Muslim Teens Got Faith: Narratives of spirituality, resistance, and identity among middle and high schoolers

• In Event: Advancing Critical Education of Muslim Students and Scholars: Social Justice Research in Community

Abstract

Objectives or purposes
Muslim youth are seldom asked to reflect upon the expression of their religious commitments during the school day. Beyond narrating instances of bias, discrimination, and bullying faced as Muslims, I found students who asserted religious agency that shaped their epistemologies and social justice commitments. This study contributes to a gap in adolescent studies by addressing how religiously identified Muslim students express their identities across middle and high school settings.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
I used endarkened narrative inquiry (McClish-Boyd & Bhattacharya, 2021) to conceptualize a methodological approach informed by Black feminist thought, intersectionality, and narrative inquiry. This form of narrative inquiry is discursive and legitimizes the voices of Muslim adolescents sharing experiences of identity, equity, and resistance within school contexts.
Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Spirituality is a central component of endarkened narrative inquiry (McClish-Boyd & Bhattacharya, 2021), and provides space for the affirmation of students’ faith practices as their social justice foundation. My work centered an examination of students’ expression of their faith, spiritual, and religious identities in school settings.
Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
Drawing upon my larger project of American Muslim student experiences, this work is a qualitative study of 15 Muslim adolescents, ages 12 – 17 years, who attend(ed) suburban public schools in the Mid-Atlantic region between 2018-2022. Students participated in a single session interview, 45-75 minutes in person or via Zoom. The study seeks to answer: How do Muslim adolescents narrate acts of resistance as social justice embodiments in school?
Results
Our work found that Muslim adolescents construct acts of resistance in schools to advance social justice commitments.

Identity expression as Resistance to Erasure. Muslim adolescents describe using religious artefacts, headscarves, beards ( young men), and modest / cultural clothing to assert their identity. Students demonstrated a positive affect when identifying themselves as “visibly Muslim.” This phrase communicated an awareness that schools function as secular institutions that sought to erase their faith identities; outward expressions of their Muslim identity were regarded as acts of resistance.
Critical pedagogy as Resistance to Curriculum Inaccuracies. Students identified multiple examples of inaccurate or incomplete representations of Muslims and / or Islam in English and Social Studies curriculum. Consistent with the tenets of critical pedagogy, Muslim adolescents interrogated textbook and classroom discourse as reproductions of anti-Muslim bias and provided counter-narratives for educators and peers to learn community-centered depictions of Muslims and / or Islam.
Critical youth allyship as Resistance to Marginalization. Muslim adolescents formed meaningful relationships with students outside of their faith community to advance shared priorities of religious expression in schools and / or engage in religiously-inspired justice work to address social inequities.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
This study presents scholarly evidence of religious agency among Muslim teens as they independently express their faith identity. In contrast with existing assumptions about teens as non-religious or non-spiritual, this study found that Muslim teen discourse comprised religious, youth-derived epistemologies intended to advance equity and resistance in their local school settings.

Author

• Amaarah N. DeCuir, American University