Religious Girlhood and Secular Schooling: Experiences of Faith and Gender in Toronto Area Public High Schools

Toronto public schools are some of the most religiously diverse in the country. Religious students, whose practices may run counter to the dominant cultures of Christianity and secularism shaping public education, often face marginalization. This dissertation asks how religious girls of Abrahamic faiths navigate academic and social life in public secondary schools in Toronto. It addresses gaps in extant literature by highlighting the significance gender plays in youth religiosity; by looking across multiple faiths groups; and by centering student voices in data analysis. Guided theoretically by feminist epistemology, and taking a qualitative research approach, interviews and focus groups were conducted with 18 religious girls. The resulting data was analyzed through a thematic analysis. Key findings paint a picture of girls’ quiet religious expression within classroom and social spaces. Degrees of peers’ acceptance influenced girls’ actions to edit aspects of their religiosity in social settings. Participants identified challenges related to their gender in the school context, but relegated experiences stemming from their being a religious girl to faith-specific, outside school environments. Additionally, variability in their teachers’ approaches to addressing religion shaped girls’ religious expressions and relative comfort in the classroom. The data analysis challenge feminist conceptualizations of religious agency and point to visibility as a salient space where religious girls exercised their agency in public schools. Findings also illustrate a gap between what girls pointed to as shaping their experiences as religious girls at public high schools, and the current religious accommodation policies as the primary mechanism for addressing religious student needs. The dissertation suggests a need for additional policy tools in conceptualizing religious student needs, and for increasing attention at the policy level on religiousness as an important dimension of student diversity. Implications for teacher education suggest enhanced training about the nuances of religious identities and the numerous (intersecting) ways religiosity manifests in school environments. Directions for future research include investigations with teachers about pedagogy and curriculum connections to religion, and with religious students of all genders into the conditions determining when and why students hide aspects of their religiosity in school.

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