Bangladeshi community in Bradford
The first place I have worked in is the northern city of Bradford, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Britain. A major indication of this emerged in a recent survey which showed thirty percent of Bradford children regularly use a language, other than English, at home. The survey revealed that of the sixty-eight languages spoken by the people of Bradford, the most commonly spoken are Punjabi, Gujerati, Bengali, Pushto, Hindi, Italian, Polish and Cantonese.
I have documented the Bangladeshi community which lives in a small area of the city’s Manningham district. This ‘ghetto’ comprising about ten streets and perhaps a few hundred families, alongside the city’s soccer ground, is in the forefront of community organisation. The people there are mobilised around the question of under-achievement of ethnic minorities in education and who controls the way children are taught. Bangladeshi children, most of whom speak Urdu, Punjabi and English and can read, if they are religious, Arabic, are consistent under-achievers at school.