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Online hate speech (OHS) is becoming a serious problem worldwide including in Bangladesh. This study aims to understand the nature of OHS against religious groups and explore its impact on their social life and mental health.

A qualitative approach was followed and 11 in-depth interviews (IDIs) were conducted with the selected OHS victims. This study conducted a semi-structural interview using Google Form following the design questionnaire for selecting IDIs participants.

This study found that religious minorities experience online hatred through online media by the major religious group in Bangladesh. Natures of OHS are commenting on social media posts, sharing hateful memes and sending private messages using slang language targeting religious identity, religious food habits and ethnic identities. Victims were offended, abused and bullied by unknown persons, their university friends and colleagues. Victims of OHS did not take any action against it due to fear of insecurity. Victims of OHS felt low-minded, helpless and anxious after the experience of OHS; they felt more insecure and vulnerable socially and mentally.

The findings of this study suggest that policymakers identify the nature of OHS and take proper steps for reducing the frequency of OHS in Bangladesh. To combat the OHS, authorities have to make legal enforcement equal for everyone.

This chapter discusses religious diversity and the religious minority student on the HBCU campus. The author discusses existing literature and research on religious minority college students and the challenges and experiences of religious minorities on campus. The primary purpose of this chapter is to improve HBCU practitioners’ abilities to promote religious pluralism and tolerance of all faiths. Student affairs practitioners must first have a fundamental understanding of who is a religious minority.

This chapter considers the conflicts which arise at the intersection of the free exercise of religion and sexual minority rights in the domains of work and non-work activities. Specifically, by examining the key features of various discrimination cases from the US and UK contexts, the chapter identifies the possible tensions between different minority groups and the negotiation and settlement of their respective interests and entitlements. In an effort to reconcile the seemingly competing claims made for equality, the chapter considers a theoretical middle range within which the existing debates may be addressed through the careful application of Isaiah Berlin’s theory of positive and negative freedoms in public life. The use of Berlin’s theory contributes to the analysis of the justice standing of religious and sexual minority groups, what protections minority groups in conflict must be accorded vis-à-vis each other, and the nature of remedies which should be accorded to each group in theory and practice.

Every employee embodies manifestations of every demographic that attach to him or her different minority and majority statuses at the same time. As these statuses are often related to organizational hierarchies, employees frequently hold positions of dominance and subordination at the same time. Thus, a given individual’s coping strategies (or coping behavior) in terms of minority stress due to organizational processes of hierarchization, marginalization, and discrimination, are very often a simultaneous coping in terms of more than one demographic. Research on minority stress mostly focuses on single demographics representing only single facets of workforce diversity. By integrating the demographics of age, disability status, nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, and religion into one framework, the intersectional model proposed in this chapter broadens the perspective on minorities and related minority stress in the workplace. It is shown that coping with minority stress because of one demographic must always be interpreted in relation to the other demographics. The manifestation of one demographic can limit or broaden one’s coping resources for coping with minority stress because of another dimension. Thus, the manifestation of one demographic can determine the coping opportunities and coping behavior one applies to situations because of the minority status of another demographic. This coping behavior can include disclosure decisions about invisible demographics. Therefore, organizational interventions aiming to create a supportive workplace environment and equal opportunities for every employee (e.g., diversity management approaches) should include more demographics instead of focusing only on few.

The importance of social exclusion and the disadvantage experienced by many minority ethnic and religious populations are rooted in SDG 10. To address this exclusion effectively it is important to understand their key drivers. This paper aimed to establish the key drivers of exclusion and their outcomes in Nigeria.

The methods involved a scoping review of literature and stakeholder workshops that focused on drivers of social exclusion of religious and ethnic minorities in public institutions.

At the macro level, the drivers include ineffective centralized federal State, competition for resources and power among groups, geographic developmental divide and socio-cultural/religious issues. At the meso-level are institutional rules and competition for resources, stereotypes and misconceptions, barriers to access and service provision. At the micro-level are socio-economic status and health-seeking behaviour. The perceived impact of social exclusion included increasing illiteracy, lack of employment, deteriorating health care services, increased social vices, communal clashes and insurgencies and vulnerability to exploitation and humiliation. These drivers must be taken into consideration in the development of interventions for preventing or reducing social exclusion of ethnic and religious minorities from public services.

This is a case of co-production by all the stakeholders and a novel way for the identification of drivers of social exclusion in public services in Nigeria. It is the first step towards solving the problem of exclusion and has implications for the achievement of SDG 10 in Nigeria.

The article is based on a research project using survey data (N=628) and qualitative interviews (N=60) with young people and their parents belonging to the five largest ethnic minority groups in Denmark, along with the experiences of psychosocial services for minority young people. The theoretical framework is social psychological, combining theories of modernisation, family relations and effects of discrimination. The article examines interaction with the parents in relation to their intimate partnership formation and the dynamics of religious endogamy. Main findings are that parents may be either supportive or against the young people, contrary to the dominant discourses about intergenerational conflicts. The continued practice of religious endogamy is another finding. The article criticises the reductionistic dichotomy ‐ either own or parental choice ‐ and appeals for broader concepts which focus both on own choice and parental acceptance. The article also throws light on some strategic services dealing with the problems of ethnic minority young people in forming intimate partnerships in other countries. A model for psychosocial intervention is presented which directs attention to ageism and sexism, as well as racism, at personal, interpersonal and structural levels.

This study aims to explore intergroup relations between two Jewish religious groups in Israel, namely, ultra-Orthodox and national-religious communities, by using an integrated model that combines two psychosocial concepts: perceptions of collective narratives and identity strategies.

Data were collected from a representative sample of 402 ultra-Orthodox and 388 national-religious Jews living in Israel, of age 18 and over. Repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted to examine group differences in perceiving in-group and out-group collective narratives and in patterns of identity strategies. Further, partial correlations and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to test the relative contribution of perceptions of collective narratives and patterns of identity strategies.

Willingness to compete with and to separate from the out-group was related to the tendency to reject its collective narrative while endorsing the in-group one. In the same vein, the opposite pattern was found in the relations between willingness to integrate and unite with the out-group and the perceptions of collective narratives. The results also indicate group differences: the ultra-Orthodox exhibited stronger tendencies to preserve their in-group collective narratives and to reject the out-group, as well as stronger endorsement of identity strategies of competition and separation compared to national-religious.

The results suggest that it might be useful to encourage dialogue between both groups to clarify each side’s narratives and rationale underlying the endorsement of specific identity strategies. Such an open dialogue could help each group understand the other group’s needs and might also reduce their sense of threat as well as anxiety about losing their religious and social uniqueness. One possible opportunity for such dialogue is workplaces in which members of each group can gradually uncover stereotypes, enhancing reconciliation and willingness to accept the “other’s” collective narrative and choose to adhere more to the similar than dissimilar characteristics.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to examine collective narratives and identity strategies as powerful indicators of intergroup relations between two minority groups of the same religion. Within such a unique context, the power struggle exists and the separation and competition strategies are apparent, but the main conflictual issue is related to similarities and discrepancies of religious ideologies, values, norms and worldviews that shape one’s daily life and his/her encounter with the similar but different “other”.

Western liberal states are considered to be secular in nature, with a presumed neutrality of state laws from religious values and norms. However, this claim overlooks the inherent influence that religious groups (namely, dominant Christian churches and groups) have as informal institutions. According to neo-institutionalists, informal institutions, like these religious norms and values, interact with and influence formal state institutions. As such, it could be argued that the norms and values of dominant religious groups within the state have a role in shaping governmental policies and the law. This is evident when examining the debates around multiculturalism and religious freedom that arise in liberal democratic states such as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom (UK). In particular, the recent Sharia debates that have arisen in each of these jurisdictions illustrate that the secular state legal system is often positioned as “neutral” and free from religious influence – and thus incompatible with, and unable to, accommodate the religious orders of minority groups. However, this idea that the state is entirely free from religious values is a fallacy that ignores the historical role and influence of Christian churches in each state. In opposing the accommodation of Sharia in private dispute resolution, common arguments include the inherent patriarchal nature of the religion leading to further oppression and disadvantage of Muslim women when seeking resolution of personal law matters (i.e. divorce and property settlements). The secular state law is positioned against this (and religion more broadly) as the “fair” and “just” alternative for minority women – protector of individual rights. Though this ignores the inherent gender hierarchies embedded within formal state institutions, including the legal system that has been implicitly shaped by religious moral values to varying degrees – where minority women are also faced with a set of gender biases. When combined with the internal pressures from their communities and families this can often place them in a double-bind of disadvantage. In this paper, I draw on feminist institutionalism to examine the informal institutional norms that arise from dominant Christian churches in Australia, Canada, and the UK. In particular, the ways in which these informal norms have influenced the development of state laws, and continue to operate alongside the legal system to shape and influence governmental policies, laws, and ultimately the outcomes for Muslim women.

“Multiculturalism” is a troubled concept, in a political as well as in a scholarly sense. What has triggered this paper is the authors’ experience of the hardships involved in understanding the power structures embedded in societies termed “multicultural”; we find ourselves equipped with a set of conceptual tools that are confusing, and with policy makers that compound that confusion. This presentation takes as its point of departure the tension engendered at the interface between popular democracy ground rules and minority rights, and turns in its second part to current political vocabulary in Norway. Thematically, the discussion moves from the intricacies of “cultural rights” to a closer look at the bias implicit in the benevolent phrase “fair terms of integration.” The suggestion is that hidden underneath the niceties, we find the unavoidable and seemingly unspeakable dilemmas of a welfare state confronted with non-economic, humanitarian principles. Let us be clear about one thing, however; the aim of this presentation is not to solve problems, but to face them.

This chapter is intended to elaborate on the existing academic literature addressing the migration of constitutional ideas. Through an examination of ongoing efforts to enshrine “defamation of religion” as a violation of international human rights, the author confirms that the phenomenon of migration is not restricted to positive constitutional norms, but rather also encompasses negative ideas that ultimately may serve to undermine international and domestic constitutionalism. More specifically, the case study demonstrates that the movement of anti-constitutional ideas is not restricted to the domain of “international security” law, and further, that the vertical axis linking international and domestic law is in fact a two-way channel that permits the transmission of domestic anti-constitutional ideas up to the international level.

In reaching the findings presented herein, the chapter also adds to the universalism–relativism debate by demonstrating that allowances for “plurality consciousness” on the international level may in certain instances undermine fundamental norms previously negotiated and accepted as authoritative by the international community. From this perspective, the movement in favor of prohibiting “defamation of religion” is not merely a case study that helps to expand our understanding of how anti-constitutional ideas migrate, but also indicative of a reenergized campaign to challenge the status, content, and stability of universal human rights norms.