Month: June 2022

American Muslims are split between those who attend the mosque at least once a week (45%) and those who attend only for Eid or even less (40%) (Pew Research Center, 2007, 2011, 2017). To explore why some Muslims are engaged in their communities—what I call embeddedness—while others stay away, I conducted life history interviews with 80 adult Muslims in 2016/2017 and 2021/2022. I limited my sample to those born between 1971 and 1985, who grew up in the United States, and resided in NY, NJ or CT. I purchased data from a firm that uses a global name algorithm to identify voters with likely-Muslim names. I randomly selected a subset of this sample and invited them to participate in life history interviews. Life history interviews are designed to capture events over time, gathering as close to longitudinal data as possible. Interviews focused on people’s experiences in their communities and their relationships with Islam across their lives, what I call trajectories of embeddedness.

Table 1. Participant Demographics

Gender	Men – 42% Women – 58%
Highest Degree	High School – 11% College – 26% Post-Graduate – 63%
Marital Status	Never Married – 30% Married – 45% Separated or Divorced – 11% Other – 14%
Race/Ethnicity	Central Asian – 14% Arab – 27% South Asian – 42% Black – 8% Other – 9%

Trajectories of Embeddedness

Four trajectories of embeddedness emerged in my data – Outsiders (9%), Insiders (29%), Departures (31%), and Detours (31%). Often children of mixed marriages, Outsiders’ parents rarely socialized with other Muslims or attended the mosque. These respondents remained peripheral to Muslim communities throughout their lives. In some cases, they did not identify as Muslim while in others they saw being Muslim as a racial and/or political identity (Love, 2017).

In contrast, Insiders (29%) were always embedded in Muslim spaces, from childhood into adolescence, early adulthood and up to the time of the interview. Departures and Detours, who together made up 62% of the sample, were respondents who were embedded with other Muslims in childhood but then disengaged with Muslim communities in adolescence and/or early adulthood. While Departures (31%) continued to build that distance over time, never re-engaging with other Muslims, Detours (31%) were those who returned in later adulthood after a period of drifting away from Muslim communities.

Embedded Childhoods & Compartmentalization

Insiders, departures and detours (91% of my sample) all started their childhoods embedded in Muslim communities, simply because their parents’ social lives revolved around other Muslims—either friends or extended family members. Embedded children usually received formal Islamic education either through weekend schools (62%) or full time Islamic school (10%); others had lessons at home with a tutor or with parents (15%). Since most children attended public schools (90%) where Muslims were a small minority, they usually also developed friendships with non-Muslims. These relationships tended to be compartmentalized. As one woman said, “I had my school friends, and I had my home friends.” Home friends were typically Muslim co-ethnics, whereas school friends were usually not Muslim.

Divergence at Adolescence

For departures and detours (62% of my sample), embeddedness in Muslim communities started to weaken as the balance between “Muslim friends” and “school friends” shifted in high school. Other friendships built around interests such as sports or school clubs took precedence over Muslim friendships. Teenagers stopped attending Sunday school and usually began decreasing their mosque attendance. For those who exited, leaving was not purposeful or ideologically motivated. Instead, respondents described their ties to Muslim communities simply fading away in adolescence.

Unlike departures and detours, insiders were those who stayed embedded during adolescence (29%). The teenagers who stayed embedded were exposed to multi-dimensional mosques which offered a lot more than prayer; they had youth groups, sports clubs, and outings. They gave young people opportunities to hang out with friends, making them—as one participant put it, “the place to be.”

Departures, Detours and the Gender Double Standard

In my study, even though women and men both disengaged from Muslim communities at similar rates during adolescence, their trajectories differed in adulthood, as shown in Table 2. Among departures or detours, only 35% of women return (i.e., detour) compared to 79% of men! Looking at the qualitative evidence, I argue this gender inequality is explained by differences in boys’ and girls’ experiences at home and in Muslim spaces.

Table 2 – Departures and Detours by Gender

	Detour	Departure	Total
Men	14 79%	4 21%	18 100%
Women	11 35%	21 65%	32 100%
Total	25 50%	25 50%	50 100%

When boys strayed, parents and the broader community turned away and gave them privacy—an approach I call “don’t ask, don’t tell.” On the other hand, teenage girls faced intense scrutiny, surveillance, and pressure both at home and at the mosque. Parents monitored their behavior, who they spent time with, and what they wore. Likewise, girls received unwanted comments on their clothing and felt watched in mosques.

This double standard led to conflict with families. Girls on Departure trajectories outwardly fought their parents to establish more autonomy or started building secret double lives. For many, college was a chance to get away. Others pursued job opportunities or graduate school away from home. Since parents usually justified their monitoring and surveillance in Islamic terms and Muslim spaces like the mosque maintained the same double standard, many women came to associate this conflict not just with their families and communities but with Islam itself. As they gained more independence with age, many stopped attending mosque or began disassociating from Muslim institutions.

Men Returning and Women Staying Away

Over time, as second-generation Muslims reached their mid and late twenties, they started to settle down. For men, this often meant trying to return to the Muslim community. Many shed prohibited activities, like non-marital sex and drinking alcohol, and sought Muslim wives that would help them rekindle their religiosity. Men spoke of wanting to build households similar to those in which they grew up. When they returned, men were welcomed back and given the benefit of the doubt.

On the other hand, women faced a hard time re-engaging with other Muslims, even in the many cases when they wanted to. Some attempted to find Muslim partners but were met with unrealistic double standards. Others were already too turned off by their past experiences with Muslim communities to even consider a Muslim spouse. Among my participants, women were much more likely than men to permanently depart from Muslim communities and to marry non-Muslims.

Takeaways

There are several important lessons from these findings. 1) Community matters! Religiosity and engagement went hand in hand. Muslims with strong ties to other Muslims were more likely to have a solid belief in God, to pray, to fast, and to restrict from pork and alcohol. While there were many people in my study who were embedded with other Muslims but not very practicing, over time there were none who maintained religious practice without other Muslims. 2) Gender double standards harm women’s ties to Muslim communities. The more monitoring and surveillance women experienced, the more likely they were to leave and the less likely they were to come back.

References

Love, E. (2017). Islamophobia and Racism in America. New York University Press.

Pew Research Center. (2007). Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream. Pew Research Center. http://www.pewresearch.org/2007/05/22/muslim-americans-middle-class-and-mostly-mainstream/

Pew Research Center. (2011). Muslims in America: No Sign of Growth in Alienation or Support For Extremism. Pew Research Center.

Pew Research Center. (2017, July 26). U.S. Muslims Concerned About Their Place in Society, but Continue to Believe in the American Dream. Religion & Public Life. http://www.pewforum.org/2017/07/26/findings-from-pew-research-centers-2017-survey-of-us-muslims/

Who am I? Where do I belong?

These are the existential questions faced during adolescence by all youth—and become particularly important questions for Muslim American youth as they come of age in a heated sociopolitical environment.

What helps Muslim youth thrive as they try to answer these questions and become the best version of themselves? What promotes their healthy well-being and successful thriving?

These are the questions that have been of interest to me for the past decade. In this blog post, I highlight some of the findings from my team’s work and conclude with some questions for all of us to consider as we help youth thrive. The research summarized here began with my dissertation study in 2013, continued through 2020 with my colleagues, Charissa Cheah and Merve Balkaya-Ince, and The Family & Youth Institute. We are currently collaborating with Baylor University on additional projects.

Although American Muslims are a heterogeneous group with varying backgrounds and experiences, this blog post only focuses on research among immigrant-origin American Muslim youth (i.e., first or second-generation South-Asian and Arabs) aged 14-22 years old. I discuss considerations for other sub-groups of Muslims in the Conclusion. Any use of the phrase “Muslim youth” refers to American Muslim youth (and not all Muslim youth globally).

What does Muslim youth’s well-being and mental health look like?

Muslim youth are experiencing mental health challenges, such as anxiety, mood disorders, eating disorders, adjustment disorders, and suicidal ideation (Basit & Hamid, 2010). However, Muslim youth also thrive and engage in their societies. Learn about some factors impacting their mental health in The FYI’s Muslim Youth Mental Health Fact Sheet (see excerpt below).

What helps Muslim youth thrive and promotes their well-being?

The focus of our work has been to understand factors that promote youth’s well-being and thriving. We specifically focus on identities as they are blossoming during adolescence and the role of parents during this stage. Our various studies on high schoolers and college students consistently find that Muslim youth endorse dual identities, reporting a strong sense of belonging to Muslim and American cultures (Balkaya, Cheah & Tahseen, 2019; Tahseen & Cheah, 2018), which was associated with the highest level of well-being. This means that youth who feel like they belong in their Muslim communities (masjid, friends, social circles) AND in their American communities (school, non-Muslim friends, social circles) have greater well-being.

Religious identity is protective. Interestingly, religious identity is protective for religious minority youth, similar to what others have found. A higher level of Muslim identity was related to less externalizing problems (e.g., smoking, drinking; Balkaya et al., 2019). Experiencing discrimination does not significantly impact youth’s Muslim identity (Balkaya et al., 2019). In fact, a strong religious identity actually empowers youth to be more engaged with their societies, especially in the face of discrimination. For instance, in one of our studies, we found that Muslim youth who identify strongly with their religion in their daily lives are more likely to be civic-minded and engage in civic behaviors, such as volunteering, belonging to or donating money to nonprofit organizations, and expressing their opinions on political issues (Balkaya-Ince, Cheah & Tahseen, 2020). These findings directly contrast all public narratives about how being actively Muslim pulls youth away from being American or contributing to American society. 

American Identity is protective, too. In fact, youth who have a strong sense of religious identity may heighten their American identity to counter any Islam-based discrimination they experience. American identity refers to how youth believe they connect and belong to the mainstream culture in America, such as being with their non-Muslim friends or engaging in “American” extracurricular activities. When youth experience personal discrimination AND believe America to be an Islamophobic culture, we found that they respond by increasing their American identity, which protects them from engaging in risky behaviors. In other words, they express greater pride in being American and endorse American cultural beliefs and activities. Motivated to reduce the unfair treatment of all stigmatized Muslims, they may use their American identity as an empowering strategy and to reaffirm that Muslims do indeed belong to the American tapestry. In sum, this body of work shows that Muslim youth’s identities are complicated and should be treated as such in intervention and prevention programs. 

Supportive Parents. The family is a central component in the lives of Muslims, with a lot of divine as well as prophetic emphasis and guidance on creating a healthy family unit. Based on this, our team focuses on the role of supportive parents in helping youth thrive. The parent-child relationship is critical in helping Muslim youth develop healthy identities and mental health outcomes. Supportive Muslim parents empower their children to have a stronger Muslim identity, engage in civic behaviors, and ultimately have greater well-being (Balkaya et al., 2019). Parents’ religious socialization efforts positively shape their children’s religious identity and religiosity, especially their day-to-day feelings about their religious group. These include talking to children about religion, engaging in religious practices together, encouraging friendships with other Muslim children, and engaging in social activities with Muslims. . Youth who received positive messages about Islam from their mothers had (1) more favorable attitudes about their religious group and (2) stronger beliefs that belonging to the Muslim group was an important part of their self-image on a daily basis (Balkaya-Ince et al., 2020). Parents can also protect youth from the adverse effects of discrimination. In one study, we found that mothers’ supportive conversations strengthened youth’s identities and well-being when they faced discrimination.

Conclusion and Next Steps

Our body of research for the past decade shows that Muslim youth are indeed thriving. Healthy identities with multiple groups serve as protective factors for youth when they experience discrimination. Parents play a crucial role in socializing youth and strengthening their identities.

However, not all Muslim youth are the same. They differ in individual characteristics, cultural backgrounds, generation levels, socioeconomic status, and the different environments within which they reside. We must consider the interaction between these factors to understand their experiences truly. Finally, American Muslim youth comprise many underserved subgroups that require special attention: young women, African American or Black youth, converts, and refugee youth. For much more information on the needs of these subgroups, please see The FYI’s State of Muslim American Youth report.

References

Basit, A., & Hamid, M. (2010). Mental health issues of Muslim Americans. The Journal of IMA, 42(3), 106–110.

Balkaya-Ince, M., Cheah, C. S. L., Kiang, L., & Tahseen, M. (2020). Exploring daily mediating pathways of religious identity in the associations between maternal religious socialization and Muslim American adolescents’ civic engagement. Developmental Psychology, 56(8), 1446–1457. 

Balkaya, M., Cheah, C. S. L., & Tahseen, M. (2019). The role of religious discrimination and Islamophobia in Muslim-American adolescents’ religious and national identities and adjustment. Journal of Social Issues, Special Issue: To Be Both (and More): Immigration and Identity Multiplicity, 75, 538-567. 

Tahseen, M., & Cheah, C. S. L. (2018). Who Am I? The social identities of Muslim-American adolescents. American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 35(1), 31-54.