High costs of leaving Islam


LIFE AS AN ISLAMIC apostate or ‘ex-Muslim’ in the west is deeply problematic, according to a qualitative study of 35 ex-Muslims from the UK and Canada. Although apostasy from Islam is not a fundamental human rights problem in western secular societies – as it is in Muslim-majority countries – it is problematic for ex-Muslims themselves because of the stigma attached to it in Muslim communities and the many challenges involved in leaving Islam. One of the greatest challenges ex-Muslims face centres on the disclosure of apostasy to their families, friends and community members. Just over half of those interviewed had disclosed their apostasy to their family, with the rest living in the ‘closet’ as secret apostates. Those who did disclose their apostasy encountered negative reactions, including condemnation, shock, hurt, rejection, banishment and denial. The most commonly cited reason for remaining closeted was to avoid hurting parents by failing to meet their expectations and all desperately wanted to maintain good relationships with their families. Those who concealed their apostasy reported significant costs to their mental wellbeing. “Islamic apostasy in the west is perhaps best understood not as a legal or political problem, but as a moral issue within Muslim families and communities,” says researcher Dr Simon Cottee. “It is a battle less for rights than for respect and emotional caring.” n The Apostates: When Muslims Leave


Islam. Simon Cottee (forthcoming 2014) Hurst & Co (UK) and Oxford University Press (USA)


i


Contact Dr Simon Cottee, University of Kent Email s.cottee@kent.ac.uk Telephone 01227 824277 ESRC Grant Number RES-000-22-4308


Designing for those with learning difficulties


RESEARCH CONDUCTED AT University College London into optimal webpage design may give those with Learning Disabilities (LD) better access to information on the internet. “While government policy emphasises the need for social inclusion, informed choice and active involvement in society of people with LD, these aspirations can only be achieved by the provision of accessible and relevant information – now increasingly in electronic form,” says researcher Peter Williams. But relevant information on the internet – such as ‘easy-read’ information about aspects of independent living – is often inaccessible to people with LD because of poor website design and consequent difficulties in navigating the web. To tackle this problem, Williams


worked with over 100 people with LD to find which combination of web page attributes helped them find information most easily. Findings show this group of people has only ‘serial access’ to information. In a computing context this term signifies data being read from the storage medium from the beginning forward, until the required item is reached, as with magnetic tape. Applied by Williams to this study, the term refers to the action of reading sequentially, word-for-word, and being unable to skim for information or view pages globally. “This way of viewing pages has several important and


8 SOCIETY NOW SPRING 2014


unexpected consequences for webpage design which contradict accepted guidelines,” he says.


One surprising finding was that,


counter-intuitively, images do not themselves aid speed of access to information. This is because they are ignored until reached ‘serially’ and hence do not help signpost text. Second, for non-visually impaired people, small text-sized content was read quicker than a larger size, as the latter took up more lines. Considering the ‘serial access’ behaviour, the extra eye movements necessitated by not skimming or omitting text made a difference. Third, in terms of menu or


contents lists, evidence suggests that a horizontal arrangement is easier to negotiate than a vertical one because reading horizontally appears to be easier for people with low levels of literacy and fits with the practice of accessing information serially. “This study shows that the


construction and display of electronically-hosted information is complex, and that intuitive approaches – used in many guidelines – may not necessarily provide the optimal presentation of information,” Peter Williams concludes. n


i Contact Peter Williams, University


College London Email peter.williams@ucl.ac.uk ESRC Grant Number ES/J004286/1


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32