Gendered mechanisms of social integration among Muslim youth

• Applicant: Dr. Lars Leszczensky
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 394466172

The original project examined the social integration of Muslim youth. We documented two important gender-specific patterns. First, Muslim girls were less open than Muslim boys to befriend non-Muslim peers. Second, non-Muslim youth were more skeptical about friendships with Muslim boys than with Muslim girls. As explaining these gendered patterns was beyond the scope of the original project, we intend to do so in the proposed follow-up project. Theoretical considerations and first empirical steps of our own suggest that strong endogamy norms among Muslim girls may contribute to their having fewer interreligious friendships. However, our understanding of how endogamy norms affect friendship is very limited. Alternative explanations, such as the possibility that Muslim girls are responding to experienced or perceived rejection because of veiling, are also under-researched. The skepticism of non-Muslim youth about friendships with Muslim boys may be explained by the “anti-social” stereotypes that Muslim men, but not women, face. However, it is unclear whether such stereotypes are also applied to Muslim adolescents and how they affect friendships. In summary, our original project raises the question of gendered mechanisms in the social integration of Muslim youth. The proposed follow-up project will seek to answer two guiding research questions related to these gendered mechanisms: First, why are especially Muslim girls inclined to befriend Muslim rather than non-Muslim peers? Second, why are non-Muslim youth skeptical about friendships with Muslim boys? We intend to investigate both questions using three methodological approaches that proved successful in the original project. First, we will conduct secondary data analysis of friendship network data. In addition to the extended analysis of the data used in the original project, we will use two further secondary data sources, which have significant advantages because they include measures of endogamy norms and veiling, respectively. Second, group discussions among Muslim friendship groups will identify subtle gendered mechanisms. These include both how endogamy norms operate in practical terms in Muslim girls’ social lives and how Muslim boys and girls perceive and experience interactions with non-Muslim peers. Third, an online survey experiment will reveal which characteristics and stereotypes non-Muslim and Muslim youth attribute to each other and how this varies by gender. On the one hand, this will test whether gendered religious stereotypes already exist among youth; on the other hand, it will determine whether and how such stereotypes hamper interreligious friendships.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Cooperation Partner: David Kretschmer