Religion, Gender, and Interculturality: Young Women Constructing and Navigating Difference

ABSTRACT

This paper responds to growing acknowledgement that the role of gender and religion are under-researched in studies of interculturality. Although religion and gender are often invoked as two of the many axes of difference that comprise identities and influence interactions between individuals, they have not received the level of attention that race and ethnicity have in studies of intercultural relations. Questions of gender remain unanswered in discussions of interculturality (Gregoriou, Z., 2013. Traversing New Theoretical Frames for Intercultural Education: Gender, Intersectionality, Performativity. International Education Studies, 6 (3), 179–91, p. 187) and while religion is often explored in the sociologies of education and/or youth, its impact on interculturality is under-theorised. In this paper, I explore the ways that religion influences girls’ take up of particular discourses, how they use these discourses to construct themselves and others, and how this shapes their engagement with interculturality. First, I look at how girls establish their positions on religious diversity. Then, I interrogate how they deploy discourses of gender to constitute themselves and others. Drawing on empirical data from a study of young women and interculturality, the paper suggests that girls from minoritised ethnic/racial and religious backgrounds are more likely to engage with interculturality on matters of religion and gender than girls who hold majoritised positions in Australian society.

KEYWORDS:

• Interculturalism
• Religion
• Gender
• Islam

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council under grant number LP120200319. I would like to thank Claire Charles, Christine Halse, Taghreed Jamal Al Deen and Trevor McCandless for their feedback on drafts of this paper, as well as the two anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Caroline Mahoney is a Research Fellow in the School of Education at Deakin University, Australia. Her research employs a sociology of education/youth perspective alongside theories of interculturality to generate knowledge about how young people engage with issues of difference and diversity in their everyday lives. Both Caroline’s doctoral and post-doctoral research has been undertaken in partnership with cross-institutional teams, schools and industry partners in projects funded by the Australian Research Council.

ORCID

Caroline Mahoney http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1866-8992

Notes

1 ‘German court rules Muslim girl must go to school swimming lessons’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRQe9i67R7M.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council under [Grant Number LP120200319].