UP TO a third of white youngsters in East Lancashire hold white supremacist views, a "disturbing" study into faith and race has revealed.

Teenagers in two schools in Blackburn and one in Burnley were questioned as part an investigation into racial and religious tensions in the wake of the 2001 Burnley riots.

Almost 30 per cent of white youngsters questioned believed that one race was superior, while 11 per cent of Asians thought the same.

Almost half of the white pupils felt that respecting others regardless of religion or gender was not important and a quarter did not feel it was important to tolerate people with different views.

The research has been labelled "disturbing" and community leaders have called for schools to do more to fight prejudice.

More than 400 15-year-olds were surveyed about their attitudes towards race, religion and cultural integration by Lancaster University's religious studies department.

The interim report to the Home Office forms part of the Burnley Project, set up to investigate tensions in the town after the riots.

The pupils came from three unnamed non-religious schools, all in deprived areas.

One in Burnley, attended mostly by white pupils, and two schools in Blackburn, where one had mostly Indian or Pakistani pupils and the other was ethnically mixed.

Nearly a third of the white pupils believed one race was superior compared with a tenth in the Asian school and under a fifth in the mixed school.

Report author Dr Andrew Holden said a "disturbing" finding of the survey was the response to the question of racial superiority.

He said: "The greater degree of racial tolerance in an overwhelmingly Asian/Muslim populated school again calls into question the common sense assumption that mixed schools represent the most tolerant environments."

Kitty Ussher, Burnley MP, said: "While we have made some progress we have got a lot of work to do between the communities in Burnley".

Lord Tony Clarke, who chaired the Burnley Task Force investigation into the riots of 2001, said it showed that efforts needed to be re-doubled.

"If it's children at school then one would have to go for the parents.

"Fascists have made such efforts to divide the community it's not surprising that some of it will fall on the ears of vulnerable children."

Hamid Qureshi, chairman of Lancashire Council of Mosques and co-ordinator of Building Bridges, said: "It shows that a lot more work needs to be done."