European Perspectives on Islamic Education and Public Schooling; Jenny Berglund

Edited by

Jenny Berglund [+–]

Stockholm University

Jenny Berglund is Professor of Religious Education at Stockholm University, Sweden. She is the co-chair of the Religion and Public Schooling, International Perspectives Group at the American Academy of Religion (AARE), board member of the Swedish National Fora for Religious Education (NFR), and the Coordinator of the International Association for the History of Religions – Women Scholars Network (IAHR-WSN).

This volume brings together a number of researchers for the first time to explore the interconnections between Islamic educations and public schooling in Europe. The relation between Islamic education and public schooling is analysed within the publicly and privately funded sectors. How is publicly funded education organised, why is it organised in this way, what is the history and what are the controversial issues? What are the similarities and differences between privately run Islamic education and “main stream” schooling? What are the experiences of teachers, parents and pupils?

The volume will be of interest to scholars of Islam in Europe, policy makers of education and integration and teachers of religious education.

Introduction

Introduction [+–] 1-8

Jenny Berglund FREE

Stockholm University

Islamic religious education (IRE) in Europe has become a subject of intense debate during the past decade. There is concern that states are doing too little or too much to shape the spiritual beliefs of private citizens. State response to the concern ranges from sponsoring religious education in public schools to forgoing it entirely and policies vary according to national political culture. In some countries public schools teach Islam to Muslims as a subject within a broader religious curriculum that gives parents the right to choose their children’s religious education. In the other countries public schools teach Islam to all pupils as a subject with a close relation to the academic study of religions. There are also countries where public schools do not teach religion at all, although there is an opportunity to teach about Islam in school subjects such as art, history, or literature. IRE taught outside publicly funded institutions, is of course also taught as a confessional subject in private Muslim schools, mosques and by Muslim organisations. Often students who attend these classes also attend a publicly funded “main stream school”. This volume brings together a number of researchers for the first time to explore the interconnections between Islamic educations and public schooling in Europe. The relation between Islamic education and public schooling will be analysed within the publicly and privately funded sectors. How is publicly funded education organised, why is it organised in this way, what is the history and what are the controversial issues? What are the similarities and differences between privately run Islamic education and “main stream” schooling? What are the experiences of teachers, parents and pupils? The volume will be of interest to scholars of Islam in Europe, policy makers of education and integration and teachers of religious education.

Chapter 1

‘Islamic’ Education between State and Community: Frameworks and New Directions [+–] 9-26

Farid Panjwani,Ayman Agbaria £17.50

UCL Institute of Education

Farid Panjwani is Director for the Centre for Research and Evaluation in Muslim Education (CREME), UCL Institute of Education, University College London, England.

University of Haifa

Ayman Agbaria is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Haifa.

It is often not clear what one means by Islamic Religious Education and hence, the relationship between Public Schooling and IRE can vary significantly across countries. This lack of clarity also results in varied public discussions and reactions to the idea. The paper will outline at least three meanings of IRE. These include: one, IRE as religious instruction which is in many ways rooted in the historical tradition of teaching Islam to Muslims; two, IRE as education inspired by Islamic tradition which is reflected mainly in what are calls schools with Islamic religious character (or faith schools) whereby a range of subjects are taught within what is often seen by its proponents as Islamic epistemological framework; three, as education about Islamic/Muslim traditions which comes closest to the non-confessional model of teaching religions. It will be argued that at least in the first and second sense of the IRE, the actual teaching is predominantly of a particular denomination within the landscape of Islamic religion and not of a broad and diverse Islamic tradition. This fact is often not recognized in discussions about IRE. The paper will seek to explore how the relationship between IRE (in the above noted senses) and mainstream (more suitable in the UK context than public schools) schools has evolved over time.

Chapter 2

State-Funded Muslim Schools in Ireland: Insights and Perspectives [+–] 27-42

Youcef Sai £17.50

Trinity College, Dublin

View Website

Youcef Sai is Assistant Professor in Islamic Studies at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Ireland has only two state-funded Muslim schools which have existed since the early nineties. The initiative to establish them was driven by the demand of some Muslim families to have an education that would incorporate their Islamic values and beliefs. Approximately twenty-five years on, the schools continue to operate and teach the Irish national curriculum, in addition to Islamic Religious Education [IRE]. Little research, however, has been conducted on the State’s provision of these schools, in particular, the views of stakeholders (parents, teachers, principals) associated with them. Based on semi-structured interviews with twenty-two parents, six teachers, and two principals in 2014, this chapter explores some of their views on the provision of State-funded Irish Muslim schools and the issues surrounding them . These include three main areas; the current provision and accommodation of Muslim pupils in the current system and issues related to the general operation of the Muslim schools in contemporary Ireland . This chapter concludes by offering some direction for future research.

Chapter 3

Teaching Islam and about Islam in the Spanish Public System: The Confessional and the Cultural Approach to a Controversial Heritage [+–] 43-55

Elena Arigita £17.50

University of Granada

Elena Arigita is Assistant Professor at the Department of Semitic studies at the University of Granada, Spain.

Is Islam part of Spain as a cultural and historical formation and identity? The answer has been a constant source of controversy between two schematic and reductive views of Islam as an idealized legacy of coexistence, “La convivencia”, and as the enemy that invaded and was expelled from an essentially uniform Christian land. It is as well at the core of heated debates in the current context of the global fear of Islam which, in the Spanish public sphere, is often reduced to this schematic question: should Islam and the Islamic heritage be incorporated into the narrative of what Spain is or does it remain as an alien and the enemy? If we observe this issue through the lens of education, we’ll see how the subjects of the history of Spain and the one called “religion” (which is included in the curricula as part of the agreements with the officially recognized confessions) interact in the schools to create a narrative that makes Islam part (or not) of its historical past but mostly a present for an immigrant minority while at the same time contributing to defining the limits and contours of secularity and religious liberty. This paper will look at the legal framework and further implementation in the Southern region of Andalucía with the aim of observing how the teaching of Islam has been introduced in the public education system, as well as its interaction with other initiatives by the public system.

Chapter 4

Public School in France: The Place of Islam and Muslim’s Languages [+–] 56-77

Samim Akgönul £17.50

University of Strasbourg

Samim Akgönül, an historian and political scientist, is a professor in the Department of Turkish Studies at the University of Strasbourg and researcher at the DRES center of the French National Center for Scientific Research.

France is known as a strictly secular state where religion has no place in the educational system. But since 1990, “religion” as a social total fact, and especially “Islam” seen as problematic within the framework of “French values” became one of the main educational battlefield. Islam has been introduced in the school programmes as a part of the “religious fact” since 2002 Debray’s report. In addition, France is politically investing on the Imam’s training programmes especially at the University. A Master of “Islamology” has started at Strasbourg Public University in 2010. Finally, Islamic education is also more and more visible at private schools in contract or not with the French State with, for the moment, a small success.

Chapter 5

Identity Development of the Two First Islamic Primary Schools in the Netherlands [+–] 78-104

Bahaeddin Budak,Cok Bakker,Ina ter Avest £17.50

InHolland University

Bahaeddin Budak is Coordinator and Lecturer at the teacher training programme for Islamic education at INHolland university, the Netherlands.

Utrecht University

Cok Bakker is Professor of Religious and Worldview Education at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He runs a joint research programme with the HU University of Applied Sciences at Utrecht on the moral dimension of teachers’ professional development.

InHolland University

Ina ter Avest is Professor in Education and Philosophy of Life at the INHolland University of Applied Sciences and is also Senior Lecturer in the Pegagogics of Religion at VU University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her research interest is in identity development in plural societies. In her private practice, she is coach on identity development of persons, teams and institutions.

In 1988, the Turkish community in Rotterdam decided to found a confessional Islamic School – the ‘al-Ghazali’ School. In the same year, the Moroccan community in Eindhoven founded the ‘Tariq Ibnoe Ziyad’ School. In this article, we describe the sources the founders and principals used, in relation to their modes of reasoning, for the construction of the school identity of the two first Islamic schools in the Netherlands. For our research, we used qualitative research methods, such as document analysis and interviews. We also studied the first articles of association of both schools, and conducted four semi-structured retrospective interviews – with the two founders and two principals of the first two Islamic schools in the Netherlands. On the basis of our research, we distinguish four sources which play an important role in the construction of the school identity of these two schools: the Islamic tradition, the Dutch laws and regulations, the Dutch educational context and the cultural and religious backgrounds of the persons involved. The Islamic tradition appears to be an important starting point, which forms the basis for the construction of the school’s identity. For both schools the Islamic tradition, that is Qur’an and Sunna, is their starting point,. Each of the interviewed persons has its own interpretation, though, which can be seen in the way in which the identity of the school is shaped in practice. Next to that laws and regulations are a source; including the requirements and guidelines of the Dutch Inspectorate of Education. The cultural and religious background of those involved seems to be another point of departure used in the construction of the school’s identity. The school’s identity is also then created on the basis of considerations in the Dutch educational context, the applicable educational requirements and the usual (religious) educational and didactic considerations. Further research into the way in which various sources are interpreted and concretized in the construction of the identity of Islamic schools and their further development in the Netherlands is desired.

Chapter 6

Religious Education in Italian Public Schools: What Room for Islam? [+–] 105-119

Stella Coglievina £17.50

University of Insubria, Italy

Stella Coglievina PhD is Research Fellow in Ecclesiastical and Canon Law at the University of Insubria, Italy. She is a member of the Research Centre ‘Religion, Law and Economy in the Mediterranean Area’ (REDESM), established at the University of Insubria, and of the Scientific Council of the interuniversity research centre, ‘International Forum for Religions and Democracy’ (FIDR). She serves on the editorial board of the website OLIR (www.olir.it) and as an associate editor of the Journal of Muslims in Europe (ed. Brill).

Religious education in Italian public schools has always been a controversial issue. In the past, only Catholic religious education was possible: the legislation now in force allows other types of religious education. Religions with an agreement with the State can enjoy some specific rights in this field; other religions, among them Islam, have to refer to old acts on religious freedom (1929-1930) and have only some limited possibilities. Moreover, the lack of legal recognition of Islamic organizations and the scarcity of relationships with the public authorities can hinder the enjoyment of some rights. As a matter of fact, Muslim families often permit their children to attend Catholic education, in order to give them some notions on religion, but the lessons’ programmes and other aspects are established by the Catholic Church authorities, from a Catholic point of view. What scope is there, then, for Islam in public education? Which are the rights established by the legislation and how are they provided? How can Catholic education contribute to a better knowledge of Islam? Does it meet the needs of Muslim families? Can the private schools system (quite developed in Italy) help in this regard? A reflection on Islamic education and on its limits can also shed light on a more general problem: the legal treatment of Islam and the integration of young generations and of the entire Muslim community in Italian society.

Chapter 7

Publicly Funded Islamic Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina [+–] 120-135

Amina Isanovic Hadziomerovic £17.50

University of Sarajevo

Amina Isanovic Hadziomerovic is Senior Teaching Assistant at the Department of Education, Faculty of Philosophy, the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Religious education in public schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) was introduced following the collapse of the Communist political regime in the early 1990s. From its early beginnings it was designed as a confessional subject, while the alternative non-confessional subject was introduced only subsequently. Over the course of two decades and a half of its existence, RE was subject to dynamic public debates on its status in a multicultural and multi-religious society like the Bosnian one. Despite the changing public opinion on RE, the attendance rate in all denominations is still high and the level of teacher professionalization is increasing. The right to religious instruction in public schools is regulated by the Framework Law on Primary and Secondary Education (2003) and Law on Religious Freedom and Legal Status of Churches and Religious Communities (2004). The responsibility for Islamic Religious Education (IRE) is divided between the state and the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ICBH). This means that the ICBH is in charge of curricula design and textbooks which need to be approved by the corresponding Ministry of Education. On the other hand, RE teachers are paid and hired by the Ministry of Education, while the ICBH issues teaching licence and monitors teachers’ professional development. IRE teacher education is subject to general standards the for teaching profession, which normally require a university degree that can be pursued at one of three schools for Islamic educators, all of them affiliates of state universities. This paper summarizes key trends in the development of the model of RE adopted in Bosnian schools, with special focus on IRE, and presents the main debates and controversies related to this issue.

Chapter 8

Between Old Traditions and New Diversities: Islamic Religious Education in Poland [+–] 136-156

Agata S. Nalborczyk,Konrad Pędziwiatr £17.50

University of Warsaw, Department for European Islam Studies, Faculty of Oriental Studies

Agata S Nalborczyk holds a PhD in Arabic Studies and is Associate Professor in the Department for European Islam Studies, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland.

Krakow University of Economics

Konrad Pędziwiatr is Assistant Professor in the Department of European Studies at Krakow University of Economics, Poland.

Poland is one of the most religiously homogenous European countries (with 88 per cent of the total population belonging to the Catholic Church – GUS 2015) and at the same time it is home to one of the oldest Muslim communities in the European Union. Muslims have been living within the Polish-Lithuanian state borders since the 14th century and till the second half of 20th century their community was made up predominantly of Tatars. The arrival of Muslim students, immigrants and refugees and increasing numbers of Poles embracing Islam in recent decades resulted in the situation that Tatars (approx. 5,000) are now only one of the groups within a wider community comprising approximately 35,000 members (Nalborczyk 2015, Pędziwiatr 2010, GUS 2013). This community is very diverse not only in ethnic and national terms but also religious ones with a majority of Sunnis of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence as well as a minority of followers of other madhabs and people inspired by Sufism, Shi’ism and even a few dozen members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The two major providers of Islamic religious education in Poland are the Tatar led Muslim Religious Union (MZR) set up before the Second World War and registered in 2004 as denominational organization and the Muslim League (LM) that looks after approximately 300 students. This paper analyzes various dimensions of Islamic religious education provision in Poland from practicalities of State-Muslim organizational structures to the content of the education provided. In particular it will examine the experiences of the religious education provision by the two aforementioned organizations (MZR and LM) in the last decade.

Chapter 9

Religious Education for Minorities: Perspectives from Islamic Education in Finnish Schools [+–] 157-170

Inkeri Rissanen £17.50

University of Tampere, Finland

Inkeri Rissanen is Lecturer in Multicultural Education at the University of Tampere, Finland. Her research interests include religious education, multicultural education and school pedagogy. A majority of her publications deal with the inclusion of Islam and Muslims in Finnish public education.

In many European countries religious education in school, regardless of its organizational model, is commonly given two important tasks: supporting students’ identity development and educating for tolerance. This is the case also in Finland, where there is a general consensus that religious education should contribute to social cohesion, but at the same time different opinions on what approach to RE would most likely meet this aim. However, challenges related to identity and tolerance are distinct for the majority and minorities in a society, and developing successful and legitimate forms of religious education requires paying attention to these particular challenges. This article discusses issues related to organizing legitimate and successful forms of religious education in European contexts by concentrating on minority perspective and drawing from the results of a study about Islamic education in Finnish schools. First, contemporary European ideals of religious education as well as identity negotiations and educational needs of Muslim students are explored. After that, the Finnish approach to religious education and observations on Finnish Islamic religious education are presented and implications for the future development of religious education discussed.

Chapter 10

The Denominational Model of Islamic Education in Germany: The Case of Hessen [+–] 171-186

Yasar Sarikaya,Esma Öger-Tunc £17.50

University of Giessen

Yaşar Sarıkaya is Professor in Islamic Theology and Education at the University of Giessen, Germany.

University of Giessien

Esma Öger-Tunç (MA) teaches Islamic theology and education at the University of Giessien, Germany.

Islamic religious education offered as a subject in school is a state responsibility. This means according to national curricula that it has to be taught in German and in principle by state-trained teachers. The Hesse curriculum for Islamic religious education contains suggestions with concrete content fields. This has now become an important issue, because the subject still has no curricular tradition. The new core curriculum for Hesse is the mandatory curricular document for instruction at Hessian state schools on all subjects in the primary and secondary level. This paper deals with the genesis and development of Islamic religious education in Hesse. The first section gives a brief overview of the historical development of Islamic religious education in Germany and describes the Hesse model in detail and identifies its significant aspects. Section two delineates the Hessian core curriculum. This part clarifies a number of important questions. In the final section the textbook “Mein Islambuch” , which is licensed by the Hessian Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs will be considered.

Chapter 11

(Re)discovering One’s Religion: Private Islamic Education in Lithuanian Muslim Communities [+–] 187-206

Egdūnas Račius £17.50

Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania

Egdūnas Račius is Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania. He has published several dozen articles on Muslims in Europe and the monograph Muslims in Eastern Europe (Edinburgh University Press, 2018).

Though Sunni Muslims are officially recognized as one of nine ‘traditional’ faith communities in Lithuania with the ensuing right to provide Islamic religious education to Muslim pupils in state schools within the compulsory subject ‘Moral education’, Islamic religious education, due to lack of demand, has hardly been offered in state schools. This lack is partially explained by the fact that there are simply no sufficient numbers of Muslim pupils at any one Lithuanian state school who (or whose parents) would want such instruction. Therefore, with no private Islamic primary, secondary or high schools in the country, whatever demand there is for Islamic religious education, it is satisfied mainly through ‘weekend schools’ at mosques and community centers. As the biggest concentration of Muslims is in the two biggest cities – the capital Vilnius and the second largest city Kaunas – most of Islamic education is offered there. While the ‘student’ body is mainly comprised of Tatars and (female) Lithuanian converts to Islam (both adult and school-age), the ‘tutors’, as a rule, are Diyanet-supplied Turkish imams and Arab students studying at various universities, occasionally assisted by local Tatars, including the Mufti (a Lithuanian Tatar educated in Lebanon) himself. Islam that is taught in these ‘weekend schools’ is then either of official Turkish version (Diyanet has financed translation into Lithuanian of study materials with much more supplied in Russian, a language common among Tatars) or of individually understood and practiced Arabic variants, depending on the origin of the ‘teacher’. However, it is noticed that while Tatars appear to be contend with the Turkish version, converts expect a more revivalist-based instruction. Therefore, some of the converts have (also) opted for alternative ways to instruct themselves in their adopted religion, namely, through digital means – Lithuanian language-based f-book groups, internet forums and the like where revivalist Islamic trends, among them Salafism, are much pronounced.

Chapter 12

The Others: Muslim Faith-based Schools in a Catholic-majority Country [+–] 207-233

Mariachiara Giorda,Alberta Giorgi £17.50

University of Roma Tre

Maria Chiara Giorda (Ph.D. Paris, EPHE 2007) is Associate Professor of History of Religions at the Department of Humanistic Studies at the University of Roma Tre. She is coordinator of the international SHARP Lab Project: her research activity focuses on the following topics: history of religions, geography of religions, religion and urban spaces, history of monasticism. Her most recent publications include the co-curatorship of the volume Geography of Encounters: The Making and Unmaking Spaces (Palgrave 2021) with Marian Burchardt and Luoghi di culto della Chiesa ortodossa romena in Italia: dinamiche di insediamento, Religioni e Società (2022) with Ioan Cozma.

University of Bergamo

Alberta Giorgi holds a PhD in Comparative Religion and works at the University of Bergamo, Italy. Alberta carries out research in the fields of sociological theory and communication and media.

Faith-based schools raise a series of interesting questions in the political debate with regard to public education. First of all, public education has the dual task of providing all citizens with a standard level of literacy and educating new citizens. In fact, public education may be seen as crucial for building a sense of national unity through transmission of the values and principles on which the national identity has been founded. In this perspective, issues may arise concerning the role and the degree of autonomy of faith-based schools—that is, schools with a specific, religiously-inspired, educational concept—with regard to public education as a whole. What is the balance between freedom of education and social cohesion? Moreover, in a context of increasing religious diversity, issues may arise in relation to the status of faith-based schools of non-majoritarian religious traditions. Second, in countries in which education is mostly provided by the public sector but is chronically underfinanced, economic support for faithbased schools, which mainly act in the private sector, gives rise to fierce criticism from a large sector of the population. These concerns may apply to the relations between private and public education in a broad sense. Nonetheless, when considering faith-based schools, the matter is complicated by the overall status of religion within the public sector.

Chapter 13

How Secular Educational Policies have Changed the Contents of Religious Education Curricula and Teachers’ Training Programmes in Modern Turkey [+–] 234-269

Mahmut Zengin £17.50

University of Sakarya, Turkey

Mahmut Zengin is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Education, Faculty of Theology, University of Sakarya, Turkey. His main research interests are in religious studies, Islamic education, values education, teaching religions in curriculum and textbooks, and methods for teaching religions.

The political management system in any government determines educational policy and its effective implementation process, and this, in fact, varies from country to country. In order to understand the current laic/secular education policy in Turkey, all the debates, experiences and implementation that spanned from the Ottoman period until the emergence of the Republic of Turkey need to be scrutinized. Indeed, the political, social, cultural and educational policies of the Republic period in modern Turkey were especially affected by the acceleration of modernization in the Ottoman “Tanzimat Reform Era (1839)”. This study bases its analysis, first, on the general framework that draws significantly upon the relationship between the state and religion that can be traced back to the Ottoman period, second, it will look at the intellectual legacy of the modernization / westernization process in the Turkish Republic, and, finally, the introduction of laic/secular education policies will be scrutinized. Moreover, the secular education policies applied in the construction of modern Turkey, particularly, the ways they shaped religious education and affected the religious education curriculum and teachers’ training models will be the object of this study.

Chapter 14

Character and Values Education in English Schools: What can Private Islamic Faith and State Funded Public Schools Learn from Each Other? [+–] 270-291

Farah Ahmed £17.50

ULC Institute of Education

Farah Ahmed is Director of Education and Research at Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation and Honorary Research Associate at the Centre for Research and Evaluation in Muslim Education, UCL Institute of Education, England. She is completing a PhD at the University of Cambridge, England.

In January 2015 the UK government announced a character education grant fund for schools, colleges and organizations, encouraging them to develop character education programmes and projects. For some Muslim educators, who consider the aim of religious education, and indeed education as a whole, to be the development of character (al-Attas, 1979; M. Halstead, 2004; Zaman & Memon, 2016, p. 25), one motivation for establishing Islamic faith schools has been the lack of character education in public schools. Can this new government initiative meet the aims of Muslim educators seeking character education for Muslim children, and if so how? What, if anything, do Muslim educational initiatives have to offer mainstream public schools in regard to character education? How do Islamic educational theories about character differ from those of mainstream UK educators and how do they compare to the government definition? This paper aims to open this debate which has as yet received little attention from UK Muslim educators, who are still preoccupied with the many regulatory changes in the wake of the Trojan horse affair. However, it could be argued that character education could be very much at the heart of the new requirement for schools to promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs, which have recently been placed within the longstanding requirement for schools to advance the Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development of children.

Chapter 15

A ‘Home of Study’: A UFO (Unidentified Foreign Object) in the Dutch ‘Pedagogic Civil Society’? [+–] 292-311

Ina ter Avest £17.50

InHolland University

Dutch Educational Centres (Educatieve Centra Nederland, Centres of Education in the Netherlands , CEN) aim at coaching students – living in two cultures – in their development in formal and informal education. In this article I give a description of a place where youngsters stay, called a ‘home of study’ (situated in or near a mosque), where they dedicate themselves to their homework and where they are coached by volunteer (experienced) ‘peer-experts’ in finding their way and positioning themselves in the Dutch plural society. A ‘home of study’ is a kind of homework-coaching in a homely atmosphere. The population of a ‘home of study’ consists of youngsters who see themselves as ‘Dutchmen with Turkish roots’. Youngsters live in the ‘home of study’ on a voluntary base; most of the (internal and external) coaches are volunteers. In each ‘home of study’ youngsters learn to take responsibility for each other and for the community as a whole. The voice of the youngsters is listened to by way of a Youth Committee and regular interviews and questionnaires. This way of coaching is ‘different’ from what ‘we’ in the Netherlands are used to. However, in an era of radicalization contributing to feelings of fear for what is ‘different’ – possibly leading to exclusion and expulsion – it seems of great urgency to explore teaching and learning of differences, without becoming indifferent. In this contribution I aim at bridging what is familiar and what is unknown, by way of exploring the contribution of this specific way of coaching in a ‘home of study’ and its positionality regarding a ‘pedagogic civil society’ in the Dutch plural society.

Chapter 16

State Neutrality and Islamic Education in Sweden [+–] 312-334

Ailin Abdullah,Jenny Berglund £17.50

Kista folkhögskola, Stockholm, Sweden

Ailin Abdullah is Head of the Department for Islamic Theological Studies and Arabic Studies at Kista folkhögskola, Sweden.

Stockholm University

Public debate about Islam and Muslims often focuses on contradictions, conflicts, and contrasting value systems. Since 9/11, the bombings in Madrid and London and the recent rise of ISIS this debate has to a large extent included a fear that Muslim immigrants will be disloyal to their new Western countries, and thus requires increased surveillance and control. Conversely, others argue that Muslim populations in the West have wrongly suffered from the increasing intolerance and suspicion resulting from terrorist acts committed by a small number of radicals. Such voices point to a need to safeguard religious freedom and the right to equal treatment regardless of a group’s ethnic, cultural, linguistic, or religious background. In many European countries, these discussions have directed attention toward places of Islamic education such as Muslim schools, mosques, and Islamic organizations, focusing on the sometimes controversial manner in which they have been depicted in the media, public discourse, and, within Muslim communities themselves (Aslan 2009; Birt 2006). Religious education is both an essential and a challenging objective for minorities since the “transmission” of religious tradition to future generations is crucial to the survival of any religion. In Sweden as elsewhere in Europe many Muslim children and teenagers and even adults attend privately-run, extra-curricular Islamic classes. Some attend Islamic schools or are taught at home. Publically funded Islamic education options provided by the state are an emergent option in several European countries. These classes lie not only at the heart of debates over religious freedom, equal rights to education, and integration, but are also connected to matters of securitization and the state control of Islam. This paper will present an overview of publicly funded, mainly pre-university Islamic education in Sweden, a European Western secular Christian majority country with a Muslim minority population. Firstly, I will establish a definition of Islamic education and a description of the state funding of education and religion in general. Then, the paper will move on to describe different types of Islamic education that are available in Sweden.

Chapter 17

Traditional Islamic Education and Mainstream Schooling in Contemporary England: Grasping the Nature of theFormer and Researching the Relationship and Interaction with the Latter [+–] 335-356

Bill Gent £17.50

University of Warwick

Bill Gent moved into academic research into aspects of Islamic education following a career as a schoolteacher and then a school adviser and inspector. He holds a professional doctorate from the University of Warwick and is an associate fellow at the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit (WRERU), England.

Coming from a religious education teaching background, it is not surprising that, when he began serious research into Islamic educational provision, Bill Gent became fascinated with the experience of English Muslim school-age children and young people who, in their daily lives, participated in two major educational traditions: those often referred to as the ‘western’ secular and the ‘Islamic’ religious traditions. In order to avoid simplistic, stereotypical or essentialist perceptions of Islamic education, in this paper the author explores some of the inner dynamics of traditional Islamic approaches to education and the quest for knowledge, with particular reference to the concept of ‘the embodiment of knowledge’ which is often used as a key marker of these approaches. Using this as a foundation, he then suggests several exemplar lines of enquiry relating to the relationship between Islamic education and its encounter and possible mutually enriching coexistence with western secular education.

Chapter 18

Creating Coherence in Education for British Muslim Pupils [+–] 357-380

Karamat Iqbal £17.50

Consultant

Karamat Iqbal has a longstanding background in education and equality and diversity. He currently works as a consultant in Disadvantage and Education. He has a PhD from the University of Warwick, England.

Birmingham currently has a significant Muslim presence. Since 2011, Muslims have been the largest pupil religious group in its schools. The research was conducted in local state schools. Mixed methods were used to gather data. The study explored student and parental attitudes to education and the importance of their religion. Data were gathered about teacher understanding of the distinctive heritage of Pakistani boys. Findings showed that education was highly valued by Pakistanis. Religion was equally considered important. To be educated meant achieving the benchmark qualifications (5 A*-C grades at GCSE) within the state system and to be equipped with essential understanding of Islam. The boys spent much of their time, after school, in IRE (Islamic Religious Education). This took them away from school related work. Teachers were found to lack understanding of the boys’ heritage and thus unable to bridge their school and wider lives. One policy solution proposed is for IRE to be integrated into the state school system. Steps need to be taken to increase teachers’ understanding of Pakistani heritage.

Chapter 19

Islamic Education in Public Schools and Mosques in Germany [+–] 381-389

Tuba Isik £17.50

Paderborn University, Germany

Tuba Isik is Associate Professor for Islamic Education at the Institute of Islamic Theology at the Paderborn University, Germany. She is an expert in teaching methods and interreligious learning in education.

Islamic Education in Germany, which is more about understanding Islamic Instruction (Islamischer Religionsunterricht) as a regular subject in Primary and Secondary Schools, has become a very important public issue (Berglund 2015). That might be because 4 million of the 80 million German inhabitants are Muslims, i.e. 4-5 per cent of the population and they are claiming their rights according to the constitution: they want the possibility to exercise their entitlement to religious education. Also, German politicians are afraid that German Muslims could establish a more rigorous understanding of their religion and want to prevent this by offering religious education at schools, which are to some extent subject to the control of the federal states. But another important reason for the current discussion is that in general the young people in Germany are losing their ability, sense, and comprehension of religious language. It has also to be mentioned that Germany is becoming more and more culturally and religiously diverse. Therefore, the question of ensuring mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence requires knowledge about the “other”. Hence the question raised among educationalists is whether it would probably make more sense to have a school subject that teaches about religions (Religionskunde) instead of having religious education which is linked to a confession. I will structure my paper along these questions and thoughts.

Chapter 20

Mainstream Secular and Qur’an-based Islamic Education, Student Perspectives on the Relation between Two Disparate Forms [+–] 390-408

Jenny Berglund £17.50

Stockholm University

This article focuses on the reported experiences of Muslim students that regularly shift between Quran-centred supplementary Islamic education and mainstream secular school. Its aim is to better comprehend how these students make sense of this dual educational experience while negotiating the knowledge, skills, and values that are taught to them by two apparently disparate institutions. The interviews were conducted in Stockholm and London, and thus a secondary aim is to assess the similarities and differences between these two national contexts. To balance and enhance our understanding of student experiences, this article employs a constructive understanding of Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural capital and habitus as well as Andrey Rosowsky’s notion of liturgical literacy. It shows differences between Quran-based and mainstream notions of “reading”, especially with respect to their contrasting definitions of “understanding” and “meaning”; it also explores how competency in Quran recitation might become a valuable “capital” when translated from the language of “liturgical literacy” to the language of “skills”.

End Matter

Index [+–] 409-411

Jenny Berglund FREE

Stockholm University

Islamic religious education (IRE) in Europe has become a subject of intense debate during the past decade. There is concern that states are doing too little or too much to shape the spiritual beliefs of private citizens. State response to the concern ranges from sponsoring religious education in public schools to forgoing it entirely and policies vary according to national political culture. In some countries public schools teach Islam to Muslims as a subject within a broader religious curriculum that gives parents the right to choose their children’s religious education. In the other countries public schools teach Islam to all pupils as a subject with a close relation to the academic study of religions. There are also countries where public schools do not teach religion at all, although there is an opportunity to teach about Islam in school subjects such as art, history, or literature. IRE taught outside publicly funded institutions, is of course also taught as a confessional subject in private Muslim schools, mosques and by Muslim organisations. Often students who attend these classes also attend a publicly funded “main stream school”. This volume brings together a number of researchers for the first time to explore the interconnections between Islamic educations and public schooling in Europe. The relation between Islamic education and public schooling is analysed within the publicly and privately funded sectors. How is publicly funded education organised, why is it organised in this way, what is the history and what are the controversial issues? What are the similarities and differences between privately run Islamic education and “main stream” schooling? What are the experiences of teachers, parents and pupils? The volume will be of interest to scholars of Islam in Europe, policy makers of education and integration and teachers of religious education.

Reviews

Overall, the volume makes a significant contribution to a better understanding of how Islam is now presented to a growing generation of Muslim young people in different national contexts, who are mostly in a minority situation.
Highly recommended.
Zeitschrift für Pädagogik und Theologie

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Books and Journals in Humanities, Social Science and Performing Arts

European Perspectives on Islamic Education and Public Schooling

Jenny Berglund [+–]

Stockholm University

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