Sectarianism at work: Accounts of employment discrimination against Irish Catholics in Scotland

Walls, Patricia; Williams, Rory

doi:10.1080/0141987032000087343

Cited by 29 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Recent survey work has clearly shown the persistence of reports of anti‐Catholic discrimination in Glasgow (Bruce and Glendinning forthcoming). Other published work from the interviews reported here has revealed current as well as past anti‐Catholic discrimination in employment in accounts of both Catholics and Protestants, particularly found in attempts by Catholics to move up the social scale, allied with an overall belief in a reduction of discrimination over time (Walls and Williams 2003). This other work is relevant here in order to situate what Catholics and Protestants know to be the social relations of work: an employment context in which the assignment of religious categories is easy, natural and commonplace, and anti‐Catholic discrimination a personal experience among a substantial minority.…”

Section: Discrimination Against Irish Catholics In Scotland Past Andmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…An effect of historical immigration to Glasgow is that even today over 80 per cent of Glasgow's Catholics are estimated to be of Irish origin (Williams 1993), and being Catholic equates with Irish origin in everyday consciousness. This is emphasised by the use of a number of markers (including specifically ethnic cues such as Irish names, or Catholic background denoted by names of schools attended) (Walls and Williams 2003). Such marking out of ‘white’ religious groupings does not have the same current resonances within other parts of Scotland, nor in England and Wales, so the Glaswegian situation is notable for its adherence to focusing on white religious/ethnic difference, invariably linked to the peculiarity of the city's history.…”

Section: Discrimination Against Irish Catholics In Scotland Past Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Accounting for Irish Catholic ill health in Scotland: a qualitative exploration of some links between ‘religion’, class and health

Walls

Williams

2004

Sociology Health & Illness

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This paper considers the ways in which accounts from GlasgowCatholics diverge from those of Protestants and explores the reasons why people leave jobs, including health grounds. Accounts reveal experiences distinctive to Catholics, of health-threatening stress, obstacles to career progression within (mainly) private-sector organisations, and interactional difficulties which create particular problems for (mainly) middle class men. This narrows the employment options for upwardly mobile Catholics, who may then resort to self-employment or other similarly stressful options. The paper considers whether the competence of Catholics or Catholic cultural factors are implicated in thwarting social mobility among Catholics or, alternatively, whether institutional sectarianism is involved. We conclude that, of these options, theories of institutional sectarianism provide the hypothesis which currently best fits these data. In Glasgow, people of indigenous Irish descent are recognisable from their names and Catholic background and are identified as Catholic by others. Overt historical exclusion of Catholics from middle class employment options now seems to take unrecognised forms in routine assumptions and practices which restrict Catholic employment opportunities. It is argued that younger Catholics use education to overcome the obstacles to mobility faced by older people and circumvent exclusions by recourse to middle class public-sector employment. This paper aims to link historical, structural and sectarian patterns of employment experience to accounts of health and work, and in so doing to contribute to an explanation for the relatively poor health of Catholic Glaswegians with Irish roots.

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Section: Discrimination Against Irish Catholics In Scotland Past Andmentioning

confidence: 62%

Section: Discrimination Against Irish Catholics In Scotland Past Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accounting for Irish Catholic ill health in Scotland: a qualitative exploration of some links between ‘religion’, class and health

Walls

Williams

2004

Sociology Health & Illness

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“…1 MacMillan's claim that anti-Catholicism is still endemic in Scottish society has been challenged by some academics and defended by others in monographs (Devine 2000; Bruce et al 2004;Rosie 2004) and in academic papers (Walls and Williams 2003;Bruce et al 2005;Walls and Williams 2005). A large proportion of Scottish Catholics, especially in the West of Scotland, have their origins in Irish immigration to Scotland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (Mitchell 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Sectarianism: myth or social reality? Inter-sectarian partnerships in Scotland, evidence from the Scottish Longitudinal Study

Raab¹,

Holligan²

2012

Ethnic and Racial Studies

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This article explores the contested issue of whether sectarianism divides Catholics and Protestants in Scotland. The conclusions are based on an analysis of 111,627 couples from the 2001 Census. The proportions with no religious upbringing and currently belonging to no religion decrease steeply with year of birth for the members of couples. This is largely due to a decline in the Protestant group, while the proportion of Catholics remains fairly stable with year of birth. For the oldest cohort those with a Catholic upbringing are disadvantaged compared to Protestants, in terms of educational qualifications and membership of the professional classes, but this difference has eroded so that there are few differences at the youngest ages. Those with no religious upbringing are disadvantaged on these measures at all ages. Catholics are more likely than Protestants to form couples outside their religious group, and this is not simply a consequence of their minority status, which would restrict the number of available partners. The trend towards secularism could be influenced by inter-sectarian coupling because those in mixed relationships are less likely to practise their religion of upbringing. The high proportion of inter-sectarian marriages may give rise to many Protestants in Scotland having practising Catholics among their extended families, and this should contribute to undermining sectarian divisions.

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“…4 July 2005 pp. 759Á/767 andWilliams 2003), and then to counterpose their analysis of disadvantage and discrimination in three quantitative data sets, in order to claim that 'sectarianism is more a social myth than a social reality'. A report of qualitative data on this question, which up until then had been entirely lacking, would ordinarily have been welcomed by scholars as an important addition to the evidence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religious discrimination in Scotland: A rebuttal of Bruceet al.'s claim that sectarianism is a myth

Walls

Williams²

2005

Ethnic and Racial Studies

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A recent article on sectarianism in Scotland in Ethnic and Racial Studies by Bruce et al . sought to undermine the conclusions of a previous paper of ours, also published in this journal. Bruce et al . contend that sectarianism is a myth, while we have provided new qualitative evidence for personal experience of anti-Catholic discrimination in employment, which clearly contradicts their thesis. To contextualize these papers, we have summarized some of the key points of the evidence, and of the increasing concern about sectarianism in Scotland. In an effort to ridicule this concern, Bruce has attacked us as he has previously attacked a number of others. He and his co-authors accuse us of relying on respondents' fallible judgements about the actual and appropriate proportions of Catholics in workplaces; then they try to interpret some of our respondents' statements and their own quantitative evidence as supporting their myth hypothesis. We document here the process of misrepresentation by which they have sought to support their allegations, and we re-affirm the actual argument which led to our conclusions. We suggest a more obvious alternative interpretation of their own quantitative data, while raising misgivings about their use of 2001 census data. Questions about sectarian discrimination in Glasgow in the period 1950 Á/ 2000 can no longer be baulked.

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Sectarianism at work: Accounts of employment discrimination against Irish Catholics in Scotland

Cited by 29 publications

References 10 publications

Accounting for Irish Catholic ill health in Scotland: a qualitative exploration of some links between ‘religion’, class and health

Accounting for Irish Catholic ill health in Scotland: a qualitative exploration of some links between ‘religion’, class and health

Sectarianism: myth or social reality? Inter-sectarian partnerships in Scotland, evidence from the Scottish Longitudinal Study

Religious discrimination in Scotland: A rebuttal of Bruceet al.'s claim that sectarianism is a myth

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