Identity politics, justice and the schooling of Muslim girls: navigating the tensions between multiculturalism, group rights and feminism

Abstract

This article focuses on the concerns expressed by three female Muslim educators who are support staff at an English comprehensive school. Consistent with the debates associated with multiculturalism, group rights and feminism, the article illuminates spaces of gender constraint and possibility within the discourses shaping these women’s lives and the lives of the Muslim girls they educate. With reference to an initiative at the school designed to support these girls’ greater self-determination – an Islamic discussion group – the article highlights the significance of a justice politics that begins with overcoming relations of status subordination rather than on differentiated group identity.

Keywords:

• Muslim girls and schooling
• identity politics
• gender justice
• minority feminism
• multiculturalism

Notes

1. It is acknowledged that some minority women who advocate for greater status and rights for women do not refer to themselves as feminists, especially as this term is seen as reflecting western views of gender justice.