Faculty Research Fellows Lunch with Vicky Fouka

Vicky Fouka: "Political Secularism and Muslim Integration in the West: Evidence from the French Headscarf Ban" 

In recent years, and motivated by rising immigration flows and the fear of terrorism, a number of Western countries have enacted policies to regulate religious expression and emphasize secularism and western values. Restrictions on veiling in public spaces have been a prominent such policy, that disproportionately targets Muslim women. Despite intense public debate around the normative aspect of veiling bans, there is little systematic evidence on how they influence the behavior and choices of the women affected by them. In this project, we use a variety of data sources and techniques for causal inference to assess the impact of these laws on female school enrollment, educational attainment, labor force participation and political and social attitudes.  Research was in conjunction with Aala Abdelgadir, PhD candidate in Political Science.

Vicky Fouka is Assistant Professor of Political Science.