American Muslim Poll 2017
American Muslim Poll 2017: Full Report
March 21, 2017,American Muslim Poll 2017: Muslims at the Crossroads offers a timely and groundbreaking look into the American Muslim community. From early on in a deeply divisive presidential election cycle until today, American Muslims have been at the center of heated social and political debates. One byproduct...
American Muslim Poll 2017: Key Findings
March 21, 2017,This is a summary of the key findings of ISPU’s American Muslim Poll 2017: Muslims at the Crossroads, a poll which offers a timely and groundbreaking look into the American Muslim community. From early on in a deeply divisive presidential election cycle until today, American...
Supplementary Documents
American Muslim Women by the Numbers
Poll Launch Recording
Go Deeper into American Muslim Poll 2017
Infographics
Muslim Women Suffer, Resist, Defy Stereotypes Most
August 25, 2017,
Muslims are the most ethnically diverse and youngest faith community surveyed.
Muslims face similar social challenges as other American faith groups.
Muslims are less politically engaged, but equally invested in the country’s welfare.
Muslims disproportionately feel the negative effect of the current political climate.
Muslims respond to prejudice with resilience and solidarity.
Muslim women defy stereotypes, suffer, and resist the most.
Why This Report?
From early on in a deeply divisive presidential election cycle until today, American Muslims have been at the center of heated social and political debates. One byproduct of this increased salience is an uptick in negatively charged rhetoric and discriminatory acts. Conversely, there has also been an outpouring of support and solidarity (particularly following the election of Donald Trump) aimed not just at Muslims already in the United States, but also toward those who yearn to make America their home. Common across all of these discourses, actions, and reactions, however, is the frequent relegation of Muslims to subjects of consideration. Rarely are Muslims active participants in political dialogue, and even rarer are their attitudes and behaviors systematically examined. The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) American Muslim Poll 2017: Muslims at the Crossroads helps narrow this wide knowledge gap.
In line with ISPU’s core mission, this analysis of the 2017 poll data is designed to help public officials, civil society stakeholders, and other interested parties gain a multi-dimensional understanding of the American Muslim community. We do this in three ways. First, we provide key demographic figures that complement the sparse data on American Muslims. These include tallies of age, race/ethnicity, education, income, and sexual orientation. Second, moving beyond these raw numbers, we elaborate relationships of interest between key variables. These preliminary observations on, for example, education by gender and discrimination by race/ethnicity, will make for more informed contemporary conversations and future research. Third, we compare American Muslim responses with those of other major American faith (and nonfaith) groups, including American Jews, Catholics, Protestants, and non-affiliated Americans (religious communities such as Hindus, Buddhists, and others outside the four largest are too small a percentage of the general public to include in our analysis). Such a cross-group analysis is truly exceptional because few surveys exist that simultaneously gather meaningful data on this mix of populations. This comparison thus provides an empirical foundation for discussions on Muslim “exceptionalism.”
The report is organized into four sections corresponding to different levels of analysis. Starting with the broadest view, the first section is dedicated to issues of intercommunal relations and American Muslim political engagement. Thereafter, we examine intracommunal issues, focusing on race relations and institutional engagement. Next, we turn to the family, presenting statistics on domestic violence and bullying. Finally, we elaborate individual-level experience, highlighting positive and negative fallout from the election.
I refer to ISPU's American Muslim poll when I give public talks on Islamophobia. It helps to nuance the picture of American Muslims and to challenge unfair stereotypes concerning Islam's compatibility with the U.S. Keep up the outstanding work!
– Todd Green, Associate Professor of Religion at Luther College
Media Coverage
AhlulBayt News | Altmuslimah | American Fault/Lines | Arab America | ATTN | Between the Lines with Fatima Salman | Blavity | Bustle | Buzzfeed | Canadian Jewish News | Carbonated.TV | The Centre Star | Change.org | Council on Foreign Relations | The Daily Beast | Detroit Free Press | The Express Tribune | Huffington Post (March 2017) | Huffington Post (June 2017) | Islamic Networks Group – ING | Instant Best News | International Business Times | The Islamic Monthly | KJZZ Radio | Liberal America | Long Island Wins | Mic (June 2017) | Mic (July 2017) | Mission Network News | Muftah | Muslim Girl | The Nation | NBC News | NBC News | neaToday | News.com.au | The News International | The Newtown Bee | New York Magazine | New York Post | NPR (April 2017) | NPR (August 2017) | NYLON | Patheos (June 2017) | Patheos (July 2017) | PBS Newshour | PressTV | Radio Sputnik | Religion News Service | Richmond Times-Dispatch | Romper | Salon | San Francisco Chronicle | Sarasota Magazine | Spanish News Today | Star-Telegram | State of Belief | Teesri Jung | Vocativ | Vox | Washington Jewish Week | WTNH Connecticut News
Meet the Research Team
Dalia Mogahed
Director of Research, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding
Michael Lance
Data Analyst
PhD Education Evaluation and Research
Youssef Chouhoud
Report Co-Author
PhD Candidate and Provost’s Fellow at University of Southern California’s Political Science and International Relations Program
Maryam Jamali
Research Manager, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding
Sarrah Buageila
Project Manager, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding
Stephen McGrath
Communications Manager, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding
Meet the Study Advisors
Karam Dana
PhD Interdisciplinary Near and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Washington
Assistant Professor, University of Washington School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences
David Dutwin
Executive Vice President and Chief Methodologist, SSRS
2016 Conference Chair, AAPOR Executive Council
Research Scholar, Institute for Jewish and Community Research
Rachel M. Gillum
PhD Political Science, Stanford University
Visiting Scholar, Stanford University
Fellow, Association for Analytic Learning about Islam and Muslim Societies
Amaney Jamal
PhD Political Science, University of Michigan
Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics, Princeton University
Director, Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice
Director, Workshop on Arab Political Development
President, Association of Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS)
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