Sociology of Religion 2015, 76:1 30-48

doi:10.1093/socrel/sru042
Advance Access Publication 2 July 2014

Gender, Religious Identity, and Civic

Engagement among Arab Muslims in the
United States

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Jen’nan Ghazal Read*
Duke University
Hamad Medical Corporation

Research on the civic engagement of Arab Muslims is scarce relative to studies on other U.S. popula-
tions, and knowledge about women’s participation is particularly limited. Stereotypes often depict this
group as detached from American society, yet few studies assess empirically their public sphere in-
volvement. The current study addresses this question by examining gender differences in Arab Muslim
civic engagement and assessing the influence of religious identity on their participation. Using national
survey data with 1,156 Arab Muslims, the analysis finds high levels of civic engagement for both men
and women. Religious identity is generally associated with greater levels of civic involvement, but
more so for men than women. For women, having a strong personal commitment to Islam dampens
slightly their overall rates of civic engagement. These findings mirror past research and indicate that
Arab Muslims may be more integrated and active in U.S. society than commonly believed.
Key words: Arab Americans/U.S. Muslims; civic participation; gender; Islam.

Research on Arabs and Muslims in the United States has expanded tremen-
dously in the decade following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001
(Bakalian and Bozorgmehr 2009; Haddad 2011; Jamal and Naber 2008; Williams
2011). In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, questions about their loyalty and in-
tegration in American society dominated media coverage and public discourse,
practically erasing the wealth of evidence that existed previously on their suc-
cessful assimilation (e.g., Haddad and Lummis 1987; Haddad and Smith 1996;
Suleiman 1999). Scholars with expertise in these communities responded with a
renewed effort to contextualize the experiences of Arab and Muslim Americans
in relation to other U.S. ethnic and immigrant groups, and newly available

*Direct correspondence to Jen’nan Ghazal Read, Department of Sociology, 265 Soc/Psych, Duke
University, Durham, NC 27708, USA. E-mail: [email protected].

# The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association
for the Sociology of Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.
[email protected]
30
 GENDER, RELIGIOUS IDENTITY, AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT 31
funding from various agencies and organizations across the country made new
studies possible (Baker et al. 2009; Ewing 2008; Jamal and Naber 2008).
Despite a growth in this literature, there remains a relative dearth of knowledge
on the experiences of women of Arab, Muslim, and/or Middle Eastern descent. The
conflation of these terms has contributed to the problem and resulted in stereotypes
that blend religion, culture, and geography to create a monolithic image of women
as oppressed by Arab and Islamic values (Haddad et al. 2006; Shaheen 2009;

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Zahedi 2011). This image has been consequential. It has fueled apprehension that
Arabs and Muslims are antithetical to American ideals of egalitarianism and
democracy, unable to integrate into American society, and beholden to religious
and cultural beliefs that are at odds with American ones (Bail 2012; Read 2008).
For example, a nationally representative study conducted in 2003 found that
Americans ranked Muslims second only to atheists as a group that did not share
their vision for American society (Edgell et al. 2006). Fast forward 10 years, and
nationwide polls continue to find that many Americans fear that Muslims are inca-
pable of assimilating (Pew Research Center 2011).
However, the extent to which concerns over Arab and Muslim integration
and stereotypes of Arab and Muslim women resonate with reality remains less
well known. This study aims to address this question by examining gender differ-
ences in Arab Muslim voluntary and civic engagement,1 key indicators of inte-
gration in American society (Putnam 2000, 2007; Terriquez 2012). A primary
contribution of the study is the use of a large, nationally representative data set
on Arab Muslims that contains rich information on the key outcomes in question
and on religion and religiosity—factors believed to hinder their integration, par-
ticularly that of women. The analysis draws on survey data from the Georgetown
University’s Muslim Americans in Public Spaces (MAPS) project to address
three related questions: (1) to what extent are Arab Muslims involved in various
community organizations?; (2) to what degree does this differ for men and
women?; and (3) to what extent do different dimensions of religious identity in-
fluence their participation?
Below, I situate these questions in the larger literature on immigrant assimi-
lation, discuss the significance of civic engagement as a measure of integration,
and provide data on U.S. civic engagement to serve as a basis of comparison for
Arab Muslims. I then review the theoretical importance of religion for civic en-
gagement and highlight its substantive importance for understanding the Arab
Muslim case. Drawing on past studies, I offer competing hypotheses for Arab
Muslim civic engagement and test them with nationally representative data. The
article concludes by discussing implications for scholarship on gender, religion,
and immigrant integration, in general, and for Arab Muslims, in particular.

1
The data contain eight categories of organizations within and outside of the Muslim
community: school/youth programs; arts/cultural organizations; neighborhood/community
groups; organizations for poor/elderly/needy; professional organizations; trade/labor unions;
veteran’s/military organizations; and ethnic organizations.
32 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

RELIGION AND IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION

How does one go about determining the degree of an ethnic or religious

group’s integration in a society as increasingly heterogeneous as the United
States? Some scholars focus on economic success, others look at intermarriage
patterns, while others still emphasize the importance of political mobilization
(for a review, see Portes and Rumbaut 2006). This study focuses on civic engage-

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ment because community involvement is arguably one of the oldest forms of
participation in American society and often viewed as a critical measure of immi-
grant group integration (Gerstle and Mollenkopf 2001; Levitt 2008; Putnam
2007). The United States has historically enjoyed high levels of civic engage-
ment compared with its western European counterparts, a pattern sometimes re-
ferred to as “American exceptionalism” (Howard et al. 2005; Tocqueville [1835]
2003). Although there has been a slight decline in participation rates over the
past few decades, recent data suggest a rebound, with the number of volunteers in
the United States (64.3 million) reaching its highest level in five years and
nearly half (44.1 percent) of all Americans participating in civic, religious, and/
or school organizations (Corporation for National and Community Service
2012).
Some contend these activities are far more significant to American citizen-
ship than other measures of integration because they require conscious, concert-
ed effort that goes beyond merely taking part in American popular culture
(Nickels 2007; Putnam and Campbell 2010). This effort is particularly evident
among immigrants, many of whom originate from countries where support for
civic engagement is either lower than in the United States or discouraged alto-
gether (Levitt 2008; Zahedi 2011). The importance of civic engagement lies in
its relationship to democracy-building; it is seen as a critical means to develop in-
dividuals’ abilities to participate in the social, economic, and political realms. As
Gam and Putnam (2001:173) state, “. . . no aspect of American democracy has
been more celebrated than the long-standing proclivity of Americans to join vol-
untary associations.”
Nowhere is this proclivity more pronounced than in the arena of religion. In
one of the most comprehensive analyses of religion and public life, Putnam and
Campbell (2010) find that religious Americans are more generous with their
time and money than secular ones. Studies of church-going Protestants and
other Christian groups similarly find that religion has a stronger influence on vol-
unteering behavior than any other factor, including education, income, and age
(Bekkers and Wiepking 2011; Borgonovi 2008). Some explain the enduring rela-
tionship between religion and civic engagement in terms of capital accumula-
tion, pointing out that religious activities are a form of cultural capital that
encourages the acquisition of additional capital—capital that can be acquired
through civic engagement (Putnam and Campbell 2010). Others see participa-
tion in religious organizations as offering individuals access to social networks
that in turn encourage voluntary activities (Peifer 2010; Putnam 2000). For
 GENDER, RELIGIOUS IDENTITY, AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT 33
immigrant groups, civic engagement can be a useful tool for securing and ad-
vancing the rights of their communities, and immigrant congregations are an im-
portant location where these skills are crafted (Kniss and Numrich 2007). Two
large studies of religion and immigrant integration found that congregations pro-
moted the civic involvement of their members as a mechanism to combat cultur-
al dissonance and manage the demands of competing citizenship identities
(Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000; Kniss and Numrich 2007). Others have found the op-

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posite, with immigrant congregations dampening civic engagement by reinforc-
ing prior socialization experiences in the home country that discouraged public
sphere engagement (Aparacio 2010; Read and Oselin 2008).

THE MUSLIM AMERICAN CASE

Although there have been numerous studies on the civic engagement of

various U.S. immigrant and religious groups, very few have concentrated on
Arab Muslims (Brettell and Reed-Danahay 2012; Kniss and Numrich 2007). The
Arab Muslim case is an interesting one for several reasons. Substantively, the
question of integration permeates the majority of public and political discourse
on Arab and Muslim communities but remains understudied empirically. This is
partly due to population size and dispersion; estimates of Arabs in America range
from 1 to 3 million, with roughly half being of Muslim heritage and half of
Eastern Christian descent. Estimates of Muslims in America range anywhere
from 2 to 8 million, with a large portion being of South Asian (not Arab)
descent (Read 2008). This puts the Arab Muslim population somewhere
between 1.5 and 2 million—a mere 0.008 percent of the total U.S. population.
Arab Muslims are also residentially dispersed throughout major U.S. metropoli-
tan areas, making them hard to identify, less accessible to researchers, and diffi-
cult to capture in national-level data.
These factors also contribute to the fact that public sentiment toward
Muslims has remained fairly negative and surprisingly stable in the decade fol-
lowing the 9/11 terrorist attacks—a decade that has seen the emergence of a
well-organized and vocal Islamophobia movement (Bail 2012; Bakalian and
Bozorgmehr 2009). Intergroup contact is one of the most effective methods for
countering stereotypes, and many Americans have either not interacted with a
Muslim or not known an individual was Muslim during the interaction.2 The
result has been a general lack of understanding about Islam and Muslims and a
sense of unease with their presence in the United States. Nationwide polls find
that 59 percent of Americans believe that Islam is very different from their own
religion, even though 66 percent admit that they know very little or nothing
about Islam (Pew Research Center 2006). Because some Arab Muslim women

2
Personal communication with Muslim professionals over the past decade (e.g., doctors,
dentists, lawyers), many of whom say their clients rarely know they are Muslim.
34 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

choose to wear the hijab (for cultural and religious reasons), anti-Muslim senti-
ment often seems to focus on them, depicting them as oppressed, uneducated,
and disengaged from the public sphere (Haddad et al. 2006; Zahedi 2011). These
sentiments have not gone unnoticed by Muslim Americans: a majority (53
percent) report that it has become more difficult to be a Muslim in the United
States since 9/11, and most (55 percent) believe that the government singles out
Muslims for increased surveillance and monitoring (Pew Research Center 2011).

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Arab Muslims have felt especially vulnerable, in part because the 9/11 acts were
carried out by Arab Muslims and the subsequent U.S. war on terror focused on
Iraq as much as Afghanistan. Arab Muslims have also had a long history dealing
with anti-Arab stereotypes in the west, many of which continue to be used by
anti-Muslim organizations to amplify their Islamophobic messages (Bail 2012;
Shaheen 2009).
Together, these figures signal an environment that may create obstacles to
community engagement for Arab Muslims, yet little is known about their actual
levels of engagement. In addition, very little is known about women’s civic en-
gagement relative to men’s. We know that women in the United States generally
provide more help to others and are more charitable with their time and money
when compared with men (Mesch et al. 2006). Existing studies on Arab Muslims
suggest potentially different patterns and offer competing hypotheses for women’s
public sphere engagement. On the one hand, gender traditionalism and sex-role
differentiation is much more pronounced in Arab and Muslim countries, and
women’s participation in the public realm is relatively low throughout the
Middle East, which may translate to the U.S. context (Read 2004). Women’s
primary responsibility is to the family and the home, and they are held account-
able for upholding family honor through chastity and modesty. As such, Arab
Muslim women in the United States, especially immigrant women, may lack the
knowledge, experience, resources, and/or desire to participate in the public
realm. In this scenario, we might expect Arab Muslim women to have low levels
of civic involvement, or at minimum, lower levels than Arab Muslim men.
In contrast, there are numerous reasons to expect Arab Muslim women to
have high levels of civic engagement, or at least levels that equal their male
counterparts. First, research in the United States and other western democracies
consistently finds that women tend to be more charitable and donate more time
and money than do their male counterparts, regardless of the charitable activity
or organization in question and net of other background factors that might influ-
ence their behaviors, such as education, income, and age (Mesch et al. 2006;
Piper and Schnepf 2008). Explanations for these patterns point to childhood
socialization, where girls are rewarded for being nurturing while boys are admon-
ished for the same behaviors. For Arab Muslims, this may translate into greater
female participation in community activities to build the family’s social and cul-
tural capital (Read and Oselin 2008). Studies also find a stronger association
between religion and civic engagement for U.S. women than U.S. men, in part
because women on average are more religiously active than men (Bekkers and
 GENDER, RELIGIOUS IDENTITY, AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT 35
Wiepking 2011). In the Middle East context, Muslim men are far more active and
involved in the mosque than are women; women either do not attend the mosque
at all or they stay in a separate area away from the men and Imam. In the United
States, however, women are much more involved in the mosque because it plays a
central role in the economic, social, and cultural adaptation of the immigrant com-
munity (Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000; Jamal 2005; Read and Oselin 2008).
Second, research on U.S. immigrant communities finds high rates of civic

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engagement among women, which may also be the case for Arab Muslims. For
example, Terriquez (2012) finds that immigrant Latina mothers are just as civi-
cally engaged as U.S.-born white mothers and their U.S.-born Latina counter-
parts once differences in socioeconomic status are considered. Socioeconomic
status is critical because immigrants who are more highly educated and affluent
are better able to navigate in the unfamiliar surroundings of the host country and
overcome obstacles to civic engagement (Brettell and Reed-Danahay 2012;
Portes and Rumbaut 2006). This may be especially important for understanding
the Arab Muslim case, since a large majority migrated to the United States as
skilled professionals or as university students sent abroad by their affluent families
(Brittingham and De la Cruz 2005; Suleiman 1999).
On the other hand, past research on Arab-American women has found that
high levels of educational attainment do not necessarily translate into outcomes
that are typically found among other groups of women with high attainment
levels (Read 2004). For example, the well-established positive relationship
between education and employment among U.S. women is much less evident for
Arab Americans, in part because they view education as a resource to be used in
the home instead of the labor market (Read and Cohen 2007; Read and Oselin
2008). This may also be the case for civic engagement if Arab Muslim women
(and men) feel that civic engagement detracts from their familial responsibilities.
One study suggests mixed evidence on this point, with some Muslim women re-
treating from civic life in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and others embracing
it as a way to challenge negative perceptions of their communities (Zahedi
2011). Whether or how different aspects of religious identity factored into these
patterns is unclear, which brings us to a final critical component in analyzing
Arab Muslim civic engagement.
Specifically, there are distinct dimensions of Muslim religious identity that
may either encourage or suppress Muslim participation in western civil societies.
Read (2007) provides a useful typology in her work on religion and political par-
ticipation by identifying subjective, organizational, and political dimensions of
Muslim identity. The subjective dimension refers to the more internalized, person-
al aspects of religious beliefs; the organizational dimension captures more external
involvement in the mosque and mosque-related activities; and the political di-
mension refers to attitudes regarding whether or not the Imam and mosque should
vocalize views on politics. Each of these dimensions may be positively or nega-
tively associated with civic engagement depending on the specific interpretation
of Islamic teachings. Islam literally means “a strong commitment to God,” and
36 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

like many faith traditions, is a lived religion that requires daily practice and com-
mitment (Denny 2010; Esposito and Mogahed 2008). Normative Islam, as
defined by the sharia, requires that Muslims engage in consistent religious prac-
tice and adherence to behavioral expectations that are collectively referred to as
the five pillars of Islam (Denny 2010). The pillars include: (1) shahada, declaring
there is no god except God (Allah) and Muhammad is God’s messenger; (2) salat,
ritual prayer five times a day; (3) sawm, fasting and self-control during the holy

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month of Ramadan; (4) zakat, giving 2.5 percent of one’s savings to the poor and
needy; and (5) hajj, pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime if at all possi-
ble. However, similar to other religious traditions, there is a great deal of varia-
tion in the degree to which Muslims enact this idealized version of Islam, ranging
from the most devout to those who are Muslim in name only.
Such diversity suggests opposing possibilities for the relationship between re-
ligiosity and Muslim American civic engagement. On the one hand, individuals
with strong personal connections to Islamic values may be more civically
engaged, as may those who are involved in organized mosque activities where
they are surrounded by like-minded individuals reinforcing these values and en-
couraging engagement. Muslims who favor the engagement of their mosques and
mosque leaders in politics may also be more civically active, as past research on
other ethno-religious communities finds that the more politicized the leadership,
the more civically engaged its members (Foley and Hoge 2007). On the other
hand, there are divergent interpretations of the sharia by Muslim clergy and
ongoing debates regarding the extent to which Muslims should engage in
western society (Altheimer 2013; Khan 2003). Some urge Muslims to refrain
from participating in non-Muslim organizations because they argue that doing so
would result in the adoption of immoral beliefs and practices (e.g., drinking, pre-
marital/nonmarital sex, excessive mixing of genders) and loss of religious purity.
Others contend that civic engagement is an essential part of a Muslim’s duty to
the umma, or global community (Denny 2010). Religious views on appropriate
gender relations in the west are also contested. Strict interpretations of Islamic
scripture allot men control over the public sphere and ordain women to the
home and family, while more progressive ones promote a more equal gender divi-
sion of labor to meet the social and economic realities of daily life (Read 2004).
As such, religious orthodoxy could either discourage or encourage civic engage-
ment. If individuals follow strict interpretations that prohibit active involvement
in non-Muslim institutions, then they will be less likely to participate in civic
life. In contrast, Islamic principles can also be interpreted in ways that promote,
even require, community involvement. For example, in his book on environmen-
tal activism, Abdul-Matin (2010) argues that protecting the planet is deeply em-
bedded in the Muslim tradition and a duty of Muslims to do so.
In sum, there are competing theories regarding the extent to which Arab
Muslims are engaged in American civic life. The literature on women’s participa-
tion is even less clear, and the degree to which religion factors into the equation
is relatively unknown. As described above, there is a great deal of heterogeneity
 GENDER, RELIGIOUS IDENTITY, AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT 37
in how Muslims live out Islam, which may differentially shape their civic partici-
pation. Accordingly, the analysis sets out to examine these issues systematically,
focusing on the following three questions: (1) to what extent are Arab Muslims
engaged in civic life?; (2) to what degree does this vary for men and women?; and
(3) to what extent do different dimensions of Islam influence their participation?

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METHODS

Data
The analysis draws on data from two national telephone surveys of Muslim
Americans conducted in the aftermath of 9/11. The surveys were administered by
Zogby International in the fall of 2001 and 2004 in conjunction with Georgetown
University’s Project MAPS: Muslim Americans in Public Spaces. Phone interviews
were conducted with persons nationwide who were 18 years or older and who iden-
tified themselves as Muslim. The telephone list was created by matching the zip
codes of 300 randomly selected Islamic centers against their respective local tele-
phone exchanges. Listings of common Muslim surnames were then identified from
the local telephone exchanges to create the sampling frame. The margin of sam-
pling error for each survey is +2.3 percent. This study focuses specifically on Arab
respondents, who numbered 514 in the 2001 survey and 642 in the 2004 survey for
a combined sample size of 1,156. The data sets are combined due to the small
sample sizes of Arabs in each of the separate files. Ancillary analysis finds similar
results when the regression models are run on each of the data sets separately, and
merging them makes the findings more robust.
There are several advantages to using the survey data. First, they are immensely
valuable given the lack of national information on Muslim Americans; most na-
tional data sets contain too few Muslims for meaningful analysis (e.g., General
Social Survey) or do not contain questions on religion (e.g., U.S. Census). The
lack of such data has limited our knowledge to case studies of Muslim American
communities, which, while useful, have obscured the diversity that characterizes
this group because concentrated communities tend to be more homogeneous than
the population at large with respect to nativity, religiosity, socioeconomic status,
and other characteristics known to influence civic engagement. Second, although
the survey data have been used to produce informative reports, few studies have
used them to systematically analyze the experiences of Arab Muslims on several
important outcomes. Third, although the data are becoming a bit dated, they
remain one of the only sources for systematic analysis of Muslim American experi-
ence. There have been more recent polls conducted by the Pew Research Center,
but these do not contain the depth and breadth of information included in the
MAPS surveys, nor are they publicly available for analysis.
Measures
The primary dependent variable is civic engagement. Similar to past re-
search, I use a scaled item that combines responses (1, yes; 0, no) to eight secular
38 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

community activities (Howard et al. 2005). Specifically, respondents were asked

if they had ever donated time, money, or been an officer at any of the following:
(1) school or youth programs (such as day-care centers, PTA, scouts, or little
league); (2) arts or cultural organization (such as public TV stations, museums);
(3) neighborhood, civic, or community group (such as a block club, neighbor-
hood watch); (4) organization to help the poor, sick, elderly, or homeless; (5)
professional organization; (6) trade or labor unions; (7) veteran’s or military

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service organization; and (8) ethnic organization. The scale ranges from 0 to 8
with a mean score of 3.2 and Cronbach’s a of 0.714, demonstrating a high level
of internal consistency and inter-item validity. In addition to the scale, the anal-
ysis also includes an examination of gender differences in specific community
activities. In ancillary analyses not shown here, I also parse out differences by
type of involvement (e.g., donating time versus donating money) and found sub-
stantively similar results and/or too few cases for meaningful analyses.
The primary independent variables are gender (1, female; 0, male) and religi-
osity. Following past research, I separate religiosity into three components that
tap distinct aspects of religious identity (Read 2007). The first component is sub-
jective religious identity, which is measured with three variables that are combined
into a scale (importance of religion in daily life, frequency of prayer, and impor-
tance of Islam). The scale that has a high internal validity (Cronbach’s a ¼
0.709) and is coded to represent high religiosity. The second component is politi-
cal religious identity, which is gauged with two dummy variables that measure fa-
vorability toward mosques expressing views on politics and toward religious
leaders discussing politics and political candidates in the mosque (1, strongly
favor/favor; 0, all else). The final component is organizational religious identity,
which is measured with two dummy variables that tap the degree of mosque par-
ticipation (1, attend mosque once a week or more; 0, all else; 1, very involved in
mosque activities; 0, all else).
Past research indicates that community involvement is also related to indi-
vidual characteristics such as age, education, and socioeconomic status. Age and
education enhance one’s civic skills, social connections, and civic values,
thereby increasing the likelihood of civic participation (Mesch et al. 2006).
Likewise, income increases one’s ability to donate money and time due to wealth
and greater flexibility in leisure time. Therefore, the models control for age (in
years), education (Bachelor’s degree and higher, 1; less than Bachelor’s degree, 0),
and household income ($75,000/year or greater, 1; less than $75,000/year, 0).
Nativity is also known to influence civic engagement, with newer immigrants
typically having less time to invest in the accumulation of social capital than
native-born Americans or immigrants with longer duration of residency (Gerstle
and Mollenkopf 2001). Thus, I include three variables to compare immigrants
with different durations of U.S. residency with native-born Arab Muslims (less
than 10 years, 10–19 years, and 20 years and greater). Finally, the analysis includes
a measure of political consciousness to account for the possibility that political
mobilization among Arab Muslims in the post-9/11 era may be contributing to
 GENDER, RELIGIOUS IDENTITY, AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT 39
involvement in other community activities as well (Jamal and Naber 2008).
Political consciousness is measured with four items: (1) importance of participat-
ing in politics; (2) importance of children participating in politics; (3) frequency
of discussing politics with family and friends; and (4) degree to which govern-
ment and public affairs are followed. These items are combined into a political
consciousness scale ranging from 2 to 10, with high internal validity (Cronbach’s
a ¼ 0.694).

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RESULTS

Gender Differences in Arab Muslim Civic Engagement

The analysis first determines the degree to which Arab Muslim men and
women differ in their civic engagement and then examines possible factors that
might explain observed differences. Table 1 shows that Arab Muslims are highly
engaged in their communities, particularly in programs to help the young, the
elderly, or the homeless—groups who are most often in need. Over one-half are
involved in school and youth programs and nearly three-fourths are involved in
organizations for the needy—figures that mirror those found in the broader U.S.
population (Corporation for National and Community Service 2012). These
numbers are not driven by men’s participation alone: women have similar overall
levels of participation and do not differ significantly from men in three of the
eight categories of organizations (those that help the needy; ethnic organizations;
and veteran’s/military organization). However, they do differ in arenas where we
might expect to find gender to matter, namely in professional, trade, and civic/
neighborhood organizations where women participate less, and in school/youth
organizations where they participate more.
Table 1 next examines factors that might account for similarities and dif-
ferences in men’s and women’s civic engagement, namely religiosity, socioeco-
nomic status, and demographic characteristics, all of which are known to
contribute to the civic engagement of Americans more generally. Looking first at
religion, we see that women appear more religious than men in terms of the sub-
jective or personal dimensions of religiosity: they are more likely to pray five
times daily, to believe that religion is very important, and to say that Islam is a
salient force in their daily lives. In terms of the more organized dimensions of re-
ligious identity, we see that men and women are more similar except in terms of
mosque attendance. Men are twice as likely as women to attend the mosque
more than once per week (23.2 compared with 11.2 percent), which in part re-
flects the fact that men are technically incumbent to attend Friday prayers and
are much more likely to do so than women in their home countries (Margoliouth
2003). However, men and women engage in other mosque activities at roughly
the same rate, with 9.4 and 9.6 percent saying they are “very involved” on a
weekly basis. With respect to political dimensions of religiosity, men and women
are similar in their opinions on mosques expressing views on politics (57.1 and
40 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

TABLE 1 Descriptive Statistics, MAPS (N ¼ 1,156)

Women Men x2
(N ¼ 445) (N ¼ 711)
Civic engagement
Scale (mean, ranges 0 – 8) 3.9 4.0 NS
School or youth programs 67.2 60.9 *

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†
Trade or labor unions 12.8 15.5
Professional organizations 36.6 46.8 *
†
Neighborhood, civic, or community group 37.3 43.0
†
Arts or cultural organization 34.9 39.0
Organization to help the poor, sick, elderly, or 74.4 75.5 NS
homeless
Ethnic organizations 32.8 33.1 NS
Veteran’s or military service organizations 19.3 21.2 NS
Religiosity
Subjective religiosity
Pray all five salahs daily 59.6 43.9 **
Religion very important 85.4 68.9 **
Role of Islam very important in guiding daily life 82.2 71.2 **
Organizational religiosity
Very involved in mosque activities 9.4 9.6 NS
Attend mosque more than once/week 11.2 23.2 **
Political religiosity
Mosques should express views on politics 57.1 60.3 NS
Imams should be allowed to discuss politics at 38.4 45.3 *
mosque
Background factors
Foreign-born 73.0 87.6 **
U.S. resident ,10 years 15.4 9.6 *
U.S. resident 10– 19 years 32.6 26.5 *
U.S. resident 20 years or more 53.6 63.9 *
Bachelor’s education or higher 51.9 70.7 **
Family income $75,000 or higher 23.1 38.5 **
Political consciousness scale (mean scores, ranges 7.61 8.03 *
2 – 10)
Age in years (mean) 38.5 45.0 **

x 2 indicates significant differences at †p  .1; *p  .05; **p  .01; NS, not significant.

60.3 percent think they should, respectively) but differ in their beliefs on the role
of Imams. Here, men are significantly more likely (45.3 percent) than women
(38.4 percent) to say that Imams should be allowed to discuss politics at the
mosque. This may translate into higher rates of engagement for men, given the
 GENDER, RELIGIOUS IDENTITY, AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT 41
well-established relationship between support for politicized leadership and civic
engagement among other groups (Foley and Hoge 2007).
In terms of background factors, men are older, slightly more likely to be im-
migrants to the United States and more likely to have a longer duration of U.S.
residency, in part due to social and economic factors that send men ahead of
women in the migration process. Similar to findings from past research, table 1
also shows high levels of educational attainment and family income among men

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and women, with percentages slightly higher for men (Brittingham and De la
Cruz 2005; Read 2004, 2013). In line with their socioeconomic profiles, both
men and women have fairly high levels of political consciousness.

When Religion Matters . . . and When It Does Not

A central goal of this study is to assess religion’s association with civic en-
gagement. Table 2 (column A) examines this relationship in the multivariate
context using the scaled measure of civic engagement as the primary outcome.
Model 1 shows that women (20.109†) are slightly less engaged in civic activities
than men, net of differences in age and immigrant status, which should be ex-
pected, given the descriptive statistics in table 1. The results also show that
newer immigrant arrivals are less engaged than more established residents, which
likely reflects the fact that they are less familiar with their communities and have
other time-consuming commitments related to becoming settled in a new envi-
ronment (Gerstle and Mollenkopf 2001).
The most important finding in Column A concerns the relationship between
religious identity and civic engagement (model 2). Here, we see varying degrees
of association depending on the dimension of religious identity in question.
Specifically, subjective religiosity is not significantly associated with civic en-
gagement, while organizational religiosity increases the likelihood of being civi-
cally active. Although political religiosity appears to be insignificant for civic
engagement, ancillary analyses finds that it operates by increasing political con-
sciousness, which, in turn, encourages civic engagement. The fact that the more
personal or internalized aspects of Muslim religious identity are unrelated to
civic engagement is important because it indicates that Islam is not inherently
restrictive of participation in American life (Khan 2003). The fact that the more
organizational dimensions are positively related to civic engagement mirrors
findings for other U.S. groups. Moreover, the addition of religious identity partly
explains differences in civic engagement between men and women seen in
model 1, suggesting that different processes may be at play for each of these
groups.
Accordingly, tables 2 and 3 provide more in-depth examinations of gender
differences in civic engagement with the use of separate (fully interactive)
models for men and women, first looking at the scaled item for civic engagement
(Column B, table 2) and then looking individually at the five organizations in
which men and women differ in their participation (table 3). Several interesting
findings emerge from these analyses. First, Column B shows that subjective
42 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

TABLE 2 OLS Regression Coefficients for Arab Muslim Civic Engagement, MAPS
(N ¼ 1,156)a

Column A Column B

Model 1 Model 2 Women Men

† †
Female 20.109 0.192 — —

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(0.125) (0.123)
High subjective religiosity (low 20.031 20.086† 20.011
religiosity)b (0.024) (0.044) (0.028)
Organizational religiosity
Attend mosque once a week or 0.278* 0.043 0.326†
more (.158) (.297) (.191)
Very involved in mosque 0.391* 0.258 0.471*
activities (.202) (.320) (.263)
Political religiosity
Mosques should express views on 0.147 0.218 0.073
politics (0.126) (0.200) (0.165)
Okay for Imams to discuss politics 0.177 0.285 0.115
in mosque (0.124) (0.202) (0.159)
Bachelor’s degree or higher 0.384** 0.356* 0.401*
(0.127) (0.191) (0.171)
Family income .$75,000/year 0.445** 0.222 0.536**
(0.130) (0.233) (0.160)
Political consciousness scale 0.288** 0.256** 0.310**
(0.032) (0.049) (0.043)
Nativity (U.S.-born)b
FB, U.S. resident ,10 years 21.187** 20.825** 21.028** 20.644*
(0.239) (0.227) (0.329) (0.324)
FB, U.S. resident 10– 19 years 20.673** 20.536** 20.524** 20.473†
(0.187) (0.176) (0.260) (0.251)
FB, U.S. resident 20 years or more 20.061 20.106 20.127 20.048
(0.186) (0.174) (0.257) (0.247)
Constant 3.344** 0.766† 1.888** 0.359
Adjusted R 2 0.352 0.468

a
All models control for age and region of residence.
b
Reference categories.
†
p  .10; *p  .05; **p  .01.

religiosity remains unimportant for men’s overall level of civic engagement

(20.011) but has a slightly negative effect on women’s (20.086†). This may
reflect the fact that strict interpretations of all mono-theistic religions endorse a
gendered division of labor, thus women may feel that it is more important to
engage in the private, familial realm rather than the public one. While these
 GENDER, RELIGIOUS IDENTITY, AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT 43
TABLE 3 Gender Differences in Religion and Civic Engagement, MAPS (N ¼ 1,156)a

Women Men
School or youth programs
High subjective religiosity NS þ
Attend mosque more than 1/week NS NS
Very involved in mosque activities NS þ

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Mosques should express political views NS NS
Okay for imams to discuss politics in mosque NS NS
Trade organizations
High subjective religiosity NS NS
Attend mosque more than 1/week þ NS
Very involved in mosque activities NS NS
Mosques should express political views þ NS
Okay for imams to discuss politics in mosque NS NS
Professional organizations
High subjective religiosity NS NS
Attend mosque more than 1/week þ þ
Very involved in mosque activities NS þ
Mosques should express political views NS NS
Okay for imams to discuss politics in mosque þ NS
Arts or cultural organization
High subjective religiosity 2 2
Attend mosque more than 1/week NS NS
Very involved in mosque activities NS þ
Mosques should express political views NS NS
Okay for imams to discuss politics in mosque NS NS
Neighborhood, civic, or community group
High subjective religiosity NS NS
Attend mosque more than 1/week NS þ
Very involved in mosque activities þ NS
Mosques should express political views NS NS
Okay for imams to discuss politics in mosque þ NS

“NS,” not significant. “þ,” positive association (*p , .05). “2,” negative association
(*p , .05).
a
Significance levels from logistic regression models that control for age, education, nativ-
ity, and region.

data are not well suited to test this possibility explicitly, prior qualitative research
on Arab Muslims indicates that this may very well be the case (e.g., Read and
Oselin 2008). The idea is further supported by the fact that the organizational di-
mensions of religiosity have a significant impact on men’s civic engagement but
not on women’s. Specifically, attending the mosque more than once a week in-
creases men’s civic involvement (0.326†), as does being very involved in other
mosque activities (0.471*). Again, this may be picking up on the different
44 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

messages that men and women receive at the mosque regarding appropriate roles
in the public and private realms. Moreover, these findings hold net of other
factors known to shape civic engagement such as socioeconomic status. Here, we
see that having a bachelor’s degree or more is positively associated with civic par-
ticipation for both men (0.401**) and women (0.356**), while family income is
only important for men’s participation (0.536**). This may reflect the fact that
men are more likely than women to be employed, and thus the income effect is

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more directly tied to their experiences in the labor market.
Finally, table 3 assesses gender differences in the relationship between reli-
gion and civic engagement separately for each of the five organizations in which
men and women differed in table 1. As seen in table 1, women are more active
than men in school and youth programs but less active in trade/labor unions, pro-
fessional organizations, neighborhood/civic groups, and arts/cultural organiza-
tions. For simplicity, the table uses the following symbols to indicate whether or
not the relationship is significant, and if so, in what direction: “NS” is not signifi-
cant, “þ” means a positive association ( p , .05), and “2” means a negative as-
sociation ( p , .05). Three findings are particularly striking. First, many of the
dimensions of religious identity are not significantly related to civic engagement
for either men or women. This may partly reflect small sample sizes since there is
less variation in the outcome to predict than when using the scaled measure of
civic engagement and all of the models include age, socioeconomic status, and
nativity because each is known to be associated with both religiosity and civic ac-
tivity. Second, to the extent that religion matters, the association is generally
positive, but the actual dimension that matters varies by gender and specific form
of engagement. For example, subjective religiosity and involvement in mosque
activities is linked with greater levels of men’s involvement in school and youth
programs but has no significant impact on women’s. Women’s involvement is
already high (67.2 percent) and may be driven by other factors, such as family
structure and employment. Third, the negative association between subjective
religiosity and civic engagement seen in table 2 emerges for women once more,
but only for arts and cultural programs. It is also negative for men on this
outcome. This likely links back to the fact that the depiction of all humans and
animals is discouraged in the hadith and figurative art (humans and animals) is
forbidden by the sharia.

CONCLUSION

Despite the increasing heterogeneity of America’s ethnic and religious land-

scape, some populations remain relatively lesser known and often misunderstood.
Such has been the case with Arab Muslims, a group at the intersection of ethnic-
ity, religion, immigration, and public discourse. The goal of this article was to
contribute to ongoing scholarly efforts to contextualize the experiences of this
group within a broader historical framework. To that end, the analysis examined
 GENDER, RELIGIOUS IDENTITY, AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT 45
the civic participation of Arab Muslims as a way to assess their level of integra-
tion and participation in American society. The empirical focus was three-fold,
focusing on overall rates of civic engagement, gender differences in engagement,
and religion’s association with participation.
In terms of overall rates, the results indicate that Arab Muslims are actively
involved in civic organizations and have participation rates that equal those of
the general U.S. population (Corporation for National and Community Service

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2012). Although men’s and women’s overall rates of engagement are quite
similar, some notable distinctions emerge when the type of organization is con-
sidered. Specifically, men appear more involved in organizations tied to the eco-
nomic realm (e.g., trade and labor unions), and women more active in those
connected to family life (e.g., school and youth programs). One might be
tempted to interpret these findings as supporting stereotypes of Arab Muslim
families as inegalitarian; however, these patterns are not unique to Arab Muslims
and can be found among other U.S. groups as well (for a review, see Cicognani
et al. 2012).
One of the more interesting findings of this study concerns the relationship
between religious identity and civic engagement. A common presumption is that
Islam, itself, is oppositional to democracy and western ideals of equality, and thus
represents a major obstacle to Muslim integration. The results indicate that the
relationship is not so straightforward and depends on the specific aspect of reli-
gious identity in question, the specific type of community organization, and on
gender. Organizational dimensions of religious identity have an overall positive
effect on civic engagement, which is similar to findings for other U.S. groups.
The political dimensions of religious identity also increase civic engagement, but
they do so by enhancing political consciousness which in turn promotes commu-
nity involvement. Again, important gender distinctions emerged between reli-
gious identity and civic engagement, with a weaker and sometimes negative link
between the two for women in terms of subjective religiosity. These findings indi-
cate that religion generally operates to increase civic engagement for Arab
Muslims but does so in different ways for men and women.
This study is not without limitations. As with most survey data, the responses
are based on self-reports, which introduces the possibility of desirability bias in
respondents’ accounts of their civic engagement. However, a central goal of this
study was to examine gender differences in engagement, and there is no evidence
to suggest that any potential bias would vary by gender. Second, because the
MAPS project focused exclusively on Muslims, a comparison of religious differ-
ences in civic engagement between Arab Muslims and Arab Christians is not
possible. Studies on Arab Christians indicate a largely assimilated population
with a longer history of settlement in the United States than Arab Muslims,
making them less of a target for concerns over integration (e.g., Baker et al.
2009). Finally, while the data represent one of the only sources of national-level
data on Arab Muslims, they are becoming somewhat dated. The experiences of
Arab Muslims in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks may look different today. To
46 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

the extent that they may differ, community-based studies suggest that their levels
of involvement may be on the rise, as more and more Muslims mobilize to
address their lack of representation in civil society (e.g., Zahedi 2011).
Overall, findings from this study validate past research that identifies similari-
ties between Arab Muslim communities and other U.S. populations on a host of
issues, including political participation (Jamal 2005), identity formation (Haddad
2011), economic mobility (Read 2004), and gender relations (Bartkowski and

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Read 2003). At the same time, discrimination and prejudice toward Muslims
remains high (Bail 2012; Williams 2011), and new research is needed to avoid
overstating the positive integration of these groups. Indeed, recent studies docu-
ment emerging signs of discontent among second-generation Arab and Muslim
youth, all of whom are U.S. citizens and most of whom have grown up in a context
of identity conflict (Bakalian and Bozorgmehr 2009; Baker et al. 2009; Ewing
2008). It is unclear whether this younger generation will follow in the footsteps of
their post-1965 predecessors, many of whom channeled their grievances into advo-
cacy groups that promoted civic integration. Continued animosity toward Arab
and Muslim populations may very well alter their integration trajectories and
require new frameworks to depict accurately their place in American society.

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