Tahir Abbas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tahir Abbas BSc(Econ), London; MSocSc, Birmingham; PhD, Warwick is Reader in Sociology and the founding Director of Birmingham University’s Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Culture [1]. His teaching and research expertise is in the areas of race equality, ethnicity, multiculturalism and British Muslims. He was previously Senior Research Officer at the Department for Constitutional Affairs (2002-2003), Senior Research Officer at the Home Office (2001-2002), Project Director of Race Equality West Midlands (1999-2001), ESRC Research Fellow at the University of Central England Business School (1998-1999) and PhD Research Assistant at the University of Warwick Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations (1995-1998).

Tahir has published over a hundred journal articles, book chapters, reviews and opinion-editorials in internationally respected publications and scholarly edited collections. He is author of (2004) The Education of British South Asians: Ethnicity, Capital and Class Structure (Palgrave) and editor of (2005) Muslim Britain: Communities under Pressure (Zed), (2007) Islamic Political Radicalism: a European Perspective (Edinburgh) and (2007) Immigration and Race Relations: Sociology and John Rex (I B Tauris, with Frank Reeves).

Tahir regularly writes opinion columns in publications such as Prospect, Times Higher Education Supplement, OpenDemocracy, Q-News, EMEL Magazine, Muslim News, Quantra.de (Germany), IslamOnline (Egypt) and Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland), with many subsequently translated into Arabic, German and French.

Tahir is a regular commentator in the media, providing broadcast or published interviews. He occasionally broadcasts the live political discussion show, ‘Politics Today’ on Raj TV.

Tahir has a BSc(Econ) from Queen Mary, University of London, MSocSc in Economic Development and Policy from the University of Birmingham, and a PhD in Ethnic Relations from the University of Warwick. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Lunar Society. Tahir is also trustee of the South Asian Social Researcher’s Forum and is currently Chair of the Kashmiri and Pakistani Professionals Association, Birmingham.

Tahir was born in Small Heath, Birmingham, in 1970. He currently lives in Moseley, Birmingham, and is married with three children.