Events

Abstract:  Even in diverse contexts that provide opportunities for interreligious friendships, Muslim youth disproportionally have Muslim rather than non-Muslim friends. Echoing broader debates about minorities’ self-segregation versus exclusion by majority group members, a key question is whether such religious friendship segregation arises because of Muslims’ in-group bias or because of non-Muslims’ reluctance to befriend them. Using longitudinal network data, I show that the answer to this question differs between Muslim boys and girls: Segregation among Muslim girls primarily is a consequence of their strong in-group bias, whereas non-Muslims are not reluctant to be friends with Muslim girls. Muslim boys have a much lower in-group bias, but also end up segregated because many non-Muslim youth are less willing to make friends with them than with non-Muslims.

Having established these gender differences, I investigate what is behind Muslim girls’ strong in-group bias. Using network data from large-scale surveys and experimental data from an online survey experiment conducted on Facebook and Instagram, I present converging evidence that Muslim girls’ strong in-group bias results from gendered endogamy norms. These endogamy norms discourage Muslim girls’ – but less so Muslim boys’ – interreligious romantic relationships. However, they also have spillover effects on friendships, thus complicating Muslim girls’ interreligious social relations more generally.

The Sociology Seminar Series for Trinity Term is convened by Richard Breen.  For more information about this or any of the seminars in the series, please contact sociology.secretary@nuffield.ox.ac.uk.