Racialization is a concept that is theoretically underdeveloped. Although there has been an increased interest in Islamophobia since 9/11, it is very rarely discussed as racial in its nature. In this special issue on Islamophobia and the Racialization of Muslims scholars connect racism to Islamophobia. This issue situates racialization as a way to explain and understand Islamophobia, as racism towards a Muslim population. Through empirical studies, this issue uncovers the processes of racialization of Muslims and the rise of Islamophobia in both Europe and the USA. Case studies include the experiences of middle-class US Muslims; of white British converts to Islam; of young working-class British-Pakistani men; policing practices in Ireland; and the construction of Muslim identities through online comments about a reality television show. As well as identifying some issues specific to the nation, each case study also reveals the intersection of the racialization process with class and gender experiences.

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Whiteness studies are trans-disciplinary, but here the focus is principally on sociology and social history. Firstly, the major ways in which whiteness in this literature has hitherto been problematised are identified, elucidated and synthesised to provide a sociological take on the multidisciplinary work so far. Five interpretations are identified; whiteness as absence, as content, a set of norms, as resources and a contingent hierarchy. Secondly, some proposals are made regarding the whiteness problematic's degree of pertinence to European settings, with a brief discussion of the Irish case. Finally I argue that whiteness is useful if conceptualised in a way that sets it within the parameters of studies of racism.Keywords; identities, racism, whiteness. This paper firstly reviews some of the burgeoning US literature on whiteness, identifies significant sociological threads running through it and synthesises them.i Secondly, Iargue that whiteness is a relevant paradigm for European social worlds by highlighting how it can be understood, and what use it is as a distinct sub-field within the study of racist phenomena. Whiteness is most effectively conceptualised as both a resource and a contingent hierarchy, and its utility is that it enables collective identities to be examined in a more nuanced way than is allowed for by the hegemonic black/white, or more accurately, white/non-white paradigms. This approach thus interrogates the assumed monolithic status of 'whites', allowing a more fluid picture of situational micro-level power relations to emerge.Whiteness: the story so farOstensibly, whiteness studies follow a time-honoured pattern: originating in the cultural orbit of black America, then being adopted by radical elements within the dominant culture. The corpus can be traced back through Du

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This paper defines and discusses ‘mood boards’– those assemblages of images and, less frequently, objects, which are used to assist analysis, creativity and idea development in design activity. There is need for discussion since little published information currently exists to guide students and tutors. The paper proposes that mood boards can assist problem finding as well as problem solving. Primarily, mood boards provide a mechanism for students and practising designers to respond to perceptions about the brief, the problem as it emerges and the ideas as they develop. The construction of mood boards potentially stimulates the perception and interpretation of more ephemeral phenomena such as colour, texture, form, image and status. They are, like Debono's lateral thinking techniques, partly responses to an inner dialogue and partly provocation to become engaged in such a dialogue. Examples are drawn from recent work in the field of industrial design at Loughborough University.

This article is a critical review of racial and ethnic categories on the U.S. Census with a focus on how the census categories affect opportunities to track racial and ethnic inequality. The authors summarize how motivations behind the census categories changed from a historical basis in controlling people of color and protecting Whiteness toward a contemporary orientation around equity. Yet, many issues remain that confound the racial and ethnic census data, which are then used in research. A look at these issues and possible changes for the upcoming 2020 census serves as a critical reminder of the limitations of the census data. Taking this information into account, the authors conclude with comments and suggestions on the principles underlying racial and ethnic data collection on the census and the implications for tracking inequality.

This article outlines the complex stories through which national belonging is made, and some ways in which class mediates the racialisation process. It is based on fieldwork on the ways in which white UK people in provincial cities construct identities based on positioning vis-à-vis other groups, communities and the nation. I argue that this relational identity work revolves around fixing a moral-ethical location against which the behaviour and culture of Others is measured, and that this has a temporal and spatial specificity. First, attitudinal trends by social class emerge in our work as being to do with emphasis and life experience rather than constituting absolute distinctions in attitudes. Second, in an era supposedly marked by the hegemony of ‘new’ or ‘cultural’ racism, bloodlines and phenotypes are still frequently utilised in race-making discursive work. Third, in provincial urban England, there is a marked ambivalence towards Britishness (as compromised by Others) and an openness to Englishness as a more authentic source of identification.

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