Abstract Due to a decline in the number of domestic students in many New Zealand and other foreign Western countries' universities, there is more recruitment of international students. In New Zealand universities, beside the increase in the number of other foreign international students, the number of Muslim international students and especially Muslim women students has increased in the past few years. This is due to internationalisation of New Zealand education and the economic benefits which international students provide to New Zealand economy. The reason for undertaking this study is because as a Muslim women and a student myself, I wanted to investigate the adjustment problems of the increased number of Muslim women international students at the University of Waikato. This is because, it would provide information to researchers, theoreticians and policy developers regarding adjustment issues that might be specific to Muslim women. Unfortunately, this area is under researched; hence this study could assist in filling the vacuum in this area. The literature so far has discussed the adjustment issues of international students in general and from the literature there seems to be two main dominant areas where international students suffer adjustment problems. These two areas are the academic environment of the university and the socio-cultural environment of the university. The academic environment has many elements to which many international students are believed to face adjustment problems such as adjusting to the 'study shock'. On the other hand, in the socio-cultural environment, students are believed to face adjustment problem to the culture shock. However, there are many flaws in the existing literature which results in its weakness and hence the need for this study. In order to discuss the adjustment issues of Muslim women international students' one has to examine the educational background of these students. It is important to also examine the religious and cultural backgrounds of these students because religious beliefs and practices combined with their cultural background have an impact on their adjustment into the foreign academic and socio-cultural iii environment. Islam strongly encourages the acquisition of education for women. Looking at the history of Muslim women, one can find great scholars who achieved enormously from their right to education. However today there is great tension in the Islamic world regarding women's education which makes this issue very complex. This is due to the different interpretations of the Islamic scholars of the verses of the Quran, and Muslim people cultural and tribal codes. Therefore, many Islamic countries have taken different approaches to the education of their female population that is from very conservative to liberal ones. The qualitative approach used in this chapter helped in understanding the perspectives and world views of the respondents which would have not been possible otherwise. The confidentiality and anonymity of the respondents was catered for before conducting the interviews and pseudo names are used in this study to refer to the respondents of this study. This study is however limited in that the time constrain did not allow me to do a longitudinal study in order to discover the many un answered questions or ambiguous sentences. This study has revealed four major themes which were identified through this research as being specifically important to the adjustment of Muslim women international students. These women did not view their adjustment as a huge shift instead for them it required more of gentle shift in their adjustment. The similarities in the academic environment of the international students and that of New Zealand universities made the adjustment to the academic environment even smoother. There are also other positive adjustments these international students make while in New Zealand universities. They are more independent and are able to communicate in English language which for most international students seems to be main reason for coming to Western universities. There is need for the staff and students to understand the religious and cultural beliefs of these international students so that they can help them in the adjustment process. There is also increased need for the universities and policy developers to provide help and support for the international students. iv There are many issues that seemed to need further exploration which this study has not managed to find out. The research needs to be done to discuss the huge emotional or psychological impact on the international students' due to teachers' and local students' lack of knowledge of their religious and cultural beliefs. The researchers also need to investigate how this change in the personality and thinking of women impacts on them when they go back to their home countries. In theorisation, there is need to theorise the adjustments of students who belong to other religious and cultural groups and how it might impact their adjustment process. For the practitioners, there is need to investigate the role of the staff and institutes to clearly identify to the role of staff in how they could make international students transaction to the university smoother.

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During the last one year, while working on this thesis, I have been asked several times as to how Islam or Islamic fundamentalism makes a communication thesis. The answer is simple: my concern is not Islam as a religion or fundamentalism as a religious or political movement but the way Islam is defined and fundamentalism presented. In the age of communication reality is not just what we see or sense but what we are shown and made to perceive. It would be no exaggeration to suggest that today our dependence on the communication networks is such that even for something that happens in front of us we need interpretations to fully comprehend it. Thus reality without interpretations, in most cases, has come to carry little meaning. Our perception of reality today is not based on our individual experiences only. It is, in fact, the sum total of the reality plus interpretations by the 'public arenas' such as education institutions, mass media, the civil service, parliament, the courts, industry, the research and scientific community, political parties etc. (Cracknell, 1993: 4). This study deals with the interpretations of Islam and Islamic fundamentalism by the Muslim as well as western public arenas. Throughout this thesis I use the word 'Islam' not as a religion but as a symbol of political power and cultural identity. Because, I believe that Islam as a faith is a personal and spiritual matter that for majority of the Muslims, like the believers of any religion, need not be compared with any other religion unless to prove it superior. But as a symbol of political power and cultural identity Islam does need interpretations and has been interpreted in many different ways. What triggered my interest in yet another interpretation was that what I had seen in Pakistan and what I felt the West thought of Muslim societies had no logical connection. For instance, there is a widespread belief in the West that Muslim societies are deeply religious and Islam guides every aspect of the Muslims' life. The reality that I have seen and experienced in Pakistan society, which is ninety-six per cent Muslim, is that few, very few indeed, Muslims may be willing to die or kill for Islam, but will not live according to Islam. The people of Pakistan, in their day-to-day life, are as secular as the people of any other part of the world. They have all human virtues and vices that human beings are capable of anywhere in the world. But still there is no denying the fact that Pakistan, or for that matter any underdeveloped society, is different from the industrialised West. How and why are they different is what I have investigated in this thesis. I have no hesitation in admitting that except for the discrepancy in the reality that I had seen in Pakistan and its perception that I noticed in the West, I had no clear idea about the subject. But I have always believed, as Sartre has said somewhere, that the honourable thing about reading is to let yourself be influenced. I claim to have started this thesis with an open mind, but I do not claim to be an objective writer, unless objectivity is seen as nothing but to be honest to one's self as well as others. All of us live with our subjectivity that is influenced by our individual and collective objective conditions. Most of us are content to live with what we have learnt during our formative phase in life. Some of us are not. I belong to the latter tribe. Through the years I have unlearnt many a thing about religion, culture and human beings that I had learnt from my family, school and society, to accommodate more ideas, opinions and concepts, not less. That process still continues. One thing that I have learnt in life, and which I shall cherish forever, is that human beings must not be frozen in their cultural, religious and social categories; they must not be seen as good and bad without an understanding of their environment.

Based on the analysis of interviews with young Muslim women in South Australia, and the analysis of two daily newspapers, The Australian and The Advertiser, this thesis looks at themes of religious racism, representation, identity, and resistance to racism. This thesis offers critiques of existing terminology used to describe negativity and hostility based on religious affiliation. It also offers strong arguments for the use of new terminology : religious racism. This thesis argues that the lived experiences of young Muslim women in South Australia are fraught with this racism. It argues that claims of a 'secular' society mask the continuing influence of a Christian heritage and assist in the subordination of religious minorities, particularly Muslims. Following similar research in other contexts, this thesis argues that the news media in Australia ( especially newspapers ) plays a significant role in the ( re ) production of religious racism, primarily through the repeated use of negative representations and stereotypes of Muslims. A number of textual strategies are utilised in this process such as the use of negatively loaded words ( eg 'terrorist' or 'fanatics' ), the types of photographs used, and the kinds of stories deemed newsworthy. Numerous examples of such racism are presented in the discourse analysis of representations of Muslims and Islam in the two newspapers. This thesis also addresses the direct impact of such representations on the participants in the study. Although this thesis presents a number of narratives of religious racism as experienced by the women, it does not present these women as passive victims. It argues that in negotiating, dealing with and challenging such racism, these women exhibit personal agency as well as courage and resourcefulness. This thesis acknowledges both the significant impact of religious racism on the women as well as their resistance to it. This thesis utilises literature from the field of race and whiteness studies to critique concepts of hegemonic national identity that marginalise Muslim communities and individuals. It argues that, although Muslims may not figure in hegemonic national identity, they construct they own sense of national belonging that encompasses their identities as Muslims, as women and as Australians. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Social Sciences, 2006.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Stephen H. Rapp, committee chair; Donald M. Reid, committee member. Electronic text (210 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, facsim.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Dec. 20, 2007; title from file title page. Includes bibliographical references (p. 192-210).

<p>I denna studie görs en kritisk diskursanalys av hur slöjan framställs och artikuleras i media. Bilden av slöjan är starkt påverkad av den muslimsk-islamistiska kultur som den är nära förknippad med och därför kan tidigare forskning kring postkolonialism och Orientalism relateras till materialet. Genom den postkoloniala diskursordningen återges en stereotyp skildring av den slöjade kvinnan som traditionell, kuvad och förtryckt. Men slöjan sätts även in i en annan kontext där den fungerar som en protestaktion i ett segregerat och uteslutande västerländskt samhälle.</p>

<p>The aim of this thesis was to examine how Islam and Muslims are represented in the daily newspapers in Luleå, Sweden. How are Muslims and Islam described and which representations appear in the newspapers? How are women represented compared to men?</p><p>I examined texts from the two daily newspapers in the Swedish city Luleå. The method I used was a qualitative discourse analysis. I mainly looked for aware and unaware constructions of Muslims and Islam. I also looked for discursive themes with similar stories, choice of words, stereotypes and so on. I only examined written texts, not pictures.</p><p>The result showed that the newspapers rarely write about Islam and Muslims and when they do, they write about them in a negative way. The newspapers represent Muslims as violent, different and evil. Not even one article describes a Muslim weekday or a nice and sane Muslim. There is also a lack of women in the articles, only one text includes a woman and she is represented as a victim in contrast to the men, who are described as evil and violent.</p>

<p>The number of people with another culture is</p><p>increasing in Sweden. This change in society brings</p><p>consequences in health care that has not any methods</p><p>to manage. The Muslim woman’s meeting with the</p><p>health care is one of those areas. The aim with this</p><p>study was to describe the nurses meeting with female</p><p>Muslim patient. The study carried out as a literature</p><p>study and the results which based on 9 articles</p><p>showed the lack of knowledge about culture and</p><p>religion among health care staff. The authors further</p><p>believed that to achieve an adequate result with</p><p>meeting between staff and patient requires</p><p>knowledge about different culture and religion. The</p><p>study shows furthermore a necessity for nurses</p><p>training individually to create instinct in how their</p><p>own cultural opinion affects the nurse in her/his</p><p>profession. The patients felt like nurses had a</p><p>stereotype to doing their job and got very difficult to</p><p>satisfy patients with the needs. In view of the</p><p>circumstances it notifies proposals to improvement in</p><p>the existing health care through curses and seminars</p><p>about culture and religion but even concrete</p><p>information about Islam and Muslim female patient’s</p><p>needed in an institutional care. Madeleine</p><p>Leininger’s theory of culture care was used as the</p><p>conceptual framework and support for the study.</p>

<p>Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka huruvida tesen att läroböcker i ämnet religion i olika hög grad bär på islamofobiska tendenser stämmer. Frågan som författaren söker att besvara är: hur tar sig islamofobiska tendenser uttryck i läroböcker i ämnet religion på gymnasienivå? Den metod som används är syftesrelaterad textanalys, viket innebär att syftet styr analysen. Den analysmodell som används möjliggör analyserandet av förekomsten av islamofobiska tendenser. Vidare används analysmodellen för kartläggandet av öppna och stängda attityder gentemot islam och muslimer i de undersökta läroböckerna. Öppna attityder diskuterar islam utifrån samma förutsättningar som andra fenomen, medan stängda är fördomsfulla, negativa och stereotypa. Den vetenskapliga förankringen behandlar forskning rörande det mångkulturella samhället, orientalism och postkolonialism, islamofobi, stereotyper och även forskning om läroböcker, dess betydelse och deras framställning av islam och muslimer. Denna forskning påvisar att det i det svenska samhället finns en överdriven rädsla för islam och muslimer. Detta kallas för islamofobi. Grunden till denna rädsla förklaras i den orientalistiska diskursen. Huvudtesen är att kolonialmakter under historien skapat ett vi- och dem- perspektiv, där de andra är västvärldens antagonister. Det är genom att beskriva folk från orienten som barbariska, primitiva och underlägsna, som folket i väst kan förklara sig själva som intelligenta, civiliserade och överlägsna. Den stereotyp som existerar gällande islam och muslimer presenteras i massmedia och läroböcker. Bilden är oftast negativ även om den under senare tid blivit mer positiv än tidigare. Genom analysen av de två läroböckerna kan denna utveckling bekräftas då den äldre av de två böcker var den som bar på islamofobiska tendenser. Den tes som var utgångspunkten i detta arbete var mer svårbesvarad än vad jag trott. Eftersom endast en lärobok bar på stängda attityder kan ingen slutsats dras annat än att läroböcker kan bära på islamofobiska tendenser. Men med tanke på att den yngre läroboken endast bar på öppna attityder står tesen obekräftad. Det som dock måste lyftas fram är att även om det endast är ett fåtal böcker som idag bär på stängda attityder så är det illa nog. Dessa böcker kan av elever ses som bärare av kunskap vilket kan generera i negativa attityder gentemot islam och muslimer. Skolan är en arena där sådana attityder skall och kan motarbetas.</p>

<p>This is a sociological study of religion that examines how gender and female Muslim identity is expressed during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in the swedish paper <em>Dagens Nyheter</em> in the year 1951, 1989 and 2009. The aim is to see who creates the image of Islam and Muslims in general and in particular the image of the Muslim woman and whose Islam is given space in the article material. The picture has changed with the increase in immigration from Muslim countries and that we have gone from a modern to a late modern society in which other patterns shape our identity. The historical summary of the paper Dagens Nyheter illustrates how the Swedish society is formed in relation to Islam and Muslims. It provides a deeper understanding of the problems in the swedish multicultural society today.</p>