Friendship and gender identity among girls in a multicultural setting in Oslo

The field site

In the Grorud valley, there exist many schools. I had access at Dal school to Forms 5–10. The school had 15–18 nationalities distributed among 460 pupils, where ethnic Norwegians were one of the minority groups. Most families at Dal lived in apartment blocks. The area resembled other places on the outskirts of Oslo city, except that Dal is peopled by a majority of families of foreign origin.

The main methodological approach has been long-term participant observation in the 5th (2010), later 6th, Form and revisits to the 7th, 8th and particularly 9th Forms. The main fieldwork was done in 2010, lasting 6 months, 3 schooldays a week. In 2011, I spent on average 1 day per week. The revisits in the 7th and 8th Forms lasted only 1 week per year, while the fieldwork in the 9th Form lasted for 2 months, 3 hours twice a week. The core of the data is thus from 2010 to 2011, where trust and access were established for the entire period.

Data collection in 2010–2011

The 5th, later 6th, Form (from August 2010) consisted of two parallel classes (A and B) with 21 students in each. This article is only about the children in class A, because the only ethnic Norwegian student (Pernille) in the 5th–6th Form belonged there, as well as one of mixed ethnic Norwegian and West-African background (David). As a whole, 10 countries were represented. About 90% of the children were Muslim, others Christian.

Data for this article are drawn from three interviews with four girls, in groups of two. All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed by the author. The participant observation included participation in everyday school activities, by sitting at the back of classrooms observing, eavesdropping, and writing notes. In the breaks, I walked with the children to the playground, rather than with the teachers to their room. This was to position myself as a non-teacher. By emphasising this position, I experienced that the children gradually relaxed and continued as usual when I was around. My position as an elder, in particular, ethnic Norwegian non-teacher, interested in them as persons, made access and data collection uncomplicated. However, I do suspect that the questions I asked about gender and clothes made them reflect more than before on how they presented and wanted to present themselves.

In addition to participant observation in school, I attended some out-of-school events, such as a football match, a festival, and the celebrations of Norway’s Constitution Day (17 May). I attended one meeting at the school for parents where I introduced myself and the project, by saying I wanted to write about how these children thought about themselves regarding gender and identity. I emphasised that all names and places were changed and anonymised. All of them received a letter of information and a request for permission to include their children in the research. Almost all parents agreed, by returning the letter with signature, to let their children take part in the project. Most children agreed and were eager to ‘talk to Mari’. They often asked whether the ‘book’ was finished soon and, because of my always present notebook, were continuously reminded of me doing research.

Data collection in 2013–2014

In May 2013, I conducted two additional interviews with four children and new observations among the 13-year-olds in the 8th Form. I intensified this in the 9th Form and did three additional interviews with seven girls after new letters were sent home and new permission was achieved from adults and children. This made it possible to analyse gender construction before and after the onset of puberty for these girls.

Gender construction

My theoretical approach to gender is a combination of, first, a perspective developed during the 1980s and 1990s, as something persons do (West and Zimmerman, 1987) or perform (Butler, 1993). Femininities are constructed and done in relation to masculinities; they presuppose each other (Connell, 1995; Hey, 1997; Renold, 2005; Rysst, 2008; Thorne, 1993). Second, informed by Nielsen and Rudberg (Nielsen and Rudberg, 1993), my approach includes a psychological view of gender consisting of a dialectical relationship between ‘gender identity’ and ‘gendered subjectivity’. This perspective is a ‘theory of how our inner and emotional pictures of masculinities and femininities interplay with cultural discourses of gender’ (Overa, 2013: 42). More precisely, Nielsen (1994) argues that gender is not only ‘doing’, it is also ‘being’ and ‘having’, to which I agree:

In my opinion the perspectives on ‘being’ gender and ‘doing’ gender are not alternatives, but functionally related perspectives: You have to be someone in order to do something, and when you do something you also become/it gradually changes who you are. (p. 30)

Nielsen and Rudberg’s (1993) conceptualisation of gender is made up of identity as gender, ‘gender identity’ (‘I am a girl and that is why I am as I am’) and ‘gendered subjectivity’ (‘I am me and that is why I am as I am’) (p. 119). Gendered subjectivity is unreflected, part of habitus, and concerns how the child becomes a subject through early socialisation, which is influenced by cultural notions on being a girl. Nielsen and Rudberg also hold that gender identity is something we have; it is reflected on, and more easily changed than, the gendered subjectivity. They argue that it is more difficult to change aspects of gender related to norms and practices learnt in early childhood than to the widely shared cultural ideas of gender identity being part of the overall society. In other words, I interpret this to mean that gendered subjectivity encompasses deeply internalised or embodied values, which is why I find their approach fruitful for my study. This is because I believe, and will show, that gender construction of persons having ‘one foot in two cultures’ is particularly challenging because the gendered subjectivity is grounded in the parents’ cultural values, while the gender identity is more grounded in values in the ‘new’ country. As such, cultural values from the ‘old’ and ‘new’ country may not be commensurable, often resulting in fluid, hybrid identities (Moinian, 2009: 33). I also interpret ‘gender identity’ to be more ‘visible’ than the gendered subjectivity, which is more ‘inside’ as unreflected. For instance, the wish to dress as an attractive girl in Norway may not match with how she has been brought up, or the inner pictures, of appropriate dressing as a young girl of Moroccan, Turkish or Pakistani origin.

‘Gender construction’ is used synonymously with ‘construction of gender identity’, the last being, as mentioned, in a dialectical relationship with ‘gendered subjectivity’. This way of thinking overlaps somewhat with the view that gender construction among girls may be read as a dialectical relationship between physical bodies and cultural practices: dress codes and norms for behaviour change as children grow older (Rysst, 2008, 2010). In line with this, gender among girls is read to be distributed along a continuum of girl-children (before puberty) to girl-teenager (into puberty) (Rysst, 2008, 2010).

Each individual is also a multiply constituted subject, who ‘take(s) up multiple subject positions within a range of discourses and social practices’ (Moore, 1994: 55). This resonates with how youth move in and out of social contexts and play out different gender identities among family versus peer group. It also points to the issue of difference, in that doing gender has many expressions, and may be hierarchically organised (Hey, 1997: 28; Moore, 1994).

In short, gender construction is presentation of self that includes dressing, hairstyle, appearance and behaviour, including language.

Resilience, reworking and resistance

Sircar and Dutta, applying postcolonial theory, argue that children of Indian sex workers show agency in their work for self-respect. They introduce the concepts of resilience, reworking and resistance (Sircar and Dutta, 2011: 342). Resilience refers to how people confront and adapt to new structural frames in their lives, for instance a death in the family, unemployment or divorce. More precisely, the authors use resilience as being ‘reflective of their ability to confront the stigma that marks their lives’. Closely related to the practice of resilience is reworking, ‘which builds on acts of resilience to make and remake social facts and collective identities’ (Sircar and Dutta, 2011: 342). Resistance refers to confrontation and opposition to experience of victimisation and marginalisation, and is a strategy well documented by for instance Scott (1985).

The situation of children at Dal compared with the children of Indian sex workers differs in most respects, except that both groups may experience stigma and marginalisation vis-a-vis the society at large. Particularly in areas where many migrant families live, a third space becomes a space for potentially increasing dignity and self-respect.

Friendship network

The children’s social networks in the 6th and 9th^th Forms were constructed based on sociograms the teachers drew in combination with my observations. The teachers asked the children to write down (confidentially) three children in their class whom they usually hung out with. Based on this information, the teacher drew a network figure based on lines from each child to the names they had written down. This resulted in all children having arrows from ego, but not all had arrows pointed at them. The use of sociograms for mapping marginalisation and hierarchies in schools is quite widespread (Bo and Schiefloe, 2007: 36). The teachers at Dal had done so regularly before I started my fieldwork. However, the teacher in the 9th Form made a sociogram on my request. In combination with my observations, the sociograms served as guides for my analysis of construction of gender identity. I read the friendships to be reciprocal, and the relations strong, if two persons listed each other.

Previous research indicates that the idiom ‘birds of a feather flock together’ holds sway in many friendship constellations, regarding variables such as ethnicity, religion, class, gender and general interests (Rysst, 2008). Friendship networks are here read to represent femininities because strong ties between children often reflect similar gender constructions (Rysst, 2008). In the following, I present the 10-year-old girls’ friendship network and describe how friendship is distributed according to ethnic background, religion and class. The sociograms included boys too, but no ties were drawn between girls and boys. The networks were very gender-segregated in both the 6th and the 9th Form. Figure 1 shows the friendship network in the 6th Form by way of strong and weak ties, where the latter are stippled lines and the former whole lines.

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Figure 1.

Friendship network in the 6th Form by way of strong and weak ties.

As the figure shows, most of the arrows point at Sahra, of Moroccan origin (6), and Pernille, of ethnic Norwegian background (7), which indicates that these girls are the most popular girls in their class. The only strong tie representing the same ethnic origin is that of Fatima and Aisha who have parents from Pakistan. In short, the strong ties of this friendship network do not indicate any preference for best friends having the same ethnic origin, and because all but Pernille are Muslim, it is impossible to assert that the girls choose friends with same religious affiliation. The same argument concerns class: as most parents, fathers and mothers alike, have jobs that demand little education, the children may be said to belong to the same social class. Regarding the impact of ethnic background, other research on friendship in multicultural contexts shows that children establish inter-ethnic friendships more systematically when they enter puberty and after (Lewis, 2011; Tatum, [1997] 2003). I’ll return to this later.

Gender construction

The strong relationship between Sahra and Pernille is interesting because, as popular children, they have the power to define which things, activities and appearances are in and what is out (Hey, 1997; Pugh, 2009; Renold, 2005; Rysst, 2008, 2013; Thorne, 1993). Contrary to what is proposed by some studies (for instance, James, 1993), the friendship circles of the girls in my study have been remarkably stable from the 5th through the 8th Form, but with interesting changes in the 9th, as will be shown. This does not mean they were free from conflict. Their gender construction included, among other things, arguing about which activities to engage in during breaks and who was to be included in these. Most importantly, the girls used appearance and clothing style for visualising what the acceptable gender constructions were for girls their age.

Sahra and Pernille shared, for instance, the same style of dressing, which was the style many of the other girls aspired to as well. In general, clothes are a vital, visual element in construction of gender identity. I argue that gender construction through particular clothing styles emerges as a result of unconscious negotiation between gendered subjectivity and gender identity, in that cultural values from the family context have impact on the actual appearance through clothes. The girls sported a street-fashion teenage-inspired style with slim jeans or tights, long sweaters/short sweaters with hoods, shirts and blouses. Most importantly, their gender construction through clothes resembled the style found among girl-children in other schools in Oslo where ethnic Norwegians were in the majority, that is, without any obvious covering up of their bodies. In addition, all girls in the 6th Form at Dal had long hair. This femininity position, here visualised through particular dress code and hairstyle, worked as a bridge for inclusion in the popular group and for feelings of belonging (Pugh, 2009).

Rania was the only girl in the 5th Form at Dal who wore a hijab, and said she wanted to wear one because her cousins did so. One day in the 6th Form, Fatima also came to school in a hijab, and explained that she ‘suddenly felt like wearing one, as my older sisters do’. However, contrary to when Rania began, Fatima had entered puberty, which may be why she now felt ready for the hijab. It is not unusual for Muslim girls to start covering up their hair and body as girl-teenagers (http://www.islam.no). As such, the Islam-informed practice of covering up illustrates the relationship between bodily maturation and cultural practice. Most importantly, Fatima and Rania were navigators of culture, bricoleurs, as they constructed a hybrid femininity where Western clothes and Muslim head scarves were combined, illustrating the working of a third space at Dal. They were well aware of the public debate in Norway on hijabs and on covering up. In general, Norwegian feminists regard head scarves as something oppressive and imposed by the patriarchy, the opposite of gender equality and equity. They front values that inspire girls to dress as they wish irrespective of an existent or imagined (hetero) sexualised male gaze. Fatima and Rania, when confronted with ‘why they use hijabs’, therefore emphasised that wearing them is their own choice (not their parents’).

However, the hijab is highly ambiguous and it goes beyond this article to debate all connotations. In this context, I read it as resistance against the Norwegian gender construction informed by values of gender equity and equality. Rania and Fatima wanted to construct another femininity position, and thus oppose and confront negative Norwegian opinions about hijabs. As such, in their 10-year-old peer context, this femininity position resulted in a hybrid dressing style. Another gender position, which I term ‘ethnic-religious’, was a hijab in combination with long dresses or skirts (represented by one girl with Somali background). Finally, the third femininity position among the 10-year-olds was a Norwegian Westernised style, here represented by Sahra, Pernille, Adine, Rosie, Aisha, Natalie and Mira.

As popular girls, the gender construction through clothes of Sahra and Pernille was thus copied by the majority of the other girls. This also included activities. The most articulated popular leisure activity among the girls was (disco) dance, but only three girls attended, Pernille and Sahra being two of them. I suggest so few attended because Muslim parents thought this dance includes too much exposure of their bodies. However, many went to the Club, a free leisure time offer organised by the local school authorities. This was a place for children of all ages (10–16 years) and for both sexes, and a third space because the vast majority attending are of foreign backgrounds. Hybrid cultural expressions filled this place, rap music among them. Of particular interest is how the Norwegian language was mixed with English and words from Urdu and other foreign languages, into what has been termed ‘kebab-Norwegian’: a hybrid, ‘cool’ socio-dialect part of their gender construction and effort to increase dignity and self-respect by reworking and resisting correct Norwegian language. The dialect does not only include new words, but also incorrect grammar and new intonation, which made their spoken language sound ‘foreign’ compared to other Norwegian dialects. And most interestingly, the ethnic Norwegians used this socio-dialect as well, illustrating how a minority group adapts to the norms of the majority, which also included dressing when the girls reached puberty.

Friendship and gender construction in the 8th Form

The relationship between bodily maturation and cultural practice on the one hand, and gendered subjectivity and gender identity on the other, visualised by way of dressing, was apparent when I revisited the Dal children in the 8th and 9th Forms. Again I sat in the classroom and observed the different presentations of self. Now they were 13–14 years old, well into puberty. The most conspicuous variations in appearance, behaviour and clothing styles were among the girls. Of 13 girls, 4 wore hijabs, and only 3 girls, 1 of Turkish (Melek), 1 of Pakistani (Nasreen) and 1 of Korean (Helen) origin, constructed gender through a Norwegian style of clothing, that is, they did not wear clothes that concealed. In other words, the majority of the girls now appeared not to construct a Norwegian femininity, in contrast with the representations in the 5th and 6th Forms.

Sahra and Pernille still shared a strong tie, but were more connected to Fatima than before. In our interview, I asked them about gendered ethnic identity and clothing styles in their class. Fatima said that ‘the three of us sport almost the same style’, to which I commented on her hijab, which the other two were not wearing:

In addition, they said that they do not like showing much of their bodies and skin, and as a consequence, their gender construction encompassed long sweaters, jackets or tunicas over jeans or tights. Pernille, in spite of her being ethnic Norwegian, still wanted to cover up in contexts where she risked having comments. In other words, her femininity position differed according to social context: one among peers of foreign origin and another in contexts peopled by unknown and/or ethnic Norwegians. It is worth noting that, as 13 years old, she preferred to construct gender by dressing in a hybrid rather than Norwegian way, which she and Sahra sported before puberty, now only represented by Melek, Nasreen (being best friends) and Helen (who connected with no one in particular). I interpret Pernille’s change of style and gender construction as her way of securing her friendship, particularly with Sahra, who, as a Muslim, has internalised the covering-up code and acted accordingly. Pernille adapted to the majority’s dressing norms which probably made it easier for her to experience belonging among her best friend(s) and in most of the Dal peer contexts.

In discussing the presentation of selves of the other girls in their class as 13-year-olds, Sahra, Pernille and Fatima agreed that there existed an ‘ethnic-religious style’, which included the hijabs and long traditional skirts typical of Somali girls. Then they mentioned the three girls in their class who sport the Norwegian style of tight jeans with shorter sweaters, which is to say no covering up. Similar to Rania and Fatima in the 5th and 6th Forms, I now also interpret Sahra, Fatima and also Pernille as motivated by an awareness of being in-between two cultures; they become bricoleurs, navigators of culture. By positioning themselves in this way, they managed to fit in among Muslims wanting to hide their bodies, and among Norwegians, because these girls bought their clothes in the same shops as Norwegians. The only difference was that they more often bought longer shirts, tunicas, jackets and sweaters and did not wear shorts to school, as was the fashion among teenagers in 2013. They reworked existing fashion and simultaneously resisted both Norwegian- and Muslim-inspired gender constructions. The majority of girls at this school did gender through varieties of this hybrid style, which may be with or without hijabs, but which had covering up at its core.

That the value of covering up was part of their peer context was confirmed by some of the boys. Kofi has Nigerian background, while David is half Norwegian and half Gambian. I was curious about the boys’ opinions on girls’ presentations of self and ways of dressing, and broached the subject by asking who they considered to be the popular girls in their class. David said quickly that ‘some think they are more popular’ (and suggests Nasreen). We commented on the appearances of the girls in general, that some girls wear hijabs but otherwise Norwegian (covering up) clothes. David then said that ‘girls get a plus if they wear a hijab; it is a good thing’. Kofi added that ‘it’s a good thing to cover up when young’, which was a unanimous opinion, they agreed, at this school.

On this backdrop, Melek and Nasreen were of particular interest as they constructed gender through clothes in a Norwegian way in spite of being Muslim and being well aware of the dominant femininity gender hierarchy at Dal. As we have seen, the majority of girls and boys in the 8th Form, irrespective of religious or ethnic background, appeared to share the value of the covering-up dress code, which illustrates the ideological power hierarchy at this school. This hierarchy had Islam-inspired cultural values at the top, which organised Islam-inspired femininities to encompass the covering-up dress code. Embedded in this cultural interpretation of Islam was heterosexual normativity, which, according to Judith Butler (1993), refers to social norms and institutionalised assumptions about all humans being heterosexual, and that this normativity organises modern life (p. 3).

Melek and Nasreen’s gender construction may be understood as resistance towards the experienced dominant covering-up code in the school context. I believe that their resistance was challenged by most of their peers every day, and that they received comments and gazes such as Pernille reported, maybe also from family members. On the other hand, the ethnic-religious gender position may surely be read as resistance towards the Norwegian no-covering-up code. Finally, the hybrid gender construction may be read as resilience, reworking and resistance towards both the Norwegian gender construction, as part of the overall society, and the religious style in the Muslim contexts. The girls constructing the hybrid femininity position were somewhere in between which challenged both sides and ideologies of gender construction but was simultaneously a pragmatic adaption to both. As this femininity position was in majority, I suggest Sahra, Pernille and Fatima were more popular than the two sporting the Norwegian gender position. However, it is obvious that all the clothing styles and femininity positions of the discussed girls at Dal were influenced by religion, ethnicity and sexuality. This demanded competences for balancing details of clothing in order to experience well-being and belonging in both peer and family contexts. In the 9th Form, details in the friendship and gender landscape had changed in interesting ways.

Friendship in the 9th Form

The two classes of 6A and 6B were split and re-mixed in the 8th into the 9th Form, which meant that only some students were included in both networks (6th and 9th Forms). These girls are marked in red, and are also those most discussed in this article (except Natalie). The 9th Form friendship network looks like that shown in Figure 2.

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Figure 2.

Friendship network in the 9th Form by way of strong and weak ties.

As is shown, Sahra and Pernille’s strong tie had disappeared; Sahra has only one strong tie, to Fatima. Their previous popular position had also changed. According to the number of strong ties, it was now Nasreen with Pakistani background who dominated the picture, as David suggested above, closely followed by two girls of Somali origin, Barkhado and Aniisa. The situation now appeared to confirm the previous mentioned research on how friendship into puberty reflects (best) friends sharing the same religious and/or ethnic affiliation (Lewis, 2011; Tatum, [1997] 2003). Pernille and Helen now form a strong tie as the only non-Muslims in the class, and the others as a whole had strong ties with girls with the same ethnic/religious origin.

Gender construction in the 9th Form

When I returned to the teenagers in the 9th Form, I observed and got confirmed, how shifting gender positions are (Moinian, 2009). First, Pernille no longer constructed gender in the same fashion as Sahra. She had very short, dyed blonde hair and wore make-up and bright red lipstick. In addition, only those constructing the ethnic-religious (Somali) femininity, and the hybrid femininity with hijabs, were obviously covering up. In general, sweaters and shirts were not covering bottoms as much as before, although skin was still hidden. What had happened to the covering-up code and gender constructions as 14-year-olds?

Fatima, Sahra and Pernille agreed on one thing: Pernille had changed the most, that is, her gender identity had changed a lot since last time we spoke in the 8th Form.

It was evident that Pernille had gone through a process in which she wanted to mark herself off from Sahra and Fatima; she did not want to construct a similar gender identity as theirs anymore. This change had started a month or so after our last talk, and it is possible that what Sahra then said about Pernille being influenced by them may have started this change in Pernille’s gender identity. As such, the change may actually be a consequence of being part of this research project, and may be read as resistance to the Muslim dominance at this school. Pernille said she modelled her style on the pop star Miles Cyrus, which is a rather unthinkable option for Muslim girls wanting to be read as ‘respectable’ (http://www.islam.no). It is worth noting her remark about being braver, indicating that standing out from the crowd, in that all girls still had long hair and no visible make-up, demands courage. In other words, it demands courage to resist the experienced normative dominance. In addition, her gendered subjectivity was probably more influenced by Westernised gender values than the gendered subjectivity of her Muslim friends, which may have eased her resistance to the dominant norm.

I reminded these girls about what they said last time about clothing styles and wanting to hide their bottoms:

This dialogue illustrates very well the change in reflection on presentations of self through clothes before and after puberty. In addition, Sahra’s reflection that she does not think she will ever change her mind on concealing her bottom illustrates that the gendered subjectivity appears hard to change (Nielsen and Rudberg, 1993). It is part of her habitus to hide her bottom, which made her feel uncomfortable when she did not.

This notion of feeling uncomfortable when concealment was violated, appeared in the interviews with the other girls as well. The following conversation ensued with Hadia of Moroccan origin and Melek, who now were best friends. As mentioned above, Melek was one of the girls not covering up in the 8th Form:

Nasreen, who did not cover up in the 8th Form either, now also positioned her gender construction in the covering-up discourse. She had now befriended Saira (of Pakistani origin) instead of Melek. I interviewed them together, and we started with religion:

What all these girls pointed to is that gender construction at Dal involved the covering-up dressing code as a vital element. They all had internalised this code; it was part of their gendered subjectivity, and appeared hard to change. Embedded in how they constructed gender through clothes was the heterosexual male gaze, which they related to in an ambiguous and interesting manner. In the 8th Form, the boys said they thought it a good idea for girls to cover up. When I confronted, first Fatima, Pernille and Sahra about this, they laughed, and Sahra said, ‘Then this has changed now! They like girls that show their bottoms … we notice that they look at us …’. Nasreen and Saira reacted likewise, end even showed provocation, in that Saira commented, ‘Fuck, no!’. And Nasreen continued, ‘Well, they can probably say to you and older people that they like girls who cover up, but we know what they really mean inside … they tell us about nice girls elsewhere who have attractive bottoms and bodies’. It appears that the girls did care about the boys’ views on attractiveness, and when I asked whether they dress and act in accordance with what they believe the boys like (heteronormativity), Saira said, ‘Yes, in a way, because we want them to like us’. I suggest these utterances illustrate how the boys relate, unconsciously, to the whore and Madonna discourse: respectable girls cover up, while uncovered girls are the ones that excite them. In this light, these girls experienced contradictive and ambiguous expectations in their construction of gender as Muslim girls, illustrating how cultural values in their ‘old’ country did not fit in with the cultural values in their ‘new’ country, and thus making construction and change of gender identity challenging.

Except for Pernille’s conspicuous way of constructing gender, the varieties of femininities were harder to distinguish in the 9th compared to the 8th Form. The hybrid dressing style of concealment and fashionable clothes was stretched to its limits, because fashion clothes were shorter than last year. The covering-up code met structural restrictions by way of today’s fashion design. This meant they had to combine older, longer clothes with new and short ones, and also show more of their bottoms than before. They knew the boys preferred this, but not their parents. I frequently observed girls desperately pulling down and stretching the sweaters to their limits in order to hide more of their bottoms. The result was that the same femininity positions as before existed, but the hybrid variant had come closer to the Norwegian way of no covering up, now represented in its ‘pure’ form only by the non-Muslim girls of Pernille and Helen.