M(SD)
Note: Percentages may not sum to 100 due to rounding.
When asked to report religious affiliation students largely reported “No Religion” (45.4 %; 95 % CI 33.2, 58.3) followed by Christianity (35.3 %; 95 % CI 28.7, 42.5), 6.2 % (95 % CI 1.4, 22.4) Buddhist, 4.9 % (95 % CI 2.9, 8.1) Muslim, 2.4 % (95 % CI 1.0, 5.6) Hindu and 1.7 % (95 % CI 1.0, 2.8) “Other.” Approximately 17 % of students (95 % CI 13.2, 21.0) were born overseas. It is noteworthy to highlight that a large proportion of students from non-Christian religious groups were foreign-born. Specifically, 46 % (95 % CI 26.4, 66.3) of Muslim, 24.5 % (95 % CI 12.3, 42.8) of Buddhist, 47 % (95 % CI 34.1, 60.3) of Hindu and 55.9 % (95 % CI 29.9, 70.9) of students identifying with an “Other” religion were born outside of Australia.
Overall, over a quarter (26.7 %; 95 % CI 22.8, 31.1) of students reported experiences of direct total religious discrimination, including direct experiences from peers (21.3 % 95 % CI 18.0, 25.2), school (10.5 %; 95 % CI 7.3, 3.7) and societal (16.3 % 95 % CI 14.2, 19.4) sources. Across all sources of religious discrimination, far greater proportions of students who identified as Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or Other, reported religious discrimination experiences than those students who identified with the dominant “No Religion” group (see Table 1 ).
There was strong evidence that experiences of religious discrimination across all four sources was related to socioemotional adjustment, after adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics ( Table 2 ). In other words, each increase in frequency of total direct religious discrimination was associated with an increase of 3.7 (95 % CI 2.8, 4.5) in total difficulty scores. This effect was also detected when examining emotional symptoms, such that each increase in frequency of reporting experiencing total direct religious discrimination was associated with an increase of 0.9 in the score measuring (adverse) emotional symptoms (b = 0.9, 95 % CI 0.6, 1.2), and also with an increase in the score measuring conduct problems (b = 1.0, 95 % CI 0.6, 1.4). However, an increase in reporting religious discriminatory experience was associated with a decrease of 0.3 (95 % CI -0.5, −0.1) in the score assessing prosocial behavior.
Estimates from linear regression models showing associations between self-reported religious discrimination and socioemotional adjustment in the Speak Out Against Racism (SOAR) Study (N = 4480).
Total difficulties | Emotional symptoms | Conduct problems | Prosocial behavior | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Religious Discrimination | Unadjusted b (95 % CI) | Adjusted b (95 % CI) | Unadjusted b (95 % CI) | Adjusted b (95 % CI) | Unadjusted b (95 % CI) | Adjusted b (95 % CI) | Unadjusted b (95 % CI) | Adjusted b (95 % CI) |
Peer | 3.1 (2.6, 3.5) | 3.1 (2.5, 3.7) | 0.7 (0.5, 0.9) | 0.7 (0.5, 1.0) | 0.9 (0.6, 1.1) | 0.8 (0.5, 1.0) | −0.2 (−0.3, −0.1) | −0.2 (−0.3, −0.1) |
School | 3.0 (2.3, 3.7) | 2.8 (1.9, 3.7) | 0.6 (0.3, 0.8) | 0.6 (0.3, 0.9) | 1.0 (0.6, 1.4) | 0.9 (0.5, 1.2) | −0.4 (−0.6, −0.1) | −0.3 (−0.7, −0.0) |
Societal | 3.4 (2.8, 3.9) | 3.2 (2.6, 3.9) | 0.8 (0.6, 1.1) | 0.9 (0.6, 1.1) | 1.0 (0.6, 1.3) | 0.9 (0.5, 1.2) | −0.3 (−0.5, −0.1) | −0.2 (−0.5, −0.0) |
Total direct | 3.8 (3.1, 4.4) | 3.7 (2.8, 4.5) | 0.8 (0.6, 1.1) | 0.9 (0.6, 1.2) | 1.1 (0.7, 1.5) | 1.0 (0.6, 1.4) | −0.3 (−0.5, −0.1) | −0.3 (−0.5, −0.1) |
# Adjusted for ethnicity, gender, religion, school year, country of birth, ICSEA.
Strong evidence was also found for an effect of direct religious discrimination across almost all sleep outcomes. An increase in the frequency of reporting experiencing religious discrimination, across all four sources of discrimination, was associated with shorter sleep duration on school days ( Table 3 ). For example, after adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics, each 1-point increase in total direct religious discrimination was associated with approximately 20 (b = 19.8, 95 % CI -36.0, −3.6) fewer minutes of sleep on a school day. However, there were no associations between any of the measures of religious discrimination on sleep duration on non-school days ( Table 3 ). Similarly, after adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics, each 1-point increase in total direct religious discrimination was associated with 1.7 times the risk of (95 % CI 1.3, 2.2) sleep latency greater than 60 min in comparison to sleep latency spanning 0–30 min ( Table 4 ). Lastly, after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, a 1-point increase in total direct experiences of religious discrimination was associated with 2.4 the risk (95 % CI 1.3, 4.4) of reporting sleep disruption most or all of the time in comparison to none of the time or a little of the time ( Table 4 ).
Estimates from linear regression models showing associations between self-reported religious discrimination and sleep duration in the Speak Out Against Racism (SOAR) Study (N = 3997).
Sleep duration (minutes) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
School day | Non-school day | |||
Unadjusted b (95 % CI) | Adjusted b (95 % CI) | Unadjusted b (95 % CI) | Adjusted b (95 % CI) | |
Peer | −15.1 (−25.8, −4.4) | (−27.4, −2.8) | −4.3 (−12.3, 3.7) | −2.0 (−11.9, 7.8) |
School | −16.5 (−30.8, −2.1) | (−27.1, −0.7) | −4.1 (−10.7, 2.5) | 0.6 (−6.2, 7.4) |
Societal | −20.2 (−35.1, −5.3) | − (−34.2, −3.7) | −2.7 (−12.4, 6.8) | −0.0 (−11.5, 11.5) |
Total direct | −20.8 (−36.0, −5.6) | (−36.0, −3.6) | −3.2 (−12.4, 5.8) | 0.3 (−10.9, 11.5) |
Multinomial logistic regression showing associations between self-reported religious discrimination and sleep difficulties in the Speak Out Against Racism (SOAR) Study (N = 4118).
Sleep latency | Sleep disruption | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
>30–60 min vs 0–30 min | >60 min vs 0–30 min | Some/A good bit vs None/A little | Most/All of the time vs None/A little | |||||
Unadjusted RR (95 % CI) | Adjusted RR (95 % CI) | Unadjusted RR (95 % CI) | Adjusted RR (95 % CI) | Unadjusted RR (95 % CI) | Adjusted RR (95 % CI) | Unadjusted RR (95 % CI) | Adjusted RR (95 % CI) | |
Peer | 1.1 (0.9, 1.2) | (1.0, 1.3) | 1.4 (1.2, 1.7) | (1.3, 1.9) | 1.5 (1.1, 2.0) | (1.1, 2.5) | 1.7 (1.4, 2.1) | (1.3, 2.6) |
School | 1.0 (0.8, 1.3) | 1.1 (0.9, 1.4) | 1.4 (1.0, 2.0) | (1.1, 2.0) | 1.4 (0.9, 2.1) | 1.5 (0.9, 2.5) | 1.9 (1.2, 2.9) | (1.1, 3.5) |
Society | 1.0 (0.8, 1.3) | (0.9, 1.4) | 1.6 (1.2, 1.9) | (1.3, 2.1) | 1.7 (1.1, 2.5) | (1.1, 3.0) | 2.3 (1.4, 3.6) | (1.3, 4.0) |
Total direct | 1.0 (0.9, 1.2) | (1.0, 1.4) | 1.6 (1.3, 2.0) | (1.3, 2.2) | 1.8 (1.2, 2.7) | (1.1, 3.4) | 2.3 (1.5, 3.5) | (1.3, 4.4) |
# Adjusted for ethnicity, gender, religion, country of birth and ICSEA.
The goal of this study was to build on the understudied relationship between religious discrimination and indicators of adolescent health and wellbeing including social emotional adjustment and sleep behaviors. Within the study's sample, over one-quarter (27 %) of students reported experiencing total religious discrimination. Students from minoritized religious groups (e.g. Islam, Buddhism) reported higher levels of discrimination across all sources than their peers who identified as either “no religion” or Christian.
The results suggest that religious discrimination had a deleterious impact on the health and wellbeing of adolescents, irrespective of whether it was from peers, elsewhere in the school, or from wider societal interactions. An increase in experiences of religious discrimination (across all four sources) was associated with an increase in total difficulties, emotional symptoms, and conduct problems but negatively associated with prosocial behavior. Our findings are consistent with, but also add to, the existing body of literature on the adverse impact of racial discrimination on indicators of social-emotional wellbeing outcomes among adolescents ( Cogburn et al., 2011 ; Priest et al., 2020 ). For example, in a recent study of adolescents in the U.S., religious discrimination had a negative impact on the psychological and mental health of adolescents identifying with a marginalized religious and racial and ethnic minority group ( Balkaya et al., 2019 ).
To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationship between religious discrimination and sleep behavior among adolescents. Experiences of religious discrimination were associated with fewer minutes of sleep on school days only. In addition, an increase in reported experiences of religious discrimination was associated with higher risk of sleep latency as well as higher risk of frequent sleep disruptions. Our findings align with several studies documenting negative associations between racial discrimination and sleep quality ( Majeno et al., 2018 ; Zeiders, 2017 ). For example, among a sample of ethnically diverse adolescents experiences of discrimination, whether attributed to ethnicity or other characteristics, was found to be negatively associated with perceived sleep quality, particularly sleep disturbances ( Majeno et al., 2018 ). Thus, other forms of discrimination, not just discrimination attributed to one's ethnicity, are detrimental to sleep quality.
There is growing interest in examining how the school social environment can have implications for students' wellbeing and health ( Carta et al., 2015 ; Eccles & Roeser, 2012 ; Powell et al., 2018 ). And in the current study, an interesting relationship emerged between religious discrimination and fewer minutes slept held true on school days, but not on non-school days. A prior study among Mexican-origin young adults in the United States described that fluctuations in sleep may be impacted by experiences of discrimination across different settings (e.g. school, community) that can activate feelings of threat or arousal thereby impeding sleep on some nights and cause need for catch up sleep on other nights ( Zeiders, 2017 ). Moreover, the author hypothesized that perceived discrimination experienced at school elicits “rumination processes and or vigilance against threat” which can disrupt sleep patterns and quality ( Zeiders, 2017 ). Thus, a school setting that is hostile, or discriminatory, to students from certain religious backgrounds could be one contributing factor to the patterns in our sample such that the students who experience more religious discrimination at school have poorer sleep quality on school days than on non-school days. Moreover, it could be that the non-school days provide these students with more time in other contexts (e.g. home or community) in which their religious identities are affirmed and/or not threatened which then can promote optimal sleep practices. This aligns with a recent study in the U.S. ( Montoro et al., 2021 ) that found a negative impact of experiences of racial discrimination at school on student's sense of belonging and their academic performance. Thus, the current study adds to the growing body of literature emphasizing the critical role the school environment can be for increasing exposure to risk factors, such as discrimination, that have implications for childrens' development and health ( Eccles & Roeser, 2012 ; Huang et al., 2013 ) considering the large proportion of time youth spend at school ( Carta et al., 2015 ; Powell et al., 2018 ). Specifically, the findings provide evidence on how religious discrimination within the school context is associated with shorter sleep duration, an understudied outcome among child health disparities research.
Overall, our findings support the growing evidence that stressors within the social environment, including religious discrimination, impact adolescent health and development and that ongoing research is needed that takes a holistic approach, examining multiple outcomes, towards investigating these relationships. The results, together with the global rise in religion-based hate crimes, underscore the need for more research conceptualizing and addressing religious discrimination as a form of stress that poses risks to population health and health disparities, and especially so among religious minorities in Western contexts. For example, a study among British Muslim school students argued that racism experienced by Muslim students often included accounts of religious discrimination, something which is not often considered in discussions and scholarship about racism ( Gilbert, 2004 ) and health. Additionally, future research is needed to help delineate the pathways in the observed association between discriminatory experiences within the school context and sleep behavior. Future research can also guide the development of anti-discriminatory programs and policies within the school setting that create learning environments that are supportive and inclusive to students of all religious and racial/ethnic backgrounds.
There are limitations to the study that should be considered when interpreting findings. First, the data are all based on students’ self-report and are therefore subject to biases including social desirability and recall. More objective measures of sleep and social emotional adjustment would have bolstered the data as would have student-level data measuring their socioeconomic background. Also, there are additional, unmeasured, factors that this study did not include (e.g. religiosity) that could influence the main relationship of interest. Third, the study is cross-sectional and therefore is limited in testing potential pathways between discrimination, sleep and social-emotional outcomes and determining the directionality of relationships.
Albeit understudied, religious discrimination is a highly prevalent form of everyday social disadvantage that has implications for health and should be more strongly considered in population health research. This study is one of the first to document a relationship between religious discrimination and two indicators of health and wellbeing among adolescents: social emotional adjustment and sleep. The results clearly signify the urgent need for more research, policies and programs to curtail the impact religious based discrimination can have on adolescent health and development.
Sharif led the conceptualization, supervision and writing of the manuscript. Priest led the formal analyses. All authors contributed to the writing, review and editing of the manuscript.
None of the authors have any conflicts of interest to disclose. All authors were involved in the various stages of manuscript preparation and they have all approved the submitted manuscript.
Speak out Against Racism (SOAR) was conducted in partnership with the New South Wales and Victorian education departments and the Australian Human Rights commission. The study sponsors had no role in study design; the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; the writing of the report; or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. The authors would like to thank all schools and students participating in SOAR. We thank Tania King for her work during the early stages of SOAR and research staff (Rebecca Moorhead, Sharon Moorhead, Brandi Fox, Meiliasari Meiliasari and Emma Whatman (Victoria); and Oishee Alam, Alexia Derbas, Katie Blair, Rosalie Atie and Zarlasht Sarwari (New South Wales)) who were involved in data collection. We acknowledge the support of the Social Research Centre with data collection.
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Religious discrimination against minorities: theories and findings, 1. introduction, 2. religion and discrimination, 3. a systemist approach to an analysis of religious discrimination, 4. conclusions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.
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Akbaba, Y. Religious Discrimination against Minorities: Theories and Findings. Soc. Sci. 2023 , 12 , 522. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12090522
Akbaba Y. Religious Discrimination against Minorities: Theories and Findings. Social Sciences . 2023; 12(9):522. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12090522
Akbaba, Yasemin. 2023. "Religious Discrimination against Minorities: Theories and Findings" Social Sciences 12, no. 9: 522. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12090522
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Over the last decade, religious discrimination claims have risen more rapidly compared to most other protected categories under the Civil Rights Act (CRA). The goal of this review paper is to summarize the psychological and HR practitioner-focused research on religious discrimination as it relates to the CRA to understand these religious discrimination claims. In doing so, this review also highlights what future research is needed, and what the challenges and practical implications of religious discrimination are for managers.
We conduct a systematic literature review of the psychology and business research on religious discrimination.
Building from the literature review and case law, we highlight four trends that contribute to religious discrimination in the workplace: (1) legal ambiguities, (2) increased religious diversity in the American workforce, (3) increasing expression of religious beliefs, and (4) the unique nature of religion.
The trends identified in our review paper highlight the need for employers to understand and address religious discrimination issues in the workplace and the lack of empirical research in this area points to a critical gap in our understanding of workplace religious discrimination that warrants future research.
In addition to highlighting trends that contribute to religious discrimination in the workplace, this literature review addresses where there are gaps in the existing research that call for further research and offers practical implications for employers and organizations.
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Sonia Ghumman
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Ann Marie Ryan
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Ghumman, S., Ryan, A.M., Barclay, L.A. et al. Religious Discrimination in the Workplace: A Review and Examination of Current and Future Trends. J Bus Psychol 28 , 439–454 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-013-9290-0
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U of Melbourne Legal Studies Research Paper No. 894
20 Pages Posted: 17 Jun 2020 Last revised: 31 Jul 2020
London School of Economics - Law School
University of Auckland - Faculty of Law
Date Written: October 28, 2018
This article argues that while they are often conflated, the right to freedom of religion and the right against religious discrimination are in fact distinct human rights. Religious freedom is best understood as protecting our interest in religious adherence (and non-adherence), understood from the committed perspective of the (non)adherent. This internal, committed, perspective generates a capacious and realistic conception of religious adherence, which reflects the staggering plurality of forms of religiosity (or lack thereof) as extant in contemporary societies. The right against religious discrimination is best understood as protecting our non-committal interest in the unsaddled membership of our religious group. Thus understood, the two rights have distinct normative rationales. Religious freedom is justified by the need to respect our decisional autonomy in matters of religious adherence. The prohibition on religious discrimination is justified by the need to reduce any significant (political, sociocultural, or material) advantage gaps between different religious groups. These differences reveal a complex map of two overlapping, but conceptually distinct, human rights which are not necessarily breached simultaneously.
Keywords: religious freedom, discrimination law, human rights law, religious interests, religious adherence, religious group membership
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Elina Schleutker, Discrimination Against Religious Minorities, Journal of Church and State , Volume 61, Issue 2, Spring 2019, Pages 282–307, https://doi.org/10.1093/jcs/csy031
Minority religions have often suffered from discrimination and persecution. Such discrimination has taken place across different geographical locations, independently from the creed of the minority and majority religions. The guilty party may be the government, paramilitary groups, or even the society at large. To name some examples, a word as strong as genocide has been employed to describe the atrocities by ISIS against Yazidis, Shias, Christians, and other religious minorities. 1 Of the 45 European countries in 2015, social hostilities towards Muslims, Christians, and Jews took place in 32, 21, and 33 countries respectively. 2 In Myanmar, the Muslim Rohingya has been persecuted for decades. For example, their citizenship is denied, their freedom of movement has been restricted, and also prior to the 2016 and 2017 atrocities, military operations and sectarian violence have forced thousands to flee. 3
Several interest groups, such as Open Doors, 4 Shia Rights Watch, 5 and the International Humanist and Ethical Union 6 have documented this discrimination and aimed to bring it into the political arena. Yet, in academia there are only a handful of quantitative studies that investigate the determinants of discrimination 7 and religious persecution. 8 These studies have a global focus and they point out factors such as the level of democracy, supportive policies towards the majority religion, social regulation of religion, experiences with communist rule, as well as the independence of judiciaries as determinants of the cross-country variation in minority religion discrimination. In other words, the scope of the studies and the selection of the independent variables closely follow the research design of the studies on government regulation of religion. 9
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1. religious freedom, discrimination and communal relations, table of contents.
Indians generally see high levels of religious freedom in their country. Overwhelming majorities of people in each major religious group, as well as in the overall public, say they are “very free” to practice their religion. Smaller shares, though still majorities within each religious community, say people of other religions also are very free to practice their religion. Relatively few Indians – including members of religious minority communities – perceive religious discrimination as widespread.
At the same time, perceptions of discrimination vary a great deal by region. For example, Muslims in the Central region of the country are generally less likely than Muslims elsewhere to say there is a lot of religious discrimination in India. And Muslims in the North and Northeast are much more likely than Muslims in other regions to report that they, personally, have experienced recent discrimination.
Indians also widely consider communal violence to be an issue of national concern (along with other problems, such as unemployment and corruption). Most people across different religious backgrounds, education levels and age groups say communal violence is a very big problem in India.
The partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 remains a subject of disagreement. Overall, the survey finds mixed views on whether the establishment of Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan alleviated communal tensions or stoked them. On balance, Muslims tend to see Partition as a “bad thing” for Hindu-Muslim relations, while Hindus lean slightly toward viewing it as a “good thing.”
The vast majority of Indians say they are very free today to practice their religion (91%), and all of India’s major religious groups share this sentiment: Roughly nine-in-ten Buddhists (93%), Hindus (91%), Muslims (89%) and Christians (89%) say they are very free to practice their religion, as do 85% of Jains and 82% of Sikhs.
Broadly speaking, Indians are more likely to view themselves as having a high degree of religious freedom than to say that people of other religions are very free to practice their faiths. Still, 79% of the overall public – and about two-thirds or more of the members of each of the country’s major religious communities – say that people belonging to other religions are very free to practice their faiths in India today.
Generally, these attitudes do not vary substantially among Indians of different ages, educational backgrounds or geographic regions. Indians in the Northeast are somewhat less likely than those elsewhere to see widespread religious freedom for people of other faiths – yet even in the Northeast, a solid majority (60%) say there is a high level of religious freedom for other religious communities in India.
Most people in India do not see a lot of religious discrimination against any of the country’s six major religious groups. In general, Hindus, Muslims and Christians are slightly more likely to say there is a lot of discrimination against their own religious community than to say there is a lot of discrimination against people of other faiths. Still, no more than about one-quarter of the followers of any of the country’s major faiths say they face widespread discrimination.
Generally, Indians’ opinions about religious discrimination do not vary substantially by gender, age or educational background. For example, among college graduates, 19% say there is a lot of discrimination against Hindus, compared with 21% among adults with less education.
Within religious groups as well, people of different ages, as well as both men and women, tend to have similar opinions on religious discrimination.
However, there are large regional variations in perceptions of religious discrimination. For example, among Muslims who live in the Central part of the country, just one-in-ten say there is widespread discrimination against Muslims in India, compared with about one-third of those who live in the North (35%) and Northeast (31%). (For more information on measures of religious discrimination in the Northeast, see “ In Northeast India, people perceive more religious discrimination ” below.)
Among Muslims, perceptions of discrimination against their community can vary somewhat based on their level of religious observance. For instance, about a quarter of Muslims across the country who pray daily say there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims (26%), compared with 19% of Muslims nationwide who pray less often. This difference by observance is pronounced in the North, where 39% of Muslims who pray every day say there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims in India, roughly twice the share among those in the same region who pray less often (20%).
The survey also asked respondents about their personal experiences with discrimination. In all, 17% of Indians report facing recent discrimination based on their religion. Roughly one-in-five Muslims (21%) and 17% of Hindus say that in the last 12 months they themselves have faced discrimination because of their religion, as do 18% of Sikhs. By contrast, Christians are less likely to say they have felt discriminated against because of their religion (10%), and similar shares of Buddhists and Jains (13% each) fall into this category.
Nationally, men and women and people belonging to different age groups do not differ significantly from each other in their experiences with religious discrimination. People who have a college degree, however, are somewhat less likely than those with less formal schooling to say they have experienced religious discrimination in the past year.
Within religious groups, experiences with discrimination vary based on region of residence and other factors. Among Muslims, for instance, 40% of those living in Northern India and 36% in the Northeast say they have faced recent religious discrimination, compared with no more than one-in-five in the Southern, Central, Eastern and Western regions.
Experiences with religious discrimination also are more common among Muslims who are more religious and those who report recent financial hardship (that is, they have not been able to afford food, housing or medical care for themselves or their families in the last year).
Muslims who have a favorable view of the Indian National Congress party (INC) are more likely than Muslims with an unfavorable view of the party to say they have experienced religious discrimination (26% vs. 15%). Among Northern Muslims, those who have a favorable view of the INC are much more likely than those who don’t approve of the INC to say they have experienced discrimination (45% vs. 23%). (Muslims in the country, and especially Muslims in the North, tend to say they voted for the Congress party in the 2019 election. See Chapter 6 .)
Hindus with less education and those who have recently experienced poverty also are more likely to say they have experienced religious discrimination.
Less than 5% of India’s population lives in the eight isolated states of the country’s Northeastern region. This region broadly lags behind the country in economic development indicators. And this small segment of the population has a linguistic and religious makeup that differs drastically from the rest of the country.
According to the 2011 census of India, Hindus are still the majority religious group (58%), but they are less prevalent in the Northeast than elsewhere (81% nationally). The smaller proportion of Hindus there is offset by the highest shares of Christians (16% vs. 2% nationally) and Muslims (22% vs. 13% nationally) in any region. And based on the survey, the region also has a higher share of Scheduled Tribes than any other region in the country (25% vs. 9% nationally), and half of Scheduled Tribe members in the Northeast are Christians.
Indians in the Northeast are more likely than those elsewhere to perceive high levels of religious discrimination. For example, roughly four-in-ten in the region say there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims in India, about twice the share of North Indians who say the same thing (41% vs. 22%).
Much of the Northeast’s perception of high religious discrimination is driven by Hindus in the region. A slim majority of Northeastern Hindus (55%) say there is widespread discrimination against Hindus in India, while almost as many (53%) say Muslims face a lot of discrimination. Substantial shares of Hindus in the Northeast say other religious communities also face such mistreatment.
The region’s other religious communities are less likely to say there is religious discrimination in India. For example, while 44% of Northeastern Hindus say Christians face a lot of discrimination, only one-in-five Christians in the Northeast perceive this level of discrimination against their own group. By contrast, at the national level, Christians are more likely than Hindus to see a lot of discrimination against Christians (18% vs. 10%).
People in the Northeast also are more likely to report experiencing religious discrimination. While 17% of individuals nationally say they personally have felt religious discrimination in the last 12 months, one-third of those surveyed in the Northeast say they have had such an experience. Northeastern Hindus, in particular, are much more likely than Hindus elsewhere to report recent religious discrimination (37% vs. 17% nationally).
Most Indians (65%) say communal violence – a term broadly used to describe violence between religious groups – is a “very big problem” in their country (the term was not defined for respondents). This includes identical shares of Hindus and Muslims (65% each) who say this.
But even larger majorities identify several other national problems. Unemployment tops the list of national concerns, with 84% of Indians saying this is a very big problem. And roughly three-quarters of Indian adults see corruption (76%), crime (76%) and violence against women (75%) as very big national issues. (The survey was designed and mostly conducted before the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.)
Indians across nearly every religious group, caste category and region consistently rank unemployment as the top national concern. Buddhists, who overwhelmingly belong to disadvantaged castes, widely rank unemployment as a major concern (86%), while just a slim majority see communal violence as a very big problem (56%).
Sikhs are more likely than other major religious groups in India to say communal violence is a major issue (78%). This concern is especially pronounced among college-educated Sikhs (87%).
Among Hindus, those who are more religious are more likely to see communal violence as a major issue: Fully 67% of Hindus who say religion is very important in their lives consider communal violence a major issue, compared with 58% among those who say religion is less important to them.
Indians in different regions of the country also differ in their concern about communal violence: Three-quarters of Indians in the Northeast say communal violence is a very big problem, compared with 59% in the West. Concerns about communal violence are widespread in the national capital of Delhi, where 78% of people say this is a major issue. During fieldwork for this study, major protests broke out in New Delhi (and elsewhere) following the BJP-led government’s passing of a new bill, which creates an expedited path to citizenship for immigrants from some neighboring countries – but not Muslims.
The end of Britain’s colonial rule in India, in 1947, was accompanied by the separation of Hindu-majority India from Muslim-majority Pakistan and massive migration in both directions. Nearly three-quarters of a century later, Indians are divided over the legacy of Partition.
About four-in-ten (41%) say the partition of India and Pakistan was a good thing for Hindu-Muslim relations, while a similar share (39%) say it was a bad thing. The rest of the population (20%) does not provide a clear answer, saying Partition was neither a good thing nor a bad thing, that it depends, or that they don’t know or cannot answer the question. There are no clear patterns by age, gender, education or party preference on opinions on this question.
Among Muslims, the predominant view is that Partition was a bad thing (48%) for Hindu-Muslim relations. Fewer see it as a good thing (30%). Hindus are more likely than Muslims to say Partition was a good thing for Hindu-Muslim relations (43%) and less likely to say it was a bad thing (37%).
Of the country’s six major religious groups, Sikhs have the most negative view of the role Partition played in Hindu-Muslim relations: Nearly two-thirds (66%) say it was a bad thing.
Most Indian Sikhs live in Punjab, along the border with Pakistan. The broader Northern region (especially Punjab) was strongly impacted by the partition of the subcontinent, and Northern Indians as a whole lean toward the position that Partition was a bad thing for Hindu-Muslim relations (48%) rather than a good thing (39%).
The South is the furthest region from the borders affected by Partition, and Southern Indians are about twice as likely to say that Partition was good as to say that it was bad for Hindu-Muslim relations (50% vs. 26%).
Attitudes toward Partition also vary considerably by region within specific religious groups. Among Muslims in the North and West, most say Partition was a bad thing for Hindu-Muslim relations (55% of Muslims in both regions). In the Eastern and Central parts of the country as well, Muslim public opinion leans toward the view that Partition was a bad thing for communal relations. By contrast, Muslims in the South and Northeast tend to see Partition as good for Hindu-Muslim relations.
Among Hindus, meanwhile, those in the North are closely divided on the issue, with 44% saying Partition was a good thing and 42% saying it was a bad thing. But in the West and South, Hindus tend to see Partition as a good thing for communal relations.
Poorer Hindus – that is, those who say they have been unable to afford basic necessities like food, housing and medical care in the last year – tend to say Partition was a good thing. But opinions are more divided among Hindus who have not recently experienced poverty (39% say it was a good thing, while 40% say it was a bad thing). Muslims who have not experienced recent financial hardship, however, are especially likely to see Partition as a bad thing: Roughly half (51%) say Partition was a bad thing for Hindu-Muslim relations, while only about a quarter (24%) see it as a good thing.
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Gwendolyn Yvonne Alexis
SSRN Electronic Journal
Our nation has a unique, long-cherished commitment to religious freedom. Indeed, the first wave of immigrants came seeking refuge from religious persecution in Europe. The free exercise of religion, regardless of one’s religious beliefs, is a fundamental right guaranteed to all Americans and embodied in the First Amendment to our Constitution. As a result, America has become a diverse nation enriched by its multiple religious communities that practice their faiths freely and peacefully. America’s unique cultural tolerance for religious diversity is due in large part to the enforcement of constitutional rights and statutory laws that protect individuals and congregations from discrimination in public accommodations, education, and employment. While most people in America voluntarily comply with anti-discrimination laws based on a personal commitment to equality and justice for all, religious bigotry exists in American society. One need only review the increasing number of lawsuits filed by the EEOC over the past ten years. In 1997, religious discrimination lawsuits made up only 2.1% of the EEOC’s docket. By 2010, the rate of discrimination lawsuits increased significantly to 3.8%. Similarly, religious discrimination charges filed with the EEOC increased dramatically by 35% from 2001 to 2008. A disproportionate number of religious discrimination charges were filed by employees who wear headscarves, turbans, or beards for religious reasons because these practices carry a stigma that falsely stereotype them as terrorist, disloyal, or suspect. In the years immediately following the tragic September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, there was an upsurge in hatred, violence, and discrimination against Muslims, Arabs and South Asians. Despite the passage of more than ten years, pervasive discrimination persists due to a variety of factors that directly impact the workplace. For example, media images stereotyping, darkskinned, bearded males with Arabic-sounding names as representing the primary threat to the national security of the United States contribute to racial, national origin, and religious harassment in the workplace. Government selective counter-terrorism practices and policies have institutionalized a policy of discrimination against persons perceived to be Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern, or South Asian on the basis of their name, race, religion, ethnicity, and national origin. The government’s disparate treatment of these communities, based on the pretext of national security, legitimizes workplace harassment. The result is a conflation of the racial Arab or South Asian with the religious category of Muslim coupled with the misperception that Islam is a radical and violent religion. Therefore, efforts aimed at combatting post-9/11 religious discrimination must adopt a holistic approach that rectifies the “bias legitimizing” actions of other government agencies. Accordingly, my recommendations are as follow: 1. Adopt creative legal theories of liability and use case briefs to educate judges about post-9/11 religious discrimination; 2. Train federal agencies about the adverse workplace consequences of selective law enforcement and immigration enforcement; 3. Train private sector employers about the rise in religious discrimination and how to proactively prevent it; 4. Normalize images of religious minorities in government publications; and 5. Diversify points of contact in outreach to religious communities about their legal rights and remedies.
Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion
Kathy Lund Dean
American Business Law Journal
Jamie Prenkert , Julie Magid
Samantha Fairclough , Sam Cousley , Dave Nichols
Bahaudin Mujtaba
Texas State PA Applied Research Projects
Abstract Purpose: The purpose of this Applied Research Project is three-fold: first, this research develops a practical ideal model employee handbook by adapting one developed by Rebecca Short (1997) and Neftali Garcia (2002) and expanded upon by Shanna Brown (2013). Second, the model is used to assess 16 city employee handbooks in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Finally, based on this assessment, recommendations to improve the quality of the handbooks are made. Method: This research uses content analysis as the sole data collection method. Content analysis studies in this research are the city employee handbooks. A systematic random sampling was taken of handbooks in four city classifications (small, medium, large, extra-large) in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Each handbook was evaluated against the ideal handbook model and a rating assigned to each component. Findings: Overall, city employee handbooks in the Commonwealth of Virginia need improvement. It is recommended that the handbooks be updated to include legislation such as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, as well as equal pay and anti-discrimination legislation. The handbooks also need to include updated maternal/paternal leave policies and social media use guidelines, define bullying, and provide information about union membership prohibition for public employees.
Fifty years after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, unlawful discrimination continues to ail American workplaces. Despite the prevailing narrative that America is now "post-racial" after the election of the first African American president, equal opportunity still eludes many Americans. Their membership in racial, ethnic, or religious groups stigmatized as the "other" adversely affects their access to education, political empowerment, and equal opportunity in the workplace. At the time Title VII was passed, victims often experienced explicit bias against their protected group. The law’s immediate effect was to ban overt prejudice causing disparate intergroup discrimination between men and women, blacks and whites, different ethnicities, and Christians and non-Christians.As a result, Title VII, along with other anti-discrimination laws, has been relatively successful in rooting out explicit bias in employment. Many employers now refrain from overtly treating employees disparately on account of an immutable characteristic. But, as the data show, the absence of discriminatory policies on paper does not always translate into a discrimination free workplace in practice. Rather, it pushes bias into more covert manifestations wherein facially neutral factors become proxies for unlawful discrimination. While Title VII prohibits covert bias; it is ill equipped to prevent two increasingly prevalent forms of discrimination: 1) implicit bias arising from negative stereotypes of protected classes; and 2) disparate treatment of subgroups of protected classes who do not conform to coercive assimilationist pressures.Because an employee alleging discrimination must show that a similarly situated worker outside the protected class does not receive the same adverse treatment or impact, an employer who treats a subgroup of a minority better than another subgroup of the same minority can evade liability. Of course, if the difference in treatment among the subgroups is based on performance and skills directly related to the work at issue, then no liability should attach. However, that is not always the case. Disparate treatment of members of the same protected class arises from negative racial, ethnic, or religious stereotypes that privileges those able and willing to perform their identity in accordance with assimilationist demands of the majority group. The effect is intragroup discrimination based on intergroup bias rooted in implicit negative stereotyping. Female employees who fall under multiple protected classes face an intersection of identity performance pressures as women, racial or ethnic minorities, and religious minorities.The dominant group’s expectations of how women or members of minority groups should behave, dress, and communicate to be "professional" are often contradictory due to conflicting stereotypes. A Black woman, for example, who is assertive, ambitious, and exhibits leadership qualities associated as masculine characteristics, risks being stigmatized as aggressive, insubordinate, and threatening because of negative stereotypes of blacks. Meanwhile, her behavior contradicts gender conformity norms that women should be deferential, gentle, soft spoken, and pleasant. And if she is a Muslim, then her behavior triggers stereotypes of Muslims as terrorists, disloyal, foreign, and suspect. For workplace anti-discrimination laws to eradicate these multiple binds that disparately impact women of color, this Article argues that Title VII jurisprudence should take into account intergroup discrimination based on intragroup identity performance to assure all employees, not just a subset of a protected class, are covered by workplace antidiscrimination law. As such, a plaintiff’s treatment should not be compared only with similarly situated employees outside the protected class but also with similarly situated employees within the protected class whose identity performance accommodates coercive assimilationism rooted in stereotypes. This Article applies social psychology and antidiscrimination theories to the case of Muslim women of color in the workplace, an under-researched area in legal scholarship. I examine in detail the identity performance challenges and contradictions faced by Muslim women of color as "intersectionals" facing stereotypes against 1) Muslims as terrorists, violent, and disloyal; 2) Muslim women as meek, oppressed, and lacking individual agency; 3) women as sexualized, terminally second best to men, and uncommitted to their careers; 4) immigrants as forever foreign and undeserving of equal treatment; and 5) ethnic minorities from the Middle East and South Asia as barbaric, misogynist, and anti-American. I conclude that Muslim women of color are at risk of falling between the cracks of Title VII jurisprudence due to courts’ unwillingness to recognize the harms caused by coercive assimilationst pressures to conform one’s identity to comport to high status group norms, irrespective of the relevance to work performance.
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Katayoun Alidadi
Alain Klarsfeld , Faith Wambura Ngunjiri
International Journal of Discrimination and the Law
Personnel Review
Mohammed Al-Waqfi
Aimee Dars Ellis
Helen Espinoza
Cambridge Law Journal
Matthew Gibson
Disability and Aging Discrimination
Stacie Keller
The SAGE Handbook of Management Learning, Education and Development
International Journal of Public Administration
Lisa Pagotto
Matthew Etherington
JL & Educ.
Kenneth Marcus
Journal of Legal Studies Education
Tony Mcadams
abdelhamid meziou
Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation
Institute for Social Policy and Understanding
Cezar Pelin
New York Law Review
Isaac Weiner
Journal Workplace Rights
The Age Human Riught Journal
Oscar Pérez de la Fuente
David Pettinicchio
… on Employment Practices …
Carolyn Predmore
Andrew Houtenville
Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal
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He has published three books and over 60 articles. In addition to conducting research on religious discrimination and victimization, his work has examined the social dynamics between religion and science, the organizational structure of American religion, and the nature of individuals' religious identity.
1.1. Overview of the study. This current study addresses these gaps in the literature by examining a) the prevalence of religious discrimination by religious affiliation and b) the relationship between religious discrimination and sleep quality and social emotional adjustment among a large, population representative ethnically diverse sample of school-aged adolescents in two of the largest ...
This dualist protection of religious interests, complicated by the presence of an anti-discrimination article in the ECHR 7 and a commitment to protecting freedom of religion under article 10 of the CFR, has led to debates concerning the interactions between religious freedom and religious discrimination. Authors have thus discussed which of the ECHR or the Directive is the more effective ...
Although research on religious discrimination in the workplace is relatively limited, a number of studies have looked at the specific challenges Muslims face in the workplace, especially during the hiring process (Acquisti and Fong 2020; Bartkoski et al. 2018; Wallace, Wright, and Hyde 2014; Wright et al. 2013).
Research Paper; Open access; Published: 29 September 2018; Volume 20, pages 1913-1932, (2019) Cite this article; Download PDF. You have full ... There has been a resurgence of research on religious discrimination in North America and Europe following 9/11 (Fox 2007). Yet there is a paucity of research on the consequences of religious ...
Research finds that experiences of religious discrimination are often associated with poorer health outcomes. However, there remain important questions to consider gaps, including whether religious discrimination has similar health impacts on religious minority groups and religious majority groups, whether religious discrimination is equally harmful for both mental and physical health, and ...
Featured works engage with religious discrimination in a sub-group of states—Western democracies and those with a Christian majority. While one study focused on government-based restrictions, the other one engaged with societal ones. ... Feature papers represent the most advanced research with significant potential for high impact in the ...
The goal of this review paper is to summarize the psychological and HR practitioner-focused research on religious discrimination as it relates to the CRA to understand these religious ...
1 INTRODUCTION. Religious beliefs can profoundly affect how employees do their jobs. In the United States, nearly 80% of individuals are religiously affiliated (Pew Research Center, 2015), and in England and Wales, 68% (Office for National Statistics, 2012), suggesting a large segment of the workforce may identify with a religion.Yet, religious identity in the workplace is often neglected in ...
Among many significant findings of this field, religious discrimination against minorities is. one of the clear trends ( Fox 2016,2021). Fox ( 2016) unveiled an atlas of religious discrimina ...
Purpose Over the last decade, religious discrimination claims have risen more rapidly compared to most other protected categories under the Civil Rights Act (CRA). The goal of this review paper is to summarize the psychological and HR practitioner-focused research on religious discrimination as it relates to the CRA to understand these religious discrimination claims. In doing so, this review ...
Purpose: Over the last decade, religious discrimination claims have risen more rapidly compared to most other protected categories under the Civil Rights Act (CRA). The goal of this review paper is to summarize the psychological and HR practitioner-focused research on religious discrimination as it relates to the CRA to understand these religious discrimination claims. In doing so, this review ...
ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the correlations between the human rights situation and religious identity among minorities. It uses an integrated longitudinal dataset of the World Values Survey waves from 1990 to 2014 and three human rights measures to test how (a) constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and equality, (b) governmental human rights practices, and (c) societal ...
The prohibition on religious discrimination is justified by the need to reduce any significant (political, sociocultural, or material) advantage gaps between different religious groups. ... Distinctions (October 28, 2018). International Journal of Constitutional Law (Forthcoming 2019), Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No. 14/2019, U of ...
Religious Discrimination in America: An Incomplete Picture Although by no means a new concern (Wuthnow 2005), wor - ries about religious discrimination grew during and in the wake of the 2016 election. Public discussions of banning Muslim immigrants and reports of rising Islamophobia grew (Kang 2019; Vitali 2016), as did rhetoric seen by many as
A recent survey from the Pew Research Center reported that roughly 70.6 percent of the country's population identifies as Christian; 22.8 percent as unaffiliated with a religion; 1.9 percent as Jewish; 0.9 percent as Muslim; 0.7 percent as Buddhist; 0.7 percent as Hindu; 1.5 percent as observant of other.
1. Introduction. We live in a post-secular world where religion has made a surprising comeback, falsifying Weberian predictions of ever-continuing secularization. 1 Almost every large society—some for the first time in recent history—is grappling with religious pluralism. At the same time, however, religious conflicts and religious terrorism occupy newspaper headlines, Islamophobia has ...
Religious communities might identify particular groups as threats and direct violence toward them in cases of extreme discrimination. The idea of religious freedom has come under sustained criticism for its putative incoherence, ethnocentrism, and use as ideological justification for violent interventions by the United States and other Western ...
Data on the discrimination of religious minorities comes from the Religion and State Project (RAS). 54 This dataset includes data on various aspects of government involvement in religion for 1990-2008 for all countries that have a population of at least 250,000. Moreover, Western democracies with smaller populations are included.
June 29, 2021. Religion in India: Tolerance and Segregation. 1. Religious freedom, discrimination and communal relations. Indians generally see high levels of religious freedom in their country. Overwhelming majorities of people in each major religious group, as well as in the overall public, say they are "very free" to practice their religion.
The goal of this review paper is to summarize the psychological and HR practitioner-focused research on religious discrimination as it relates to the CRA to understand these religious discrimination claims. ... and perceived discrimination among Muslim immigrants to the U.S. 447 Table 2 provides an outline of the many research suggestions in ...
This hypothesis is consistent with a growing body of research and theory. documenting the importance of the judiciary in shaping political action. Explaining Discrimination against Religious ...
In addition, this issue calls for more research on how local- and school-level politics impact the relationship between education and religious institutions, suggesting areas for future research. For instance, discrimination based on race, sexual orientation, and gender identity were key topics of the articles by Welner and by Green and his ...
Abstract. Although religious discrimination in U.S. workplaces appears to be rising, little is known about how different groups of employees perceive discrimination. Here, the authors draw on 194 in-depth interviews with Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and nonreligious employees to examine perceptions of religious discrimination in the workplace.