The pursuit of ‘the good life’: Muslim masculinities and the transition to higher education in Australia

ABSTRACT

Within the social imaginary of Australia’s dominant ‘White’ culture, ethnic minority men, particularly Muslim men, are often depicted as ‘folk devils,’ resistant to the cultural norms of mainstream society. Muslim masculinities have been problematically conflated with notions of radicalisation, terrorism and violent extremism. There has been decidedly less attention to Muslim men’s acclimatisation to the secular mainstream. This article presents a longitudinal case study of two second-generation young Australian-Muslim men who have attended an Islamic secondary school and spent most of their lives within a cloistered Islamic community. We document their experiences and aspirations as they come to be in higher education. The article considers the discursive production of identities of these men during a liminal time in their lives and how they construct their identities in relation to familial and community-based expectations around success and failure.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnic-minority masculinities
• Muslim-Australian identities
• aspirations
• identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 First-in-family is a contested term and does not account for studies of transnational social reproduction. For the purposes of this paper we have defined first-in-family as parents not having university experience in Australia

2 The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) is the primary criterion for entry into most undergraduate-entry university programs in Australia.

3 The Higher School Certificate (HSC) is the credential awarded to secondary school students who successfully complete senior high school level studies in New South Wales, Australia.

4 Interestingly, Osman does not use the term ‘refugee’ or ‘asylum seeker’ when describing his parents immigration experience.

5 TAFE refers to Technical and Further Education. This sector awards Certificate I, II, III, IV, Diploma, Advanced Diploma, Graduate Certificate and Graduate Diploma Qualifications.

6 Coles is a prominent supermarket chain in Australia.

7 Clearly, there are bankers in predominantly Muslim countries who further not only the internal contradictions within families and countries but the complexity of the modern Muslim experience.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Research Council: [Grant Number DE170100510].