Part one Accommodating religions: Multiculturalism’s new fault line

Abstract

This extended commentary engages in debate about the place of religion within multicultural social structures and the perceived risks and benefits of the incorporation of this within state and social policy. If social policy has indeed been extended from ethnicity to include religion, what are the implications of this? Key issues within the debate include the relationship between secular and religious identities and the kind of secularism that should inform the way in which the state is seeking to accommodate religious demands and identities in its engagement with particular communities, particularly ethnic minority communities. The commentary takes as its starting point an article published in 2011 in Critical Social Policy 31(3) by Singh and Cowden on ‘Multiculturalism’s New Fault Lines’ and a response to this by Tariq Modood.