Thomas, P. (2011). Youth, multiculturalism and community cohesion. New York, Palgrave Macmillan.
Youth, Multiculturalism and Community Cohesion offers a controversial academic evaluation of 'community cohesion' policies in the UK as potentially positive rather than negative. The starting point for the book is the 2001 riots in the towns and cities of Oldham, Burnley and Bradford in the north of England, where there were violent clashes between Asian young men, white young men and the police. The author examines the post-2001 shift towards 'community cohesion' as a core UK policy, analyses debates about its contested meanings, understandings and implications, and draws international comparisons between multicultural policies in the UK, France and the Netherlands. The author argues that while there have been many critics of community cohesion, there has been almost no empirical qualitative reach of how community cohesion policy is understood and practiced by people in practice. The book seeks to fill this gap through presenting an in-depth empirical study based on grounded action research (involving participant observation and qualitative interviews) with young people in Oldham of how community cohesion has been understood and operationalised 'on the ground'.