The diversity of the group means each participant has to explore how they define their own faith, as the intersection of religious practise, belief and culture with broader identifications of gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background.

For some participants, this will be a new experience and will be their first moment of experiencing the plurality of modern British society and has the potential to be life changing.

Importantly, the dialogical nature of the programme allows for the young people to learn from each other by bringing real life narrative of faith into the process. I have observed that much of the learning has been peer lead which some may argue is more meaningful than teacher lead interaction.

I believe that the interaction is allowing for a high degree of participant reflexivity as demonstrated by the types of questions being asked. These seek an enriched understanding of faith in terms of structure, practise and personal narratives rather than de-mystification of of ethno-religious habits.

As the research progresses I hope to be able to expand on these themes in order to further understand the impact of the BYL Project on these young people. I am interested in how the experience affects their affiliation with their own faith communities and their understanding of local citizenship membership in late modern plural British society as a result of being part of the programme.