Change, Culture and Tradition: British Muslim pupils talk about Muslim girls' post-16 'choices'

Abstract

This article explores interactions of 'race', gender and ethnicity within British Asian Muslim pupils' constructions of Muslim girls' post-16 choices. Dominant policy discourses have framed educational choices as rational and individualistic, against which, popular public discourses have positioned Muslim girls as having limited 'choices' due to restrictive gendered cultural values and practices. This article problematises both such conceptualisations through a focus upon the constructions of Muslim young men and women. It is argued that Muslim girls' post-16 choices are not simply or homogeneously 'restricted'. Instead, analysis reveals how the theme of 'choice' can be a site of emotion, power, and contestation, because it is intricately bound up with the re/production of identities and inequalities. The focus of the article is not so concerned with 'what choices are made' or 'what resources are drawn upon to make choices'. Rather, it addresses how pupils understand and explain notions of post-16 choice through themes of culture, change, identity and inequality. It is suggested that the young people's negotiations around Muslim girls' choices can be read as part of a process of 'doing' masculine and feminine racialised identities.