Review of Related Literature

Islamophobia

Islamophobia means act of fear or hostility towards the followers of Islamic

religion which widely contributed on the discrimination towards Muslims across

the world. Seclusion of Islamic people on politics and affiliate social classes in

the society or the possible reasons for discrimination. Act of physical and

numerous crimes are in crucial wide spread in modern United States which is

completely opposite from the past years of the said phenomenon in the United

States (Alshammari, n.d.). According to Richardson (2013), Islamophobia is a

shorthand term referring to a multifaceted mix of discourse, behavior and

structures which express and perpetuate feeling of anxiety, fear, hostility and

rejection towards Muslims particularly but not only in countries where people of

Muslim heritage live as minorities. It also refers to the practice of discriminating

against Muslims by excluding them from the economic, social, and public life of

the nation. The study of Hindy (2016) defined Islamophobia as a relatively new

concept, born out of the need to qualify the surge of negative rhetoric and actions

directed at Islam and Muslims in the West. There remains much resistance to the

concept of Islamophobia in both the academic world and the public sphere. The

study focused on examining Islamophobia in public schools in Ontario. Muslims,

especially those from Marawi, are now generally suspected as “terrorists,” amid

the government’s military offensive against the extremist group Dawlah Islamiya,

led by brothers Omar and Abdullah Maute. Called “Maute group” by government,

the name has now stuck to mean “Muslim terrorist.” Ayroso (2017). As cited from
the article of Cervantes (2015), Telosa, the Security Reform Initiative Executive

Director defines Islamophobia as an exaggerated fear or hostility toward Islam

and Muslims that is perpetrated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias,

discrimination, marginalization and exclusion from political and civic life.

Endorsing Religious Stereotypes

This theme occurs when non-Muslim people assume that all Muslim

people are affiliated with terrorism in some way. This sends the message that

Muslim people are violent, evil people who should not be trusted (Nadal, 2010).

According to Pew Research (2011), Islam is currently the second largest religion

in the world next to Christianity. Despite the fact that there are so many Muslims

in the world, in many places there is a lack of understanding about Muslim

people and Islam. In addition, the increase in anti-Muslim rhetoric and the

unfortunate conflation of terrorism with Muslim people contributes to biased

attitudes and reinforces stereotypes. As a result, Islamophobia—the fear, hatred

and discrimination of Muslim people—is manifesting itself in personal biases,

rhetoric, education, politics, hate crimes and more.

Poushter (2015) stated that, people overwhelmingly expressed negative

views of ISIS. It is important to keep in mind that Islam, like other Abrahamic

religions, includes a large pool of opinions and different ways to understand the

traditional holy text that was written in a different era. Terrorists use radical

interpretations of Islam, which take a small number of texts that were meant to

regulate warfare in the early days of Islam. Terrorists then apply these
interpretations to contemporary times. It is also a serious error to treat terrorism

as if it were some kind of problem that can be specifically linked to the Islamic

world. Terrorism is a phenomenon that is associated with radical politics of many

kinds, religious and non-religious, in many different regions of the world. It can be

found in places as diverse as Central and South America, Northern Ireland and

other parts of Europe, Africa, and non-Islamic regions of Asia. Although there

have been highly publicized acts of violence by radical Muslims, it is absurd to

presume that the acts of extremist groups somehow reflect on all Muslims

(Elnour, 2012). Muslims are automatically labeled as extremists, uneducated,

and poor due to what appears in various forms of media. With the immediate and

far-reaching power that it possesses, media greatly influences not only

audience’s perceptions but also their behavior. Viewers instantly believe what

they see on television, movies, or the Internet without even confirming the

veracity of those portrayals. Aside from the media, the educational system also

plays a part in the perpetuation of these stereotypes. Stereotypes breed negative

expectations that, when broken, surprise non-Muslims (Nabong, 2015). The fear

of terrorism was directly related to Islam and Muslims, which caused for a wave of

negative and stereotyping reports of Muslims. The linking of Islam with terrorism

complicated the legitimacy of symbolic representation of Muslim identity in the

public spheres in Western society” (Byng, 2010).

Media perception of the Muslim world has been characterized as one

dominated by gun-toting radicals and extreme fundamentalism. Muslims are

exposed to the same forms of prejudice experienced by Muslims in other parts of

students have experienced the pressure of prejudice against them. They quickly

realized, for example, that publicly assuming the posture of bowing to the ground

during worship, the "prayer" or salat done five times daily, resulted in sarcastic

remarks and public ridicule. They soon realized the benefit of not discussing their

times of fasting or other aspects of their faith with non-Muslims (Welch, 2016). In

the context of prejudice, Islam, along with other belief systems, must be

examined and understood in the classroom. Islam is too important a force to

ignore. About one billion of the Earth's five billion inhabitants are Muslim.

Although Arab countries are home to 180 million Muslims, the number of Muslims

in Southeast Asia, Africa, and India/Pakistan greatly exceeds that number.

Despite these realities, the stereotypes, media misinformation, and textbook

inaccuracies continue to persist (Desilver & Masci, 2018).

Pathology of Different Religious Groups

This theme refers to the conscious (and sometimes unconscious) belief

that there is something wrong or abnormal with someone of a different religion,

leading to behaviors that convey punishment, judgment, or maltreatment (Nadal,

Issa, et al., 2010). According to Anti-Defamation League (2019), a common

perception is that Muslim women are oppressed, discriminated against and hold

a subservient position in society. The role and status of Muslim women in society

cannot be separated from the role of women in the larger society because

women around the world of all races, religions and nationalities face inequality on
many levels. The head scarf is often cited as an example of oppression.

The Quran directs both men and women to dress with modesty but how this is

interpreted and carried out varies a great deal. Many people think that Muslim

women are forced to wear a hijab (head scarf), niqab or burqa. While it is true

that in some countries with significant Muslim populations women are forced to

wear the hijab, this is not the reason Muslim women wear the hijab in most

cases. In fact, many women choose to wear a hijab, niqab or burqa on their own

and do so for a variety of reasons including a sense of pride in being Muslim, a

collective sense of identity or to convey a sense of self-control in public life

(Lipka, 2015).

Islamophobic and Mocking Language

This type of microaggression or a form of Islamophobia is a new category

that was derived after analyzing the transcriptions from the focus groups. This

theme involves instances where people make fun of the religion, use hurtful

language, and tease the people who subscribe to it.

Self-Esteem

In the study of Nadal (2010), racial micro aggressions still exists only now

it’s subtler than it once was. It is a form of racial discrimination that gives

negative effects to the victim’s mental health. The current study about the

relationship between racial micro aggression and self-esteem. The results of this

study indicate that racial micro aggressions negatively predict a lower self-

esteem. It is occurring in educational and to the workplace environments that are

self-esteem, cultural identity, and generation states on acculturation was

empirical. In the results of the hierarchical regression analysis that indicates that

self-esteem and generation status positively influenced the acculturation where

Hispanic cultural identity negatively affected acculturation.

In the study of Rosenberg (1965), self-esteem is a past of one’s self-

concept, which is one’s knowledge beliefs about their personal attributes. Self-

esteem is a persistent issue which requires continuous monitoring so that the

behavioral pattern could be kept in tune with the changing requirements. Self-

esteem is one of the critical factors. The appraisal of an individual’s self is in fact

the self-esteem. According to Maslow (1943) the concept has some common

features founded in the related literature as security, belongingness, identity,

worthiness, respect and competence. These elements are the fundamentals of

the concept. Maslow includes self-esteem in his needs of hierarchy because he

believed that healthy esteem is based on higher-level needs of self-respect and

competence. Self-esteem is established by the collaboration of worthiness and

competency. According to (Garrety, et al. 2003) the self-esteem is disposed

towards capability and ability of an individual to manage with apprehension.

Many of the generalists and psychologists have enlightened the same impression

with diverse magnitudes and the sociological view of self-esteem. In sociology,

and psychology, self-esteem reflects a person’s overall subjective motional

evaluation of his or her own worth. It judge oneself as an attitude toward itself.
Self-esteem encompasses beliefs oneself, as well as the emotional states, such

as triumph, despair, pride, and shame.

Smith and Mackie (2007) defined self-esteem as the self-concept of what

we think about self; self-esteem is the positive or the negative evaluations of the

self, as in how we feel about it. Self-esteem is attractive as a social psychological

construct because some of the researchers have conceptualized it as an

influential predictor of certain outcomes such as academic achievement,

relationships, and happiness. Psychologist usually regard self-esteem as an

enduring personality characteristics or trait self-esteem. According to James

(1902) upos, which virtually opened the field, there have been relatively few

empirical studies in the area of region and personality, and even fewer attempts

to correlate self-esteem and religious variables. Sociological literature usually

treats religion on the macro-institutional level (Glock, Scheneider, 1964). As a

consequence of this neglect none to our knowledge of the studies concerning

adolescent self-esteem and religiosity (Rosenberg 1965, Rosen 1965), is of a

cross cultural nature.

Campbell (1991) stated that the relationship between religiosity, meaning

in life and self-esteem will be only be visible among the people with low-concept

clarity brings a lot of positive mental health outcomes by itself. Positive influence

of religiosity among the people with high self-concept clarity should be lower and

more blurred. Campbell (1990) suggested that individuals with low self-concept

clarity should be more influenced by external factors. Individuals with less

defined self-believes are more prone to seek external sources to help them
characterize themselves. Internalization of religious values, beliefs, and

standards of proper behavior could facilitate their attempts to build stable and

internally consistent identities. People with low self-concept clarity, the religious

orientations considered to be more nature and Sof meaning in life and higher

self-esteem than among people with low intrinsic and quest religious orientation.

Some studies have shown that God fearing folks tends to have a higher self-

esteem. The few studies that have explored the relationship between religiosity

and self-esteem. Some have noted that religion facilitated high self-esteem.

Review of Related Study

Islamophobia

In the study Confronting Islamophobia in Education (Ramarajan and

Runell, 2007) one of the greatest challenges in implementing educational

programs that confront Islamophobia and build interreligious understanding is the

fear that many educators have about raising the issue of religion with their

students. Educators in private settings, where federal laws may not apply, also

sometimes feel apprehensive about addressing religion because of possible

resistance from students, parents, guardians or administrators. The situation is

compounded because many educators feel inadequately informed about

religions, particularly Islam, and therefore hesitate to address the topic at all.

Muslims are among the most discriminated groups in current day Western-

Europe where many people hold the view that Islam is an alien religion and
incompatible with mainstream values (Hagendoorn and Sniderman 2007;

Strabac and Listhaug 2008). Due to this Islamophobic climate, it can be rather

difficult for Muslim children to grow up there. An increasing number of these

children attend Islamic schools (Dronkers 2016; Maussen and Bader 2014) that

aim to provide them with a safe environment to develop and express their

religious identity, and a shelter against religious discrimination. Islamic schools

allow children to feel good about their religious background and thus about

themselves. However, despite this “safe haven” function, the role and impact of

Islamic education in Western countries have not gone undisputed.

The study Self-Esteem and National Identification in Times of

Islamophobia: A Study Among Islamic School Children in Netherlands of Thijs, et

al. (2018) makes a unique contribution to the literature by examining the self-

esteem and national identification of Islamic school students in a highly secular

country, and by studying the impact of perceived religious discrimination and the

roles of the student-teacher relationship as well as teachers’ religious

background and implicit attitude. Regardless of strong debates regarding Islamic

education in the context of Western societies, diminutive knowledge is known

concerning how schools in the Western affect the Muslim students feel and think

about these societies and themselves. Thijs, et al. (2018) explored the

relationship of self-esteem and national identification of Islamic schools’ students

in a non-Muslim country wherein finding out that the students were discriminated

against their group than against themselves. The research also found out that

religious discrimination was connected with lower self-esteem and weaker

associated with higher self-esteem and stronger national identification. Students

reported more national identification than those students with a Muslim teacher,

but less so if this teacher has a positive attitude toward Muslims. These results

provide perceptions regarding how self-esteem and national identification

perhaps stimulate within the context of Islamic education.

The article The Stereotyping of Muslims: An Analysis of the New York

Times’ and The Washington Times’ Coverage of Veiling and the Muhammad

Cartoon Controversy, Schønemann (2013) pointed out that news regarding

Muslim and Middle Eastern problems sell well to the public. News about Al-

Qaeda, a militant Sunni Islamist multi-national organization, recruiting European

Muslim took the interest of the public that led to reinforcing Islamophobia

because that reminded the people that there are still enemies in which caused

the public to suspect and monitor the Muslims. As a result of this tendency,

stories regarding discrimination and hate crimes against Muslims are overlook

and fails to get prominent news coverage. Despite how important of an issue

discrimination and hate crimes are, the media failed to report them and tend to

overlook these issues that leads to 1500 cases of harassment that were

documented last 2004. It also showed 141 cases of hate crimes toward Muslims.

Compared to the 2003 report the only reported cases is 1000 and 93 hare

crimes. But this cases and crimes tend to ignore by the public because they do

not attract readers and viewers that leads to ignorance of the society about the

crimes and discrimination towards Muslims. In addition, Schønemann supports

Arabs and Muslims as an alien “other” or “enemy”. A number of 279 Muslim are

prejudiced against and widely stereotyped in American. It is supported by a

number of studies, polls and surveys in tracking opinions in the United States.

Most of the people preserved Muslims as a Monolithic group despite all the

aspects of every Muslims lives. American media created a naïve stereotyped on

Muslims as an out-group. With issues about discrimination, suspicion,

stereotyping and hate crimes against Muslims, the researchers aim to know the

connection of Islamophobia to the self-esteem of Muslim, specifically students in

private schools who have experienced these treatments because of their religion

identity.

Stark’s (2003) Muslims in the Philippines stated in his study that Islam has

deeper and older roots than Christianity in the Philippines. When Spanish

colonialists landed in the country in the mid-16th century and pushed Muslims to

the south, they called them Moros, from the Spanish word for Moors. The Moro

Muslim minority in the Philippines, however remains on the international political

agenda and more so since the recent hostage crisis in Jolo, which again

attracted worldwide attention to the still unresolved minority issue in Mindanao

(Stark, 2003). In the article Philippine Muslims Fear Marawi Fighting May Deepen

Communal Discord written by Mogato and Lema (2017) based on 2010 census

data, 94 percent of the Philippines’ Muslim population of over 5 million live on

Mindanao, but more than 100,000 are in Manila, many of them Moros who left

the south to escape poverty and violence. Some Muslims in Quiapo worry that
the bonhomie of different faiths could be at risk as the death toll among troops

fighting in Marawi, now at 70, climbs.

Self-Esteem

Mullis and Chapman (2000) study Age, Gender, and Self-Esteem

Differences in Adolescent Coping Styles focused on the association of gender,

age and self-esteem. Those who have higher self-esteem are into problem

solving while people who have lower self-esteem are focused on emotional

strategy. Hyojeong (2008) investigated the relationship between self-esteem

scores and the score of the selected predictor variables as measured by the

children attending environment scale (CVFES) in the fourth, fifth, six Grade

children attending Korean Baptist Churches. The variables were cohesion,

expressiveness, conflict control and moral religious emphasis. Arslan et.al (2010)

studied on relationship between life satisfaction, self-esteem and conflict

communication. The sample consist of 306 university student. The results

showed that self-esteem was positively correlated with confrontation, emotional

expression, and self-disclosure and life satisfaction. The result also shows that

life satisfaction was positively correlated with confrontation emotional expression

and self-disclosure. Richard (2003) studied on the development of self-esteem

from young adulthood to old age. Data included 4 assessments from the

American`s changing lives study. Across a 16-years period of a nationally

representative sample of 3,617 individuals aged 25 years to 104 years. Women

had lower self-esteem than men in young adulthood. More educated individuals

had higher self-esteem than less educated individuals. Moreover, the results
suggested that changes in socioeconomic status and physical health account for

the decline in self-esteem that occurs older age.

The results presented the extent of self-esteem with accordance to age

just like the study of Mullis & Chapman (2002), Richard (2003) that the level of

self-esteem varies on the age of a person. No selected studies about self-esteem

were accorded or associated with the Islam context specifically on knowing if

Islamophobia affects the level of self-esteem of high school Muslim students in

private schools. In regards to Islamophobia, the study of Ramarajan and Runell

(2007) deals with confronting Islamophobia in the Western-Europe context

wherein they found out that Islam is considered an incompatible mainstream

values and acknowledge as an alienated religion and thus, Muslims are among

one of the most discriminated groups in the context. The study of Thijs (2018)

deals with national identification in times of Islamophobia and self-esteem of

Muslims in highly secular country. The article of Schønemann (2013) explored

the overlooking of media in discrimination cases caused by Islamophobia.

Mogato and Lema (2017) article showed how terrorism in the Philippines made

the people generally view Muslims as terrorists. In this study, the researchers

incorporated the forms of Islamophobia and aims to find out its relationship to the

different type of Crocker’s (1992) collective self-esteem. This is the first

Islamphobia-self-esteem study to be conducted in the Philippines, specifically in

General Santos City. With other researches exploring the discrimination and

alienation of the religion Islam and its believers, Muslims, this research will

explore the relationship of Islamophobia and self-esteem of Muslims students in

experienced different forms of Islamophobia.

Forms of Islamophobia

The forms of Islamophobia are based on the microaggression theory of

Nadal and Sue (2013), that deals about dishonors or insults because of their

membership as an individual, that cause of feeling vulnerable, targeted, angry,

and afraid. It also a kind of remarks, questions, or actions that are painful to an

individual because it’s discriminating a person membership in a group or a

subject of stereotypes. Microaggressions often appear to be a compliment or a

joke, but contain a hidden insult about a group of people.

Self-esteem Scale

Tajfel and Turner developed Social Identity theory that Crocker (1992)

used in the collective self-esteem scale. Social Identity theory is a theory that

deals with the social identity of a person’s value or sense that based on their

group membership, it explains that person is a part of the concept of self that

comes from the groups, it says that the group is a good source of pride and self-

esteem because it is a sense of belonging to the social world. The theory also

considers the consequences of personal and social identities for individual

perceptions and group behavior.

Independent Variable Dependent Variable

Forms of Islamophobia Self-Esteem

Endorsing Religious Private Collective Self-

Stereotypes Esteem

Pathology of Different Public Collective Self-

Religious Groups Esteem

Islamophobic and
Importance to Identity
Mocking Language
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Identification in Times of Islamophobia: A Study Among Islamic School

Children in The Netherlands. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 47(12),

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