‘I think you have ignored the relevant provisions of the 1944 Education Act’: Muslims, the state and education in England c.1966–c.1985

Abstract

ABSTRACT Existing accounts of the history of England’s Muslims generally agree that education was a crucial area of early interaction between Muslims and the state. They also tend to situate Muslim–state interactions in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s in the context of Britain’s developing racial diversity, arguing that the religious identity of Muslims was not acknowledged until the end of the 1980s. State responses to Muslim educational needs prior to the 1980s have been characterised as ad hoc and disorganised, with the possibility of successful relations undermined by the racial and secular focus of multiculturalism. This article challenges this analysis, offering a new chronology and interpretation. It demonstrates that Muslims were interacting with the state in the form of Local Education Authorities from the 1960s and explores the significance of the long history of conservative pluralism in state responses to religious diversity in Britain. It addresses some of the reasons that these interactions tend not to feature in existing accounts and argues the case for further research into interactions between Muslims and the local state in Britain in the late twentieth century to build on the evidence presented.