On January 20, 2025, Thea Abu El-Haj, professor of education, launched a new website, MuslimAmericanYouth.org, that shares the results of her four-year-long research project “Unequal Citizens: Documenting the Civic Lives of American Youth from Muslim Immigrant Communities.” Both the study and website were funded by the Spencer Foundation, an organization founded in 1962 to support education research that transforms lives.
From 2016 to 2020, Abu El-Haj and her colleagues conducted focus groups and in-depth interviews with research participants from 12 states and the District of Columbia to better understand how youth from various Muslim immigrant communities form their perspectives on civic identity and engage in different forms of civic participation. MuslimAmericanYouth.org serves as a hub of these study findings, which show that young Muslim Americans have faced persistent racism, intensified by the 2016 election. Recent world events and the shifting political landscape have significantly shaped their sense of safety, belonging, and political awareness. Ongoing Islamophobia has led many young Muslims to seek a feeling of empowerment through activism. Abu El-Haj and her colleagues challenge educators and policymakers to step up their efforts to foster safer, more inclusive environments that are welcoming to Muslim youth.