1st Edition

Social Cohesion and Social Change in Europe

Edited By Gerard Boucher, Yunas Samad Copyright 2016
    144 Pages
    by Routledge

    144 Pages
    by Routledge

    Social cohesion has had different meanings for people depending on their background, their interests, where they live in the world, and at what time they lived. In the social sciences, social cohesion is a term used to explain the social and cultural consequences of structural changes related to industrialization and modernity. In the European Union, structural changes which relate to globalization, European integration, the restructuring of welfare states, ageing societies, and transitions from communism, have often led to more insecurity and material inequalities between people. Higher rates of immigration, and issues related to the integration of migrants and their descendants, have also led to anxieties about the preservation of national cultures and identities.

    This book argues that perceived crises in social cohesion in Europe have more to do with the consequences of structural change rather than the failure of multiculturalism and immigration. It looks at the relationship between social cohesion and social change in Europe, focusing on the European Union as a whole, and on urban areas such as Paris, France and Bradford, UK. This book was originally published as a special issue of Patterns of Prejudice.

    Introduction: social cohesion and social change in Europe Gerard Boucher and Yunas Samad

    1. European social cohesions Gerard Boucher

    2. Islamophobia, community cohesion and counter-terrorism policies in Britain Yunis Alam and Charles Husband

    3. Cohesion without participation: immigration and migrants’ associations in Italy Claudia Mantovan

    4. Community cohesion without parallel lives in Bradford Yunas Samad

    5. Ethnicity and social cohesion in the post-Soviet Baltic states Nils Muiznieks, Juris Rozenvalds and Ieva Birka

    6. The social geography of ethnic minorities in metropolitan Paris: a challenge to the French model of social cohesion? CĂ©dric Audebert

    Biography

    Gerard Boucher is a Lecturer in the School of Sociology at University College Dublin, Republic of Ireland. He specializes in immigration and immigrant integration.

    Yunas Samad is Professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Bradford, UK. He specialises in religion and nationalism, ethnicity and national identity, multiculturalism, community cohesion, diaspora, and transnationalism.

    "It is of paramount importance to mention the significance of this book, even though its articles were completed in 2013...this book constitutes a useful tool for advanced students and researchers in the field of social sciences including everyone who attempts to explore social cohesion as a spectral phenomenon."
    Christos Orfanidis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Nordic Journal of Migration Research (2016)