Resilience and resistance: how young Northwestern European Muslims confront pedagogical Islamophobia

Professor Tahir Abbas; Richard McNeil-Willson

doi:10.1080/13613324.2025.2599091

Resilience and resistance: how young Northwestern European Muslims confront pedagogical Islamophobia

Professor Tahir Abbas^*
, Richard McNeil-Willson

^*Corresponding author for this work

University of Edinburgh

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

This paper examines how Islamophobia operates within educational institutions across the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway. Drawing on 114 interviews, six focus groups, and survey data from 5501 respondents, it develops the concept of ‘pedagogical Islamophobia’ as a systemic form of discrimination produced through everyday educational encounters. The analysis identifies hostility from peers, biased conduct by staff, and the targeting of visible Muslim identity, alongside the influence of securitisation policies that frame Muslim students as suspect. These forms intersect and vary across national settings, shaped by distinct political and institutional environments. Survey results corroborate these accounts and show that Muslims are significantly more likely to report identity-based humiliation within educational settings. The paper also highlights the agency of young Muslims, detailing strategies of resilience and resistance that challenge exclusion and assert identity. The study offers a comparative account of how Islamophobia operates and is negotiated within contemporary European education.

Original language	English
Number of pages	26
Journal	Race Ethnicity and Education
Early online date	5 Dec 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2025.2599091
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 5 Dec 2025

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

Funding

This research was conducted as part of the DRIVE project, which received funding from the European Union’s H2020 Research and Innovation Actions programme under grant agreement No. 959200 (January 2021 – June 2024).

Keywords

Islamophobia
Northwestern Europe
education
resilience
resistance
young muslims

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10.1080/13613324.2025.2599091Licence: CC BY 4.0

Resilience and resistance how young Northwestern European Muslims confront pedagogical Islamophobia
Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Final published version, 969 KBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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title = "Resilience and resistance: how young Northwestern European Muslims confront pedagogical Islamophobia",

abstract = "This paper examines how Islamophobia operates within educational institutions across the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway. Drawing on 114 interviews, six focus groups, and survey data from 5501 respondents, it develops the concept of {\textquoteleft}pedagogical Islamophobia{\textquoteright} as a systemic form of discrimination produced through everyday educational encounters. The analysis identifies hostility from peers, biased conduct by staff, and the targeting of visible Muslim identity, alongside the influence of securitisation policies that frame Muslim students as suspect. These forms intersect and vary across national settings, shaped by distinct political and institutional environments. Survey results corroborate these accounts and show that Muslims are significantly more likely to report identity-based humiliation within educational settings. The paper also highlights the agency of young Muslims, detailing strategies of resilience and resistance that challenge exclusion and assert identity. The study offers a comparative account of how Islamophobia operates and is negotiated within contemporary European education.",

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N2 - This paper examines how Islamophobia operates within educational institutions across the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway. Drawing on 114 interviews, six focus groups, and survey data from 5501 respondents, it develops the concept of ‘pedagogical Islamophobia’ as a systemic form of discrimination produced through everyday educational encounters. The analysis identifies hostility from peers, biased conduct by staff, and the targeting of visible Muslim identity, alongside the influence of securitisation policies that frame Muslim students as suspect. These forms intersect and vary across national settings, shaped by distinct political and institutional environments. Survey results corroborate these accounts and show that Muslims are significantly more likely to report identity-based humiliation within educational settings. The paper also highlights the agency of young Muslims, detailing strategies of resilience and resistance that challenge exclusion and assert identity. The study offers a comparative account of how Islamophobia operates and is negotiated within contemporary European education.

AB - This paper examines how Islamophobia operates within educational institutions across the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway. Drawing on 114 interviews, six focus groups, and survey data from 5501 respondents, it develops the concept of ‘pedagogical Islamophobia’ as a systemic form of discrimination produced through everyday educational encounters. The analysis identifies hostility from peers, biased conduct by staff, and the targeting of visible Muslim identity, alongside the influence of securitisation policies that frame Muslim students as suspect. These forms intersect and vary across national settings, shaped by distinct political and institutional environments. Survey results corroborate these accounts and show that Muslims are significantly more likely to report identity-based humiliation within educational settings. The paper also highlights the agency of young Muslims, detailing strategies of resilience and resistance that challenge exclusion and assert identity. The study offers a comparative account of how Islamophobia operates and is negotiated within contemporary European education.

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KW - resistance

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SN - 1361-3324

JO - Race Ethnicity and Education

JF - Race Ethnicity and Education

ER -

Resilience and resistance: how young Northwestern European Muslims confront pedagogical Islamophobia

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