Happy new year everyone! I know it's been a long time...I've been meaning to get back on here with my research results which I would not have had without all your generous help, but I got carried away with the desperation of job hunting...With the new year coming I thought I can't possibly put it off any longer!
Just a little reminder of what I have done. Earlier in the year I interviewed 11 young women living in Britain who are or have been Muslim for my dissertation to find out what may be some policy interventions that will help increase the religious and cultural freedom of women from that demographic background, with encouragement of higher education suggested to be one of them by some theorists.
Overall the experiences of the women were quite varied, but a common theme came up that general and, more strongly, higher education have tended to have a cultural broadening effect in terms of exposure to different lifestyles, religions, cultures and values. The largely organic process confirms the shifting and increasing focus on the agency of young Muslim women. So to help them to help themselves, in light of my small and rather unrepresentative research, I found continued support for secular education participation important. My limited research also pointed to the need for breaking broader social isolation including those from socioeconomic disadvantages. But there remained elements of emotional constraints that cannot be resolved from working with young women themselves alone.
As small and unrepresentative the research was, I thought it served the purpose of highlighting some common themes and experiences among young British Muslim women which could be taken up as direction for further research. As far as I could tell, it was a small step towards reconciling research showing the real experiences of women with all the debates on policy options that for the most part are based on the flimsiest of evidence and data.
So that's it! Do ask away if any of you want to know more about anything or have any questions. Thank you so much to all of you again for helping me with the dissertation! It had been fun getting to know you all and I have definitely learned a whole lot. I hope my small and insignificant research will somehow come to some small contribution to helping the cause.
Topic: Research Results