Toward a Critical Muslim Youth Studies: Conceptual and Empirical Debates and Tensions

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Over the past two decades there has been a growing body of educational scholarship addressing Muslim youth in the Western world, and particularly in the United States. This scholarship has addressed questions of curriculum, race, identity, and discourse. As this nascent body of literature continues to grow, we believe scholars are approaching this work from a variety of perspectives, some of which continue to reify fundamental aspects of anti-Muslim racism operationalized through anti-Blackness, Orientalism, settler colonialism, and racial capitalism. We argue that Muslim youth studies must, at its core, challenge the maintenance of empire and reification of global power relations. This field must be organized around the critique of racial violence globally and domestically.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Critical Educators for Social Justice

Chair

• Arshad Imtiaz Ali, George Washington University

Papers

• Can Critical Race Theory Address Anti-Muslim Racism? - Arshad Imtiaz Ali, George Washington University

• Black Muslim Subjects as a Site of Multiple Oppression: Somali Mothers Contest Colonial Hierarchy in School - Nimo Abdi, The Ohio State University - Columbus

• An Axiomatic Stance of Black Muslim Brilliance: Pedagogies and Possibilities - Samiha Rahman, California State University - Long Beach

• The Imperial Optic as Method - Mariam Durrani, Hamilton College

• Hyper(in)visible Muslim Students and Racial-Religious Decoupling in the University - Saugher Nojan, San Jose State University

Discussants

• Thea R. Abu El-Haj, Barnard College

• Muhammad Khalifa, The Ohio State University - Columbus