Cultural identity
The title question, Does My Head Look Big In This? is a reference to Amal's hijab, which is a symbol for this powerful theme. She decides how much to adapt to life in Australia, even as a child. She is only a child when she is enrolled at a private Catholic school where she is the only Muslim girl. This standing out is a challenge for her, and it is additionally difficult to know how exactly to navigate her identity at home too. Her parents mourn every time she walks away from their way of life, but they don't understand the difficulty of picking who to be. This ultimately leads her to a crisis when a boy tries to get physical with her at a party.
Uniqueness and fitting in
Not only is Amal a deeply religious person, she is also a normal person. She does not want her beliefs to leave her excluded from the social life of the school, nor does she want to be ostracized for her way of life. The thematic power of her cultural identity is kept in tension by this equal and opposite tension; not only is she a Muslim girl from Pakistan with loyalty family, custom, and Allah; she is also a human individual and someone with her own desires and her own independent identity.
Crisis and character
With two alternating forms of social pressure coming at home from her family and at school from her friends, Amal's character becomes a full blown dance of spontaneous decisions that define her character. Her integrity is most visible under pressure. This comes to a climax when her flirty friendship to Adam suddenly has the ability to become something more. In her religion, there is a specific manner to court which is acceptable, and it does not begin with physical intimacy. When he goes in for a kiss, she rejects him, as a mark of her integrity. She is not just giving lip service to placate some sense of family duty; she truly believes that Allah's way is good, even when her desires are blindingly tempting.
