The Family as an Institution of Social Control: The Case of Mauritian Muslim Youth

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to develop a theoretical understanding of the family as an institution of social control in the neoliberal era. A grounded theory approach and open-ended, semi-structured, in-depth interviews were used to examinethe family as a form of social control from the perspective of Mauritian young Muslims. Seventeentertiary students were purposively recruited to vary in the field of study, age, gender, residential area, Islamic school of thought, type of family, the attitude of respondents using convenience sampling. Interview transcripts were analysed using the principles of the grounded theory method. The result shows that the contemporary Mauritian Muslim family did exercise to a great extent social control over their offspring. The major implications of the findings of this study is that the concept of the family may help researchers understand the extent to which this institution is acting as a mean of social control in the Mauritian Muslim society in the neoliberal age and assist practitioners in devising new means and methods to revamp the role of the family in society.