Turkish-Dutch Mosque Students Negotiating Identities and Belonging in The Netherlands

For Muslim communities in the West, teaching Islam to children in mosques is an important part of the intergenerational maintenance of young people’s heritage, identity, and communal ties. However, children with a migrant background benefit from fostering identification and feelings of belonging bot...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:  
Bibliographische Detailangaben
VerfasserInnen: Sözeri, Semiha (VerfasserIn) ; Kosar Altinyelken, Hülya (VerfasserIn) ; Volman, Monique (VerfasserIn)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
Verfügbarkeit prüfen: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Lade...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Veröffentlicht: MDPI 2022
In: Religions
Jahr: 2022, Band: 13, Heft: 9
weitere Schlagwörter:B mosque education
B Muslim youth
B Belonging
B Turkish diaspora
B Identity
Online Zugang: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Volltext (kostenfrei)
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:For Muslim communities in the West, teaching Islam to children in mosques is an important part of the intergenerational maintenance of young people’s heritage, identity, and communal ties. However, children with a migrant background benefit from fostering identification and feelings of belonging both to their heritage community and to the majority society. This study seeks to understand the negotiation of sense of belonging and self-identification as Turkish, Dutch, and Muslim, in a sample of mosque students in The Netherlands (N = 29). It is based on interviews conducted with Turkish-Dutch students (ages 6–16) during fieldwork in the mosques between March and December 2017. The study reveals that most respondents identify as Dutch-Turkish and have a stronger sense of belonging to The Netherlands than to Turkey. Nevertheless, there is also a group of mosque students who struggle with growing up between two cultures. Furthermore, the analyses of the mosque student’s perspectives show that they are negotiating a space for the possibility of identifying as Muslim and feeling a sense of belonging to The Netherlands without feeling Dutch. The study concludes by discussing a number of key issues arising from the findings, namely the role of the mosque context, the development of reactive identity, and the meaning attribution by the students.
ISSN:2077-1444
Enthält:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel13090842