Rejecting Muslim minority practices: Principles and prejudices

Abstract

Muslim minority practices, such as the wearing of a headscarf, the founding of Islamic schools and the building of minarets, are often contested in Western societies, and a large section of the population is unwilling to accept them. In this dissertation, Marija Dangubić examines various reasons behind the rejection of these and similar Muslim minority practices, and in particular whether the rejection is based on prejudicial feelings towards Muslims as a group of people or rather more principled considerations related to liberal democratic values, such as state neutrality, secularism and gender equality. By applying a person-centered approach and using the data collected among majority members from several European countries (and Germany and the Netherlands in particular), she identifies several subgroups of individuals that differ in their attitudes towards Muslims and acceptance or rejection of Muslim minority practices, as well as in what seem to be their main concerns related to these. Some majority members show generalized negativity towards Muslims as a group of people, reject all Muslim practices, and discriminate against Muslims relative to Christians and Jewish, which reflects majority members’ prejudicial feelings. However, other majority members displayed more selective rejection of only some Muslim practices (e.g., the wearing of religious symbols in schools), and did so withouth harboring negative feelings towards Muslims as a group, and without discriminating against Muslims relative to Christians and Jews, which provides strong indication for more principled rejection based on concerns for civil liberties and secularism. Further, for some majority members, rejection of Muslim practices simultaneously reflects prejudical feelings and more principled considerations. In addition to subgroups of majority members who reject Muslim minority practices, some majority members are rather supportive of Muslim minorities and their practices, whereas others take a rather neutral stance. Overall, the dissertation provides a more detailed description of the various ways majority members respond to Muslim minorities and their practices and a more nuanced understanding of the reasons underlying these responses making it possible to better understand complexities of intergroup relations.