Muslim Mothers as Guides: Championing and Protecting Their Children’s Literacy Lives in the United States

• In Event: Parent Narratives of Advocacy, Guidance, and Racial Socialization

Abstract

Muslim Mothers in the United States are often and wrongfully storied by the dominant group as voiceless within their homes and communities. This paper serves as a call to action to make space to elevate Muslim Mothers’ voices as they tell their own stories about how they Mother their children in the hostile and Islamophobic context of the United States, specifically how they champion and guide their children’s literacy experiences. This ongoing narrative inquiry project is grounded in WOC feminist theory drawing on the conceptual framework of mothering as an emergent strategy. I offer three broad findings regarding Muslim Mothers’ stories about their mothering in the United States.

Author

• Saba Khan Vlach, University of Iowa