<p> There is continued pressure for girls to formulate a positive identity in a society that privileges specific identity constructions along the lines of race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality and religion. This difficulty, however, may be even greater for a teen girl who also juggles the additional challenges of being Arabic and Muslim. Living in a country where their values, practices and beliefs are not the norm amongst the dominant culture in which they are surrounded contributes to this difficulty. Much research has been done about the Muslim population in general. However, narratives of young Muslim females telling their specific life stories, in relationship to the challenges they may have faced or currently face negotiating their identities in and out of public schools in the post-9/11 era, have not been addressed. In addition, although there have been studies done about Muslims' negotiation of identities, no study has related their negotiations of these identities to life's opportunities. In other words, to what extent do/did Muslim girls need to negotiate multiple identities, which is defined here as to give up and/or alter some cultural and/or religious practices and/or adopt others, in the American public school system and in places of employment in relationship to their perceptions of life's opportunities both while in high school and present day. This study seeks to tell the stories of young, female Muslims, stories about their identity negotiations in public high schools and present day in a post-9/11 world. Only through in-depth examinations of these women's lives can their stories be shared.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:3557138 |
| Date | 27 April 2013 |
| Creators | McCaffrey, Eileen M. |
| Publisher | Lewis University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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