 161–177. DOI: 10.1177/0038026118778174.
Jones SH, Elsdon-Baker F, Catto R, et al. (2020) What science means to me: Understanding personal identification with (evolutionary) science using the sociology of (non)religion. Public Understanding of Science: 0963662520923110. DOI: 10.1177/0963662520923110.
Khattab N (2009) Ethno-religious Background as a Determinant of Educational and Occupational Attainment in Britain. Sociology 43(2): 304–322.
Khattab N and Johnston R (2015) Ethno-religious Identities and Persisting Penalties in the UK Labor Market. The Social Science Journal 52(4): 490–502. DOI: 10.1016/j.soscij.2014.10.007.
Khattab N and Modood T (2015) Both Ethnic and Religious: Explaining Employment Penalties Across 14 Ethno-Religious Groups in the United Kingdom. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 54(3): 501–522. DOI: 10.1111/jssr.12220.
Loke G (2020) Time’s up for the awarding gap. In: Wonkhe. Available at: https://wonkhe.com/blogs/times-up-for-the-awarding-gap/ (accessed 23 October 2020).
Ramadan I (2021) When faith intersects with gender: the challenges and successes in the experiences of Muslim women academics. Gender and Education 0(0). Routledge: 1–16. DOI: 10.1080/09540253.2021.1893664.
Scott-Baumann A, Guest M, Naguib S, et al. (2020) Islam on Campus: Contested Identities and the Cultures of Higher Education in Britain. New York: OUP Oxford.
Storm I, Sobolewska M and Ford R (2017) Is ethnic prejudice declining in Britain? Change in social distance attitudes among ethnic majority and minority Britons. The British Journal of Sociology 68(3): 410–434. DOI: 10.1111/1468-4446.12250.
(January 2022)