Altaf Husain - Reframing the Gender Question: Navigating Adolescence

Altaf HusainSeptember 10, 20190 comments

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Mental Health Tarbiyah Gender & Identity Family Fitra Youth & Adolescence Parenting Community & Social Issues

About this lecture

In this lecture, Altaf Husain examines the challenges facing Muslim adolescents in contemporary Western society, exploring how concepts such as fitra, parenting styles, and faith-based connection can anchor young people amid rapid cultural change and conflicting messages about gender identity. Drawing on longitudinal research — including a 40-year UCLA study — he presents compelling evidence that connection and spirituality are the strongest predictors of positive youth development, and issues a call to action for Muslim families, masajid, and institutions to develop curriculum, celebrate rites of passage, and invest actively in the upbringing of the next generation. The lecture balances academic research with Islamic tradition and personal parenting experience to offer both a diagnosis of the current crisis and a roadmap for community response.

Dr. Altaf Husain serves as an Assistant Professor in the Howard University School of Social Work, in Washington DC. He received his Ph.D in Social Work from Howard University and his Master of Science in Social Administration from the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Husain’s research interests include displaced populations (homelessness, victims of disaster,immigrants and refugees), mental health and psycho social well-being of adolescent immigrants and refugees of color in the U.S.; immigration policy and its impact on the family; cultural competence; and the development of social service agencies in the Muslim community. Dr. Husain has written and researched on the topic of Islam and Muslims, most recently completing a quantitative study of Somali youth in the United States. He has been invited by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to provide insights on Islam in general and specifically on the Somali Diaspora, in light of the disappearance of a few dozen Somali American youth from the United States in 2008-2009. Dr. Husain servedas a two-term national president of the Muslim Students Association of the U.S.and Canada (MSA National). Dr. Husain presently serves as a board member andchair of the Leadership Development Committee of the Islamic Society of NorthAmerica (ISNA). He was a founding board member of the Islamic Social ServicesAssociation

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