Good Diversity, Bad Diversity? Muslim Youth and Multiple Understandings of Religion in Plural Societies

In European diversity discourses, it is negotiated both as a social reality and as a normative value. This gives rise to hierarchies between “good” and “bad” diversity. Religious affiliation, especially Muslim visibility, functions as a marker around which recognition, normality, and security are negotiated. This paper examines how such distinctions are translated into institutional expectations and what they mean for Muslim youth’s multiple understandings of religion. “Orientation” is understood as a situational competence that arises from the interplay of agency, recognition orders and institutional frameworks. It focuses on how Muslim youth interpret religious content, reinterpret traditions and negotiate questions of belonging, normativity, and lived practice within Islam. Orientation is also a process of theological and religious self-positioning. This paper is linked to Ulvi Karagedik's presentation on Islamic religious education, while extending it through a focus on youth orientation processes and intra-Islamic negotiations of religion.