According to a new Pew Research Center survey:
The vast majority of non-Muslim Americans (89%) say they would be willing to accept Muslims as neighbors. The same survey finds that most people (79%) say they would be willing to accept Muslims as members of their family.
In Western Europe, most people also say they would be willing to accept Muslim neighbors. However, Europeans are less likely than Americans to say they would be willing to accept Muslims as family members. While about two-thirds of non-Muslim French people (66%) say they would accept a Muslim in their family, just over half of British (53%), Austrian (54%) and German (55%) adults say this. Italians are the least likely in Europe to say they would be willing to accept a Muslim family member (43%)….
In both the U.S. and Europe, the surveys find higher acceptance of Muslims among those with more education. In the U.S., for example, 86% of adults with a college degree would be willing to accept a Muslim into their family; among Americans without a college degree, this share falls to 75%….
While majorities of Americans and Western Europeans have accepting views toward Muslims, they are more divided on whether to accept Islam in their societies. Europeans in several countries are about as likely to say, “Islam is fundamentally incompatible with [their country’s] culture and values” as they are to take the view that “there is no fundamental contradiction between Islam and [their country’s] culture and values.” This is the case, for example, in Germany – where 44% of Germans see a fundamental contradiction between Islam and German culture and values, compared with 46% who do not see a contradiction. In the UK, public opinion also is divided on this question.
Pew Research Center has not asked this exact question in the U.S. Still, several other survey questions point to a similar ambivalence in American public opinion about the role of Islam in society. For instance, half of American adults say Islam is not part of mainstream American society and a similar share (44%) say there is a natural conflict between Islam and democracy.
