Since 2001 Muslim communities in Britain have largely been governed through the educational policy framing of integration and segregation. This Manichean bio-construct sees mono-cultural ethnic schools as problematic spaces, whilst integrated schools as the liberal ideal. By drawing upon the subaltern studies approach, this study provides a space for Muslim pupils and parents to articulate their own discourses on integrated and segregated schools in Britain. In doing so, it allows Muslim communities a position of power, by giving them agency to construct their own narratives on the policy debate on integration and schooling. This thesis attempts to make sense of Muslim discourses through a theoretic interpretation drawn from Muslim intellectual history. By using Ibn Khaldun’s (d. 1406) sociological theory of ‘asabiyya this study provides a broader theoretical context to the Muslim voice. The empirical and the theoretical perspectives contained in this study attempts to make significant contributions to the study of race, religion and Muslim studies in Britain. Public policy discourses has often seen the concept of integration as a linear cultural process, with minority groups gradually adopting the social mores of the host society. Evidence presented in this study sees integration as an analytical process and not as a fixed cultural template. It shows how the concept of integration can often be used, by political actors, as a tool for anti-Muslim racism. The discourses of Muslim parents and pupils have much in common with each other, especially when rejecting the idea of self-segregation, or highlighting the importance of ‘asabiyya based on religion, but they have little in common with the public policy framing of Muslim communities. Sociological studies have often demonstrated the disjuncture between public policy and lived experience. This study confirms this observation by elucidating the disconnect between political discourse of integration and lived cultural experience of Muslim communities. The discourses of Muslim communities in this study suggest a complex, paradoxical, intersectional reading of integration, which is fundamentally rooted within social constructionism. Most importantly it dismisses the integration and segregation binary, as seen within the educational framing of Muslims, whilst recognising the importance of Muslim group solidarity, or ‘asabiyya in Muslim discourse.

This thesis is a longitudinal ethnographic analysis of the educational experiences of Pakistani Muslim women in a southern English city and the implications of these experiences for their later lives. It is a study of my own community: I the ethnographer/researcher have been a member of this community, and therefore ‘in the field’, for three decades as youth-worker, teacher, headteacher and active community member. This experience has offered me unique access to study British Pakistani Muslim women’s lives as I am known and trusted. Muslim women are a hard to reach group in research terms. I reflect on my own work and community experience across three decades, cross-checking my observations and memories with key informants (former associates, colleagues and pupils). I present data from in-depth interviews with 76 women, most of whom I used to teach; these interviews, conducted using life history method, elicited and clarified their memories of schooling and its consequences in their later life experiences. My research participants, mostly British born, are from rural-origin families in Pakistan whose parents first came to the UK in the 1970s. The result is a rich tapestry of data focusing on education and related family issues such as gender expectations and marriage. This study breaks new ground in giving voice to adult Pakistani Muslim women who have experienced education, marriage and childrearing in families with strong patriarchal practices. I examine the nature of male hegemony and patriarchy as experienced by women from culturally conservative Pakistani families. I reveal some of the nuances of gendered power relations, with wives having to side either with menfolk or daughters, and women themselves trying to negotiate a route through conflicting pressures. I conclude that early marriages interrupt education; that transnational marriages can cause marital instability and divorce; and that family pressure and rigidly upheld traditions can lead to difficulties in women's personal lives. I draw (with some care) on concepts from social justice; Bourdieu’s notion of the reproduction of class attitudes; Anthony Giddens’ structuration model which emphasises personal agency, to explore how blocking young women's education damages their career prospects and family incomes. I argue that the process of struggle for change is complex; that agency is mostly gained through negotiation with families that often exhibit unhelpful culturally conservative attitudes; and that resistance is possible but challenging. I suggest that long-term appropriate iii counselling and mentoring within the UK Pakistani community could provide an essential support for these women.