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In recent decades, the age of marriage in many minority Muslim communities has risen so that significant numbers of Muslims in these contexts are remaining unmarried into their late 20 s and beyond. As with other communities in Western contexts, Muslim communities have also experienced a rising divorce rate, leading to many more single women. These social and demographic changes, combined with traditional attitudes towards female sexuality and virginity, have led to a rise in the number of women who have either never had a sexual encounter or who no longer have sexual encounters. Cultural discourses surrounding virginity and female celibacy frequently conflate the virtue of refusing sexual encounters outside of marriage with happiness and satisfaction at 'choosing the right path'. However, these discourses negate or downplay women's sexual desires and result in women often feeling trapped into having to perform the 'myth of the happy celibate'. To disrupt this myth is to unleash the potentially destructive power of female sexuality, while to openly challenge it is to risk being positioned as a 'slut'.

DEVELOPIng suCCEssFuL sChOOLIng sites in multiracial regional town contexts can often be quite challenging. This paper examines the work done in one such preschooling context in a medium-sized regional town where racial and ethnic tensions are high and where many families struggle with social/emotional/economic challenges. This preschool setting has been identified in the community and within bureaucratic structures as being successful with regard to a high level of parental engagement and a positive management of racial tensions. In order to describe this success we identify a range of practices which distinguish this educational setting from others in the town. Primarily we focus on the notion of hospitality and the practice of yarnin'. This analysis arises out of ethnographic work at the preschool.

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Muslim women in Australia, as in many other majority non-Muslim countries, have experienced unprecedented levels of hostility and negativity over the last few years. These experiences have been described by the term ‘islamophobia’, a word that was coined in the mid-1990s in Britain and that has gained significant purchase in the British literature particularly. This term has not had the same level of influence in Australia, although its usage is becoming more popular despite some criticisms of its definition and application. This article discusses and develops these critiques and offers religious racism as an alternative term. It offers a critique of existing South Australian and Commonwealth anti-racism and anti-discrimination legislation and argues that, although there appears to be broad bureaucratic recognition of the existence of religious racism, the legislation does not protect Muslims in South Australia from such racism based on religious affiliation. This article also draws upon narratives told by young Muslim women in South Australia to illustrate not only the nature and pervasiveness of the racism they experience, but also the complete lack of protection for these women under existing legal frameworks.