ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the central research question unifying this volume: the attitudes of ordinary citizens toward Muslims and Islam reflected in surveys. It examines the situation in contemporary Britain through ‘meta-analysis’ of 64 opinion polls conducted in 2007–10, mostly among representative samples of adults. Such a large pool of quantitative data provides a robust evidence base for summarizing what is known about Islamophobia, avoiding over-reliance upon any individual enquiry. Full details of these surveys appear in the appendix, and textual references to them are solely by study number. Nearly all these polls were multi-purpose (omnibus), often commissioned by several – rarely academic – clients, and contained only a handful of Muslim-related questions. Most were ad hoc – including some that were event-driven – with limited time-series potential.
