Profiles of British Muslim identity: adolescent girls in Birmingham

Abstract

By asking students to fill in 10 statements beginning with 'I am...' and a further 10 statements beginning with 'I am not...' we constructed profiles of British Muslim ethnic and national identity. Participants were 108 British Muslim girls of mean age 12.6 years studying in a single sex girls' school in Birmingham, UK. Using content analysis we found that some adolescent girls are rooted only in their personal identity. Others are rooted in their social identity. We found a number of major categories: rooted in ethnic identity only, rooted in ethnic identity but differentiating self from other groups, rooted in bicultural identity, rooted in national identity and confused ethnic and national identity. Significantly a number of participants were concerned to transcend group identities and described themselves as 'not racist' or 'not prejudiced'. A model of ethnic and national identity is presented incorporating rootedness, differentiation, confusion and transcendence.