Voices Shaping the
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- Identity Development
5. Qualitative AnalysisThe ‘Voices’ project uses qualitative data drawn from focus groups of young people and mediators, community experts, one‐on‐one interviews with key community professionals, and in‐depth studies with a small number of individual young people. In this section the findings from the qualitative research instruments are analysed. The social ecology approach that was established directed attention to a series of themes where the interaction between individuals, their families, their peer worlds, their wider communities and localities, and the broader society in Australia, and then at a global level, could best be examined. The qualitative data draws on the involvement of young Muslim Australians who may come from a great range of situations and belief systems, but see themselves as part of Australian society. Rather than just detailing once more the challenges confronting young Muslim Australians, the study focused on ways participants suggest to resolve problematic issues already well described in the literature, and provided in the evidence base of the study. The themes, extracted from the preliminary analysis of the data, frame the reporting under the following headings and dynamics: 1. Identity – Individual and peers 2. Social networks of bonding and bridging – Family, community and society 3. Aspiration and inspiration – Individual, family and society 4. Safety, belonging and displacement – Individual, community and society 5. Racism, prejudice and discrimination – Community and Society 6. Media and representation – Community, society and global 7. Sustaining youth programs – Society
Numerous lifespan development theories stress the ‘developmental parameter’ of the evolving, unfinished and ‘becoming’ dimensions of adolescent identity. With this in mind, it is interesting that one of the main issues to be raised in the field work was the idea that in the post 9/11 environment, the emphasis was on defining identity in some fixed form. During the consultations it was noted that Muslim Australians, and young Muslim Australians in particular, have been subjected to questions of divided allegiance: Did they belong to the Australian nation as worthy and loyal Australian citizens or were they part of a separate Ummah (community) of Muslims that is somehow regarded as exclusive? If we understand identity to be formed through interaction with significant others, then the identities of young Muslims will reflect both the positive and negative experiences they encounter. Community mediators refer to the internalization of negative connotations associated with the Muslim ‘tag’, which comes from the impact of Islamophobia and various forms of everyday racism. These incidents were seen as particularly hurtful and damaging for young people. They also refer to the critical role that identity‐affirming experiences have to play in ensuring effective integration, and positive and creative engagement with the wider society. Influences that are ‘close in’ (both emotionally and geographically) play the greatest role in defining identity (Yasmeen 2008). For younger people the school environment is very powerful. As one counsellor noted, schools often build tolerance and inter‐group interaction and friendships, but these can dissolve when young men leave school and find themselves back in the environment of an older and perhaps more prejudiced generation. Or they can be further stretched as additional new ideas enter their awareness. A number of focus group participants talked about their experiences at university. A male participant noted the challenges for students interacting with others outside their own cultural and religious group and how this can impact on their thinking. I think when you’re at university you’re surrounded by an atmosphere that creates dialogue and discussion and reflecting on your ideologies, given within certain topics. So it’s not about you’re in university just to get into a field, it’s a whole kind of approach. It teaches you to think differently and analyse things differently, as opposed to just study and get a job. A female participant spoke about relating to other non‐Muslim youth and tolerance. I’ve got different cultural friends, different backgrounds and stuff. Some of them don’t even believe in God. As a Muslim girl I reckon it’s good to be a group like that because they see you as who you are. Sometimes at uni some of the Muslims just leave the group to go and pray and stuff like that. It’s normal. To them it’s normal because they’ve seen it, which is better than a group that is solely on one group, like one culture or one religion, because they come with perspective from our media. A clinician (Muslim Australian woman) who works with young Muslims running recreational and creative expression activities in her spare time, noted the following about the differences in identity development and the questioning that young men and women encounter at this formative stage of their lives. On face value these differences appear to be similar to other young people from different cultural backgrounds. Young Muslim women go through the crisis of identity a lot sooner than the young Muslim males. A lot of that, I think for me, stems from the fact that they have one identity at home, another identity at school, another identity with their friends and another identity with extended family. Whereas males … they tend to suppress sometimes their emotions – whereas females are a little bit more embracing of them. The consultations revealed that young Muslim Australians express a fluid or hybrid identity, one that may change according to the environment they are in at a particular time, with the religious and national components of their identity apparent. This trend was confirmed in the quantitative research with young Muslim Australians, were the vast majority (over 90%) identified strongly as Australian, often adding ethnic or religious identity qualifiers to the word ‘Australian’. The vast majority also “felt good about living in Australia”. In consultations key stakeholders also spoke about a new Muslim Australian identity emerging. I think identity has become so fluid that young people’s…personal networks and social networks are developing in a very different, in a landscape that is very unfamiliar to many people in the older generation. So there’s this element of mixing and matching different parts of different cultures into your own identity. So I think the whole issue of not feeling part of a tradition or national definition of what an Australian is, and taking and incorporating certain elements of your own ethnicity…. Another stakeholder confirmed this trend, hinting that there is great diversity within Australia’s Muslim communities and that Muslim life is itself being transformed in Australia over time. …What’s emerging is an Australian flavour of Islam through the youth, that they’re picking up lots of different things, bringing that into, I guess, an Islamic community and that’s going to translate into a different flavour of Islam, expression of Islam and the Muslim community that’s unique to Australia, different to everything else in the world. With this emerging Australian Islamic identity, young Muslim Australians were noted as feeling sufficiently confident in their beliefs to take the initiative in explaining Islam to outsiders and defending it against criticism. Other young Muslim Australians, particularly recent migrants, see an Australian identity as contingent on learning English and adopting the Australian way of life. More recent arrivals, young men from Africa, talked about the importance of a religious framework in their life. We all go to the mosque and pray. There’s a lot of good in that. We work together to help the community and go to each other’s houses and have celebrations. I like the fact that we have a group of people that we can really rely on. You know outside of the way in which everyone else makes friend and all that we have a religious duty to make sure that we are all OK. That’s special and makes sense to me. I don’t know how the Aussies make it without religion. and For me Islam is something in my heart that makes me take the right course of action. There are bad things that you could do in your life. Like drugs and all that – stealing you know, that’s really bad. Some people steal cars and drive them about that’s not good you know. I don’t follow that path, and I make decisions that make sense to me. That’s the right thing to do. Directory: sites -> default -> files -> documents -> 01 2014 documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Mobile audio/video recording systems documents -> The south australian government gazette documents -> All public acts appearing in this gazette are to be considered official, and obeyed as such documents -> Union interparlementaire inter-parliamentary union 01 2014 -> Muslim Voices – Hopes and aspirations of Muslim Australians Centre for Muslim Minorities & Islam Policy Studies 01 2014 -> Prepared by: Kais Al‐Momani Nour Dados Marion Maddox Amanda Wise C 01 2014 -> Editors: Kerry Download 1.05 Mb. Share with your friends:
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