Preface. Buang & Ismail 2007:6.

Transcription

1 Preface Between the years 1999 and 2003 I worked in a Muslim school, teaching the subjects math, Swedish, English, physical education and the natural and social sciences, all of which are currently prescribed by Sweden s national syllabi. Beyond these subjects, this school added two hours per week of Islamic religious education (IRE) as taught by a specialized IRE teacher. Given my academic background in Islamic Studies, I naturally became curious to learn about the content of these IRE lessons and sometimes discussed this as well as other Islam- and/or Muslim-related topics with the local IRE instructor. Eventually, wishing to know more about a subject that had increasingly stirred my interest, I made contact with IRE representatives from other Muslim schools in Sweden and soon discovered that there were significant variations in the content of their courses. I next attempted to locate literature about Muslim schooling that went beyond the shallow debate in the daily press. Surprisingly, however, there was little to be found, especially concerning the matter of Islam as a confessional school subject. This was the case not only in relation to Sweden, but also in relation to European countries that had maintained Muslim schools for far longer periods of time. While IRE has undoubtedly become part of the Swedish school system, the story does not end here. As noted by Buang and Ismail, [the] challenges faced in being integrated into a national education system are echoed everywhere across the Muslim world where Muslim minorities and diasporic Muslim communities are found. 1 The current scarcity of research regarding Islamic religious education, and the many challenging questions about the future of Muslim integration both in Sweden and in Europe convinced me that an inquiry into the nature of Sweden s IRE program would be an extremely relevant and timely topic of study. 1 Buang & Ismail 2007:6. 13

2 1 Introduction Swedish society in the twenty-first century is clearly marked by a diversity of ethnic, cultural and religious groups, although there are differences of opinion regarding how all this plurality should be handled. And while plurality is not exactly a new phenomenon in Sweden, its character has gradually transformed, most notably in relation to the changing nature of minority demands for equality. During the sixties and seventies, for example, most minorities simply asked to be left alone [and] civilly tolerated. 2 Today this is no longer enough, as they increasingly seek for augmented recognition and respect. This shift constitutes a rejection of the notion that minorities should assimilate to the majority culture in the public sphere while only expressing differences privately, and instead calls for the acceptance and support of difference in both the private and the public spheres. 3 The issue of mere assimilation vs. full public acceptance of cultural difference is relevant to our understanding of the establishment of Muslim schools, since these can be seen as examples of politically engaged projects that often develop out of the demand for recognition and equality. 4 Significantly, this demand coincides with the current discussion about religious interpretive authority taking place amongst Muslims throughout the world. Over the last several decades, globalisation, technological breakthrough and the development of sophisticated means of mass education, communication and production have made the Quran and other Islamic texts accessible to literally millions of Muslims worldwide, encouraging numerous of these individuals to interpret Islam for themselves rather than relying upon the scholarly interpretations of the ulama. 5 As a consequence, the interpretations and conclusions of these traditional Islamic authorities have been increasingly challenged. 6 Two contemporaneous currents thus press for change within the European Muslim community: the demand for equality and recognition on the one hand, and the questioning of religious authority and interpretation on the other. And since global discussions regarding these two issues are impossible to ignore on Modood & Kastoryano 2006:171. Modood & Kastoryano 2006:171. See for example: Bergesen 2003; Berglund & Larsson 2007; Damgren 2002; Jackson 2003, 2005; Jensen 2004; Maréchal Ulama is plural for alim, the Arabic word for religious scholar. Eickelman & Piscatori 1996:

3 the local (i.e., classroom) level, they exert an influence on the formation of Islamic religious education (IRE) in Sweden s Muslim schools, and also on the manner in which Islam is filtered and presented to the younger generations. In a sense, then, Muslim schools in general, and IRE in particular, can be viewed as playing a significant role in the ongoing process of formulating Islam in Sweden. Purpose and Disposition This study has been actuated by one overriding question: how is IRE formed as a confessional school subject within the framework and under the jurisdiction of the Swedish school system? In pursuance of an answer to this question, three Muslim schools have been selected for investigation and analysis. The aim is to increase our understanding of IRE as a lived classroom experience by examining the formation of its content in relation to: a) the various Islamic traditions; and, b) how Islam is understood in a Swedish context. It is here important to note that this study represents the first time that Islamic religious education has been studied within the context of the Swedish school system and under conditions that differ from those found in other institutions teaching Islam in a confessional manner. Moreover, since both the form and content of Sweden s Muslim schools are regulated by the national curriculum established in the Swedish Education Act (see below), a study of IRE is, in part, a study of how Islam is interpreted and formulated in the interface between Islamic traditions and Swedish school policies. Within the limits of the Education Act, the IRE teacher is free to formulate her lessons in accordance with each school s preferred interpretation of Islam. Thus it is also of interest to examine the content that teachers teach and how they make their educational choices because this provides local indications of the different ways in which Islam is interpreted, understood and articulated in Sweden today. 7 In keeping with the above described aim of this work, answers to the following research questions will be pursued throughout: What is the content of the Islamic religious education offered in each of the selected schools? What are the similarities and differences in content between these schools, and how are these to be understood? What meanings do the selected teachers ascribe to Islamic religious education? How do the teachers account for their selection of IRE-content? 7 This formulating process involves participants such as religious leaders, private adherents with diverse backgrounds and different local groups and denominations. Since IRE in Muslim schools is variously related to all these participants and since one of its aims is to mediate religious tradition, it can be considered to play a formulating role as well. See, for example, Svanberg & Westerlund 1999 for examples of how Islam previously has been formulated in Sweden. 15

4 What is the nature of the educational choices that go into creating the type of Islamic religious education offered in each school? In general, these would be considered classical questions within the Educational Sciences; 8 it is only the context that is new. And since the study of IRE in Sweden is a new field of research, an additional aim of this work is to provide a fairly comprehensive description of the teaching that has been encountered along the way. This first chapter introduces the subject, presents some background and offers a brief discussion regarding previously conducted research. The intention here is to identify those academic disciplines to which this study belongs, and also to provide some indication as to how the material may best be approached. The second chapter presents the theoretical framework and methodological considerations that have guided and informed my inquiry. Chapters three, four and five are empirical in nature and can be considered the heart of this work. They concern the role of the Quran in religious education, how Islamic history is utilized to orient the present, and the way that song, music and celebration are employed. In reality, these three categories are inseparable aspects of the whole that is IRE. Their practical division into three distinct chapters is solely for the purpose of clarifying content and easing the reader through the discourse that is to follow. It is hoped that these chapters will literally bring the reader into the IRE classroom and familiarise her or him with the material that is taught, the manner in which it is presented and the reasoning that lies behind the educational choices these teachers have made; it is also hoped that they will make evident those elements that simply have been taken for granted. To restate in a bit more detail that which has already been mentioned: Chapter three will focus on how the Quran is differently applied in terms of differences in understanding, interpretation and the meaning given to its use. Chapter four will focus on how Islamic history is used to establish behavioural norms that students are expected to follow in both their personal and their societal lives; in this connection, teachers choices of narratives for representing Islamic history are discussed in relation to different traditions of interpretation. And chapter five will look at the ways in which song and music are employed by IRE teachers in the celebration of Islamic festivities; moreover, since it is during such festivals that singing largely occurs, some description of these will be provided as well. Each empirical chapter concludes with a discussion on findings that are of relevance to the above research questions and to those that have arisen in the chapter itself. After these, the final chapter contains a discussion on the study s general conclusions as well as a brief look at some of the challenges that lie ahead. 8 Studying the content of a given subject may be considered classical within the field of didaktik, see Disciplinary Belonging. 16

5 Also included in this work are appendices containing the IRE syllabi for each of the studied schools, explanations of Arabic words used in this text, the Islamic names of the months, and citations from an English translation of the Quran. A further Appendix contains those sections of the Swedish Education Act and the Swedish national curriculum that relate to the establishment of both Muslim schools and IRE. Since in Sweden there is little extant research focusing on the content of confessional subjects in general, and IRE in particular, this study includes extensive ethnographic accounts. The inclusion of these accounts is intended both to demonstrate the approach used in the interpretation of the material and to provide a tangible sense of the classroom situation. They are also meant to indicate the manner in which IRE is taught and how the teachers articulate their interpretations of Islam in the context of the classroom. Common Arabic terms appear throughout this work and, for the ease of the standard reader, they have been very simply transcribed i.e., without the use of either diacritical markings or the feminine/masculine h-ending. This decision has been made in consideration of the fact that readers that are unfamiliar with the Arabic language will not be helped by the inclusion of such details, while those that are will recognize the words without them. All Arabic terms appear in italics and most have been translated into English upon their first appearance in the text. However, they can also be found in the appended glossary. Because the words Quran, hadith, sura, umma, halal and haram have become so much a part of the English lexicon, they will not be italicized and will be pluralized with the standard English s. 9 Explanations for the Arabic terms appearing in the glossary are drawn from Ian Richard Netton s A Popular Dictionary of Islam 10 and all Quranic citations are referenced to Muhammad M. Pickthall s The Meaning of the Glorious Qur an. 11 Background In 1993 Sweden s first Muslim school opened in the southern city of Malmö; to date, that number has increased to sixteen. Of these sixteen schools, nine have been classified as Islamic by the Swedish National Agency for Education 12 (see table below) and seven have been classified as Swedish-Arabic or the like See, for example, Hedin 2008: 222 for an argument favouring the use of the Swedish forms of Arabic words. Netton Pickthall The Swedish National Agency for Education is the central administrative authority of the Swedish school system. The role of the National Agency for Education in the Swedish educational system is to define goals so as to administrate, to inform so as to influence, and to review so as to improve. See 17

6 Because a number of the schools characterized as Swedish-Arabic provide some sort of IRE e.g., lessons in the Quran this study considers them to be Muslim as well. 13 Each such Muslim school currently educates between 20 and 250 pupils. 14 Table 1. Denominational schools in Sweden (2006). 15 CHRISTIAN ISLAMIC JEWISH Compulsory schools Upper secondary schools Although the above table only lists schools designated as denominational by Sweden s National Agency for Education, it nonetheless indicates that the number of Muslim schools is far less than the number of Christian schools. It also makes plain the fact that Muslim schools are presently confined to the compulsory segment of the Swedish school system. Of the many reasons that Muslim schools began to establish in Sweden at the beginning of the Nineties, one concerns the fact that in 1992 the Education Act was amended such that it became less difficult to found independent schools. 16 Although the education offered by independent schools (including those of a denominational character) must have the same basic aims as the education offer by municipal schools, an independent school is permitted to have a profile that distinguishes it from a municipal school. 17 This profile often consists of a specific It has been argued that the label Muslim school can be misunderstood to mean madrasa school, the primary function of which is to teach Islamic subjects. Those that argue in this way consider it more appropriate for Sweden to identify such schools as Independent schools with Islamic or Muslim profiles. In this study, however, the phrase Muslim school is preferred, since its application is well-established throughout Europe for the identification of both private and independent schools. As I see it, its use in Sweden merely designates a school that is financed by the state and regulated by the National Agency for Education. An independent school must have at least 20 pupils in order to qualify for funding from the municipality. Berglund & Larsson 2007:10. I use the phrase denominational school since this is the phrase used by the National Agency for Education in Sweden. Before 1992, few denominational schools existed in Sweden. These were mostly Christian, although one Jewish school had been established in Stockholm. See, for example, Algotsson 1975; Berglund & Larsson For a discussion regarding the reasons that some parents choose Muslim schools see, for example, Berglund 2007; Gerle For a discussion regarding the criteria used by the National Agency for Education to classify denominational schools see, for example, Löfstedt In this study, schools that are neither private nor independent are designated as municipal schools since this is the term employed by the National Agency for Education in Sweden. 18

7 school ethos as well as additional curricular subjects that are incorporated into the weekly schedule. In Sweden, schools classified as independent are generally divided into five distinct profile categories, denominational being one. 18 According to the Education Act, independent schools must open their doors to everyone, regardless of faith, and must be approved by the National Agency for Education. While run privately, Sweden s Independent schools are nonetheless financed by the state. 19 The nature of one denominational school may be extremely different from that of another, and a distinction is often drawn between those that have strong and those that have weak profiles. These classifications pertain to the degree of impact that a specific religion has on the profile of the school a subject that will be further discussed in this work. 20 Religious Education Within each country, religious education 21 has been shaped by a multiplicity of forces, including the specific structure of its educational system as well as its history, politics and so forth. The country s religious disposition is also of importance since the dominance of a particular religious tradition often marks the educational system, even in cases where religious freedom is guaranteed. 22 In Europe, two models for RE can be discerned: 1) the confessional (or denominational) approach; and, 2) the Religious Studies approach. 23 A primary distinction between these types concerns who is ultimately responsible for determining the content, developing the curricula, selecting the materials and training the teachers. In countries that have adopted the confessional approach, these responsibilities are handled by the denominations themselves (or, in some cases, the denomination of the majority society); 24 in those, such as Sweden, that have Descriptive Data on Pre-School Activities, School-age Childcare, Schools and Adult Education in Sweden :42. The other profiles are General, Special Education Method, Language/Ethnic and Special Subject, see State funding of Muslim schools is not a typically Swedish phenomenon. Muslim schools have been funded in a number of European countries since the beginning of the 1980s. Roth 2007: The acronym RE is used for the school subject. Schreiner 2002:87. Obviously, this distinction is a simplification. Nonetheless, it appears useful when discussing Islamic religious education in relation to other forms of RE. There are also countries (e.g., France) in which there is no provision for RE within the state school system. Schreiner In countries where religious education is confessional (denominational), such as the Netherlands and some parts of Germany, it is the denominations that supply teachers for the RE-lessons. In countries such as Poland this means that only one choice is available: Christian RE. In other countries it means a choice between teachers not only from different denominations, but from different religions as well. In countries like Germany, Austria and Finland religious education is offered only when demanded by the parents. See, for example, Aslan 2008; Fuess 2007; Jozsa 2007, Martikainen 2004 or Schreiner

8 adopted the Religious Studies approach, they are handled by the state. 25 It is here important to note that regardless of the approach adopted, the state is presumed to be neutral relative to the matter of religious conviction. With the confessional approach, the state s neutrality is said to manifest in the fact that it grants the denomination responsibility for RE-content development and makes RE attendance only an option that parents can either accept or reject. With the Religious Studies approach, the state s neutrality is displayed by providing school courses and materials that are intended to be neutral respecting religions, thus guaranteeing that religious education is made acceptable to persons of all faiths. 26 Three distinct models of RE have been identified according to the type of religious education they promote: education into, education about and education from religion. Education into religion introduces the pupil to a specific religious tradition; the purpose is to promote the pupil s personal, moral and spiritual development and to build religious identity within a particular tradition. Many confessional approaches emphasize learning into religion, which means learning how to live in accordance with specific religious tenets, beliefs and practices. Education about religion promotes a more or less academic and detached examination of the tenets, beliefs and practices of various religious traditions and deals with questions that are generally broached within the discipline known as Study of Religions. Education from religion is said to take the personal experience of the pupil as its principal point of departure. The idea is to enhance the pupil s capacity to reflect upon important questions of life and provide her with the opportunity to develop her own responses to major moral and religious problems i.e., to learn from different religious traditions and outlooks of life. 27 These three types of RE relate to religion in very distinctive ways and it is not uncommon for more than one to be involved in a given RE course. 28 Religious Education in the Swedish School System The Swedish school system has a long history of Christian education related to the Lutheran State Church. Although schooling was made compulsory for all children in 1842, Sven Hartman notes that Swedes [had been] a reading people long before then a result of the Ecclesiastical Act of 1686 which charged parents and masters with the domestic responsibility of teaching their children The Swedish approach has also been called integrative. For a comparison between the different types of integrative approaches extant in Europe, including the Swedish variety, see Alberts It should be noted that in Sweden the state is not responsible for the production of teaching materials; these are published by private companies. See Schreiner 2002, Schreiner 2006 and Jackson 2007 for discussions about the different models of RE in Europe. For further discussion on these perspectives see, for example, Attfield 1996, Teece 2008 or Wright Schreiner 2002:

9 and servants to read. 29 Back then, of course, the most important school subject was religious instruction and this remained the case until the occurrence of a major curriculum adjustment in the year 1919, the starting point of the secularization of Swedish schools. Thereafter, religious instruction was reduced by fifty percent, other subjects were introduced to balance the difference, and [f]ostering for national citizenship instead of the Lutheran faith became the task of the school system. 30 In 1962, a school reform required the subject of Christianity to maintain a neutral profile with respect to questions of faith; 31 and in 1969, the subject s name was changed from Christianity to Religious Education (religionskunskap), indicating the transition from a confessional to a non-confessional form of religious education that prioritised teaching about religion including different religions from a study of religions perspective. From that point on Religious Education also became more pupil-centred, with its focus directed more towards the matter of significant life questions. 32 The Swedish national curriculum of today contains the following statement: Education in the Swedish school system shall be non-denominational [nonconfessional]. The task of the school is to encourage all pupils to discover their own uniqueness as individuals and thereby actively participate in social life by giving of their best in responsible freedom. 33 The use of the term non-denominational (icke-konfessionell) in the above quotation is meant to imply that in the Swedish school system religious education is to be presented such that no particular worldview is prioritised and pupils from all cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds would feel comfortable in attendance. This neutrality, however, does not extend to the realm of what is described as society s fundamental values 34, the mediation of which the national curriculum considers a primary task of Sweden s educational system. This is one reason that RE is taught in terms of the Religious Studies approach and, in 1996, was made obligatory for all pupils. The following quotation from the national curriculum explains: Hartman 2007:260. Hartman 2007:260. Skogar 2000:29. Hartman 2000: Curriculum for the Compulsory School System, the Pre-school Class and the Leisure-time Centre 2006; see also Appendix. In this English translation, non-denominational as opposed to nonconfessional is used. However, I prefer the term non-confessional, since this more precisely corresponds to the original Swedish term icke-konfessionell. On the one hand, RE in Sweden is meant to be neutral with respect to religious values; on the other hand, it is meant to be partial with respect to society s fundamental values. This raises the question of whether such an approach, while proclaiming neutrality, merely promotes the religion of secularism instead. For a discussion regarding a possible secularistic bias in Swedish education see, for example, Osbeck & Cöster For a similar discussion concerning RE in Britain see, for example, Wright

10 The school has the important task of imparting, instilling and forming in pupils those fundamental values on which our society is based. The inviolability of human life, individual freedom and integrity, the equal value of all people, equality between women and men and solidarity with the weak and vulnerable are all values that the school should represent and impart. In accordance with the ethics borne by Christian tradition and Western humanism, this is achieved by fostering in the individual a sense of justice, generosity of spirit, tolerance and responsibility. 35 In accordance with Sweden s Education Act, the general goals outlined in the above quotation are meant to be achieved in both non-denominational and denominational settings, 36 and thus the objectivity of education is not to be intruded upon by indoctrinating or tendentious modes of discourse regardless of a school s profile confessional or any other. 37 In pursuit of these aims, most schools with confessional profiles arrange only a small number of hours per week for the introduction of certain subjects. In the specific case of Muslim schools, this number amounts to one to three hours per week of Islamic religious education. And since there are no national syllabi for such subjects, local syllabi must be written instead. These, however, must also adhere to the above described fundamental values. How this has been accomplished in the Muslim schools that are the objects of this study will be discussed in empirical chapters three, four and five. Muslims in Sweden The presence of Muslims in Sweden is relatively recent, with the Tartars having been the first to arrive at the end of the 1940s. The 1960s marked the beginning of Muslim labour migration; and when the need for labour decreased at the end of the 1970s, immigration policy once again became more restrictive. 38 Today s Swedish Muslim population is comprised of individuals from a wide variety of national, ethnic and religious origins, many of whom arrived as refugees during the 1980s and 1990s and many of whom have taken their birth in Sweden. 39 Moreover, despite the fact that all Muslims share certain fundamental prescriptions and beliefs, Islam is articulated and practiced in a diversity of ways within a diversity of Islamic traditions a diversity that becomes even more heterogeneous in combination with various national, social and individual characteris Curriculum for the Compulsory School System, the Pre-school Class and the Leisure-time Centre 2006:3. Skollagen i praktiken: Motiv och kommentarer 2005 (see Appendix). Johansson & Persson 1996:22. Throughout the history of Swedish education, objectivity has been conceptualized in a variety of ways. See, for example, Englund 1986:198 and 315 and also Englund 2005 (in Swedish) but note that it is the same study. Svanberg & Westerlund 1999:13 ff. Larsson & Sander 2007; Svanberg 1999:

11 tics. 40 When Muslim peoples immigrate to Sweden, all these diversities are further merged with the cultural, social and individual conditions that are characteristic of modern Swedish society. All this makes it almost absurd to speak of the Muslims in archetypical terms. At present, there are no reliable statistics regarding how many Muslims currently reside in Sweden. However, with as many as one hundred established communities, Islam has clearly become this country s largest non-christian religion. Available data indicates that the Swedish Muslim population stands at about 400, Of these, approximately half are held to be secularised 42, an estimated one-third are considered to be school age and younger, and around 100,000 are said to belong to some kind of registered Muslim organisation. 43 In Sweden, as in many European countries today, issues relating to Islam and Muslims have been the focus of intense public debate. The establishment of Muslim schools has been one such issue. 44 The Establishment of Muslim Schools A study conducted in 1997 by the Swedish National Agency for Education derived the following reasons that certain Muslim parents 45 send their children to Muslim schools: negatively biased and inaccurate views of Islam in municipal schools and schoolbooks 46, disregard for common Islamic rules respecting diet, dress, prayer, chastity, fasting, and so forth, poor religious education by the standards of Islam, insufficient discipline, fear of exposure to narcotics and alcohol and too great a diversity of immigrant groups in neighbouring municipal schools. Another important element highlighted in this study concerns the difficulties encountered by Muslim parents in their interactions with municipal school officials and staffs interactions that had left them feeling humiliated, Waardenburg 2003: 208ff. Larsson & Sander 2007:71; Otterbeck & Bevelander 2006:16. Hjärpe 2004:153. Those organisations that are registered receive financial support from the Commission for State Grants to Religious Communities [Samarbetsnämnden för stöd till trossamfund], see Otterbeck & Bevelander 2006:15. Communities that are not organised in relation to the Islamic Cooperation Council are dependent on voluntary membership support and/or support from organisations located in Muslim counties. For a description of the process of Muslim institutionalization in Sweden, see Larsson & Sander 2007:169 ff. Other issues that have instigated fierce public debate concern the establishment of mosques, veiling, halal-slaughter, male circumcision, infibulations and the matter of so-called honourcrimes, see Larsson & Sander 2007; Otterbeck & Bevelander It should be noted that the parents selected for this study are members of a sub-group of the general Muslim population in Sweden; as such, their particular perspective is not necessarily representative of the whole. This opinion is confirmed by scholars that have criticised many of Sweden s Religious Studies RE-textbooks for presenting Islam in a prejudicial manner, see Härenstam 1993; Otterbeck

12 alienated and shamed. 47 Reportedly, it had been such incidents that had convinced them that is was impossible to effectively execute their parental responsibilities within the municipal school framework; thus they opted to send their children to a Muslim school instead. 48 A more recent study concerning the matter of choice of school (skolvalfrihet) indicates the same thing: parents choose to send their children to Muslim schools more for purposes of security and wellbeing than for the purpose of religion. Thus their choice might be seen as one way of avoiding discrimination and obtaining acceptance of difference i.e., as primarily involving concerns over power of influence and democratic rights. 49 It is impossible to exclude such considerations from any comprehensive discussion regarding Muslim schools in Sweden. Whether or not one accepts the validity of the preceding reasoning, it is clearly of importance to many Muslim parents to locate an educational environment in which their children can be educated not only about Islam via RE textbooks based on a secularised religious studies approach, but also into Islam via confessional lessons in which Islam is the norm and the child learns about the best lived life from an Islamic point of view. Islamic Religious Education or Islamic Education? The term Islamic education has been invested with a variety of usages and meanings. According to Susan L. Douglass and Munir A. Shaikh it can mean: education of Muslims in their Islamic faith; education for Muslims which includes the religious and secular disciplines; education about Islam for those who are not Muslim; and education in an Islamic spirit and tradition. 50 The research undertaken in this work concerns the first of these understandings: education of Muslims in their Islamic faith. 51 However, since the term Islamic education has been applied to various possible types of Muslim education, I The expression of such feelings seems not at all surprising when one considers that 11.9 % of Swedish teachers are in basic agreement with the following statement: Muslim immigrant parents in Sweden do not see to their children s best (Lange 2008:91). Skolverket Compare with Driessen & Valkenberg 2000:15, in which Dutch Muslims state nearly the same reasons for selecting Muslim schools. Bunar & Kallstenius This argument is also put forward in Berglund 2008b. See also Ihle 2007:50, who indicates that the choice of Muslim parents to send their children to Muslim schools in Denmark may be based upon the perception that the state school system is inclined towards secularism, promoting it as an ideological norm. Douglass & Shaikh 2004:7. See also Leirvik 2004:224 who discusses different understandings of Islamic education. According to Oddbjørn Leirvik, most societies dominated by Muslim cultural expressions commonly understand the term Islamic education to refer to a specific subject in school i.e., Islam as religious education (Leirvik 2004). 24

13 have chosen to use the term Islamic religious education (IRE) instead. 52 Here the addition of the word religious makes the term more precise and also connects it with the school subject RE, signalling that IRE specifically concerns Islamic education in schools. Moreover, this usage has been already adopted in European countries other than Sweden to refer to Muslim RE in public schools. 53 In my particular usage, IRE is meant to refer to all confessional subjects that are offered in the three schools under study, despite the fact that they have been titled differently (e.g., Quran, din [religion], Islam, religion-islam). Islamic singing lessons are also included in what I call IRE because in these schools such lessons are confessional in character, given by the same person that teaches the other aspects of the subject, and thus made part of the teaching of Islam. Although, as indicated above, the decision to send one s child to a Muslim school is not usually based on the fact that it offers IRE, the appearance of this extracurricular subject in the school syllabi is nonetheless significant in terms of drawing a formal distinction between Muslim and non-muslim schools. Disciplinary Belonging In large measure this study could be considered to belong to the Educational Sciences research tradition known in Germanic vernacular as didaktik. As I understand it, didaktik research is characterized by the fact that its focus is on the teaching and learning of a specific content or subject matter; this differs from pedagogy, for example, which focuses on the relation between teacher and learner. 54 Didaktik can also be distinguished from the English term didactics, which is often used to indicate instruction and method rather than a particular discipline of research although the so-called didactic triad of teaching, learning and content is frequently used to explain what didaktik means. 55 My own understanding of didaktik springs from the German research tradition in which [d]idaktik is characterized as restrained teaching based on (a) a commitment to Bildung, (b) the educative difference of matter and meaning and (c) the autonomy of teaching and learning. 56 Because didaktik concerns course Note that the term IRE has been used to stand for Inter-Religious Education as well see, for example, Schreiner Moreover, it is sometimes used in education as short for Initiative, Response and Evaluation. One example is Germany, where Muslim students are able to choose IRE as one of their school subjects, see Fuess 2007; Laehnemann For examples of IRE in Kenya see Svensson According to Klette 2007:148, the role of content has been neglected in studies of teaching and learning. Klette 2007:147; see picture in Appendix. Hopman 2007:109. According to Hopman, the German tradition differs from the Anglo- American curriculum tradition in that the latter tradition has lost its interest in actual classrooms and become more and more interested in the political and philosophical implications of the curriculum of social fabric. Hopman 2007:

14 content, and the focus of this study is on the content of IRE (a form of RE), it could be more specifically characterized as belonging to the field of Religious Education Research. The term Religious Education Research 57 is used herein because it has become a more or less established term for research concerning RE. 58 In this study Religious Education Research is considered to be praxisoriented because its knowledge of the ways that school subjects are presented and taught is important not only for the research community, but for the practice of teachers as well. 59 Religious education research is situated on the borderlines of several other disciplines. As noted by Caroline Liberg: In order to study the content that is created in the complex practical pedagogical daily round within different educational settings, a synthesis of knowledge from many different disciplines is required as is the close cooperation of researchers within these fields. 60 In this study the aim has been to combine the understandings of the educational sciences with those of the study of religions (more specifically Islamic studies) in a way that makes it interesting for those that are concerned with either or both of these disciplines. 61 Moreover, since this work is occupied with the manner in which members of Muslim minority communities convey Islam to forthcoming generations in a predominantly secular Christian society, it is also of relevance to such disciplines as Migration and Integration Studies, Educational Philosophy and Political Science. Although research within the Educational Sciences may have both descriptive and prescriptive aims, 62 the offering of prescriptions is not an intention of this work. Rather, as mentioned earlier, the objective is to increase understanding of how the lived classroom experience of IRE is shaped and directed by teachers An alternative would be Religion didaktik. For a discussion regarding religious education as practice in contrast to religious education as a research discipline see, for example, Afdal 2008:202. Therein Afdal notes that the English language provides no means of distinguishing religious education as practice from religious education as a research discipline. The term praxis-oriented is meant to identify research that takes the educational setting as its point of departure and is thus interested in questions relating to the complexity of the classroom situation. See, for example, Liberg 2006:186 and Englund 1997:122ff. This is one way that religious education, as a field of research, can help develop better teaching practices. Note that this has nothing to do with enhancing the level of the pupil s religiosity. Liberg 2006:184. My translation from Swedish to English. It has been argued that the Study of Religions should not focus on the study of RE offered by religious communities since this would place the Study of Religions in the position that might actively support the particular religious community which offers it (Alberts 2008:303). As should be obvious from the fact that I have chosen to study IRE, I disagree with this point of view; rather I am convinced that the imposition of this sort of research restriction risks creating a hegemonic discourse that fails to question itself e.g., by way of a critical elucidation of its history and genealogy (Jensen 2008b:144). Jank & Meyer 1997a:47; see also Jank & Meyer 1997a:57ff. regarding the problem of normativity in education. 26

15 attempting to impart a religious tradition within the framework of the Swedish school system. Previous Research Over the last decade, studies concerning Muslim schools in Europe have largely focused on the matters of pupil identity, leadership and the conflicts and conditions encountered in running a Muslim school. There also have been studies concerning the debate over denominational schools, as well as a number of articles dealing with the various reasons that some Muslim parents send their children to independent, as opposed to municipal, schools. 63 What follows is a presentation of findings that are of both specific and general relevance to this work. They come from the field of religious education research, from other disciplines studies of Muslim schools in Sweden and from the study of religions (with specific reference to Islamic education internationally). Religious Education Research in Sweden 64 In Sweden, the primary focus of religious education research has been on learning conditions and the preparatory work of the learner, and only a small number of studies have specifically dealt with the teacher-side of the equation; this has been the case for religious education both within and outside the school system. 65 Moreover, almost all of the teacher-oriented studies that do exist focus either on the teacher s thoughts regarding RE or on the relation between those thoughts and the teaching situation, 66 with surprisingly few focusing on the content of the subject being taught. Two exceptions are the studies of Kjell Härenstam and Jonas Otterbeck, both of which concern the content of RE textbook chapters about Islam. In Härenstam s study, the manner in which Islam has been generally represented in RE textbooks is contrasted with the manner in which it has been represented from the perspective of Muslim self-understanding. 67 Here the See, for example, Berglund 2004; Brattlund 2002; Daun & Walford 2004; Driessen & Valkenberg 2000; Dwyer & Meyer 1996; Gerle 1999; Gustafsson 2004b; Ihle 2007; Maréchal As already indicated above, I regard religious education research to be part of both the educational sciences and the study of religions. Thus it is not involved in the conduct of normative research that aims to enhance the level of religiosity. Osbeck 2006: Osbeck 2006:117. According to Härenstam, the Muslim perspective is comprised of various Muslim researchers, philosophers and authors that are knowledgeable not only about the Islamic traditions, but also about the western cultural climate and the state of affairs of Islam in Europe (Härenstam 1993:74). For an analysis of Islam in Danish schoolbooks see Jensen

16 question of choice is highlighted by the finding that an understanding of Islam from the adherent s point of view is nowhere to be found in many RE textbooks even though this standpoint is one that Sweden s national syllabus considers important for pupils to learn. 68 In keeping with these findings, Otterbeck s more recent examination of secondary-level RE textbooks concludes that the choice of content in chapters about Islam is sometimes tendentious, marked by an insensitivity to the matter of power relations (since many Islamic traditions are not represented) and misleading (since Islam is often depicted as if it were Islamism instead). 69 Although these studies are confined to the non-confessional teaching of Islam within RE, they are nonetheless of importance to this study for the following reasons: 1) they deal with choice of educational content; and 2) their critique of RE textbooks is similar to and supportive of the opinions of a certain percentage of Muslim parents that decide to send their children to Muslim schools. Concerning research on the matter of confessional RE within the Swedish school system, it is more or less nonexistent within religious education research not only in relation to IRE, but in relation to confessional RE in other religious traditions as well. With respect to Sweden s denominational schools, despite the fact that they have been the focus of extensive debate and are the only schools in which confessional RE exists, to my knowledge, there is no available research on this matter. Indeed, throughout the entirety of Europe, research concerning IRE is a rarity, particularly within the educational sciences. 70 Research about Muslim Schools in Sweden Although research about the content of IRE in Sweden s Muslim schools is rare, studies have been conducted regarding other aspects of these schools that are of general relevance to the study at hand. One such study, undertaken from the perspective of ethnology by Kristina Gustafsson, focuses on value conflicts and those that involve contrasting notions about the nature of a good life ; this study indicates that the quest for denominational schools that afford Muslim children the opportunity to develop Muslim identities is primarily actuated by feelings of alienation (or detachment), often prompted by the majority society s indifference towards the various traditions of Islam Härenstam 1993:9 23. Otterbeck 2006: Islamism is generally explained as being a political interpretation of Islam. See, for example, scholarly journals for the study of religious education e.g., the British Journal of Religious Education and Religious Education which have very few articles dealing with IRE. Those articles that do exist are often normative in character. See, for example, Alavi 2008 and Meijer Gustafsson 2004b. 28

17 More recently, a child studies thesis by Åsa Aretun examines the manner in which children are moulded in one Swedish Muslim school. This study suggests that it is the pupils rather than the teachers that are largely responsible for moulding one another s character, one reason being that because teachers are in the minority within the school setting, their influence on the pupil population is generally very small. The persons found to exert the primary influence on the moulding process had been those (such as family members) that the child had associated with on a more regular and intimate basis. 72 Another study examines conflicting values in the debate over Muslim schools in Sweden, indicating that this debate has helped to clarify value conflicts arising from the meeting of cultures. 73 In this regard, value conflicts over such matters as freedom, equality, gender, authority and parental vs. child rights are discussed, as are the differences between how these values are expressed in the National curriculum and handled in local Muslim schools. 74 The problem of value conflicts is also at the centre of a study that examines the content of application forms submitted to the National Agency of Education by Muslim schools. In this regard, findings suggest that when statements found in these applications are compared with those found in the National syllabi, obvious value-differences emerge, especially in relation to the meaning of integration. 75 Both these studies indicate that the establishment of Muslim schools in Sweden is significantly related to the Muslim population s dissatisfaction with public schools. 76 In an anthology edited by Göran Larsson and myself concerning denominational schools in Sweden, three articles focus on Muslim schools: one discusses the use of the concept culture and examines the expectations of teachers at a Muslim school relative to the question of cultural difference; another analyses the use of popular culture among girls at a Muslim school; 77 and the third compares the processes by which Muslim schools have been established in the different Nordic countries. 78 Beyond the studies thus far mentioned, certain of the reports issued by the National Agency for Education and a few other Swedish authorities are of relevance to this study, primarily because they provide the background of the establishment of Muslim schools in Sweden This phenomenon is obviously not specific to Muslim schools. Indeed, Aretun s study was triggered by the fact that the media often depicts Muslim schools as being very different from those that are municipal. Gerle 1997 and Gerle 1999:46ff. Francia 1998; Francia 2007; Gerle Francia 1998; Gerle Aretun 2007b; Gustafsson Berglund Bunar & Kallstenius 2006; Hjelmskog 2003; Otterbeck & Bevelander 2006; Skolverket

18 Research Concerning Islamic Education within the Study of Religions In terms of the study of religions, this work specifically belongs to Islamic studies since it is concerned with the manner in which Swedish Muslims articulate and interpret Islam. The major portion of the research on Muslims in Sweden has taken place since the mid-nineties and has largely dealt with such matters as the history of Muslim migration, the process of institutionalization, the media and popular culture, the debate over the establishment of mosques, and the interaction between members of Muslim communities and different Swedish institutions. 80 To date, however, few such studies have addressed educational matters. With regard to the study undertaken here, both historical and contemporary research on Islamic education is of relevance. In terms of historical studies, those that concern the theories and/or social implications of Islamic education are significant because they provide an historical context for the IRE teaching that will be discussed. In the book Islam and Education: Myths and Truths, for example, Sebastian Günther provides a fascinating chapter on the contributions to didactics, pedagogy and educational theory made by Muslim intellectuals from the 10 th century onward. 81 Another such historically relevant study comes from Jonathan Berkey, who employs the example of late medieval Cairo to make the case that Islamic higher education has been a largely informal system a dynamic network that has incorporated individuals from varied backgrounds and not relied upon an institutional structure. 82 Finally, Helene Boyle and Dale Eickelman provide a most interesting analysis of the historical development of Quranic education, indicating that memorization of the Quran has been regularly misunderstood by Western scholars and that Quranic schools have been agents of both preservation and change. 83 Over the last several years in various European countries, scholars of Islam have shown a heightened interest in contemporary European Muslim education, especially as it concerns the teaching of Islam in both Muslim and public schools as well as the supplementary Islamic education that occurs in settings such as mosques. 84 One reason for this increase of interest involves the fact that studying this form of religious education makes plain those elements considered essential to impart so that new generations can live as observant Muslims, thus providing one way of following the adaptation of Islam to diverse European Larsson 2004c:10. See also Larsson 2006c, which contains a bibliography of English and French literature on Islam and Muslims in Sweden. Günther 2007 in Kadi & Billeh See also Günther Berkey The quotation is from the title of Boyles study, Quranic Schools, Agents of Preservation and Change. See Boyle 2000, 2004, 2007; Eickelman 1978, 1985, 2007b. See, for example, Drees & van Koningsveld 2008; Fuess 2007; Hefner & Zaman 2007, Mandaville 2007, Shadid & van Koningsveld 2006; Shadid & Koningsveld 1995; see also Driessen & Valkenberg 2000 for a discussion about the achievements of pupils at Muslim schools in the Netherlands. 30

19 societies. The threat of terrorism and the search for settings that promote extremist Muslim views may be yet another explanation for this new wave of scholarly studies on Muslim education in Europe. 85 In some of these studies researchers have noted that many Muslim parents choose to send their children to Catholic schools because they are viewed as places that stress academic achievement, personal discipline and, most importantly, respect for God. 86 Such findings are of relevance to this study since they confirm that Muslim parents in other European countries send their children to independent schools for reasons that are similar to those expressed by Muslim parents in Sweden. Other studies reveal the great diversity of ways in which European Muslims have organized IRE for the coming generations. For the most part, however, such studies discuss IRE in principle and seldom touch upon the question of subject matter content or the differences in IRE content among different institutions. Within the specific field of Islamic studies, scholarly interest in education has also focused on the question of how teachers are trained to teach IRE at European universities. An example is Drees & van Koningsveld s The Study of Religion and the Training of Muslim Clergy in Europe, 87 which dedicates several chapters to the question of teacher training. In one such chapter, Ednan Aslan discusses what he calls Islamic Religious Pedagogy at the University of Vienna, noting that because Islamic Religious Pedagogy is viewed more as an applied science than a theological discipline, the religious authority of its teachers is not recognized by many Muslim theologians, despite the fact that the teachers have achieved theological competence in various aspects of this field. Aslan also points to the existence of an ongoing global discussion concerning the role of Islamic Religious Pedagogy relative to Islamic theology. 88 In this same volume, Birgitte Schepelern Johansen discusses Islamic Theology at public European universities, a discipline often studied by Muslims seeking to become IRE teachers or imams. One of the aims of her article is to point out that the various universities that offer this form of higher education do so within the framework of specific Western institutional contexts, and that these have been known to determine whether or not the acquired education will be acceptable to Muslim communities. 89 For example, should a university appoint a professor to educate IRE teachers that the Muslim community deems unacceptable, that community will simply not hire the teachers that emerge from her or his program. This renders those teachers education somewhat useless and causes them difficulty in terms of establishing their careers. It is hoped that by high This trend has been noted by Birt Examples of such studies can be found in the Netherlands. Berglund 2007; Shadid & van Koningsveld 2006; Shadid & van Koningsveld Drees & van Koningsveld Aslan Schepelern Johansen

20 lighting the importance of choices respecting subject matter content, this study will contribute not only to the ongoing discourse on religious education in general, but also to the discourse on Islamic religious education in particular. Scholarship in the area of Islamic education has included a more broad international perspective as well; and although most such publications do not specifically address the matter of IRE content, they nonetheless show that Muslim institutions display a great deal of variety when it comes to the aims, the organisation and, in some cases, the content of Islamic religious education. One such volume, Educational Strategies among Muslims in the Context of Globalisation, 90 demonstrates the wide variety of ways in which Muslim organisations, institutions and societies have chosen to arrange Islamic education. 91 Another relevant work, Schooling Islam, presents various studies that examine the diversity of modern Muslim education and its implications for both national and global politics. The studies presented in such volumes indicate that modern Islamic religious education is an evolving institution that continues to be visibly influenced by such forces as globalisation, religious reform, Western domination, nationalism and mass education. The study of relgions in Sweden has also been involved in research concerning Islamic education and IRE, an example of which is the thesis by Ann Sofie Roald, which focuses on various theories of Islamic education and the ways in which these have been handled by Islamist movements in both Jordan and Malaysia. In the view of such groups, the content of Islamic education should not be confined only to those subject matters that are typical of formal education, but should encompass the political, social and economic dimensions of life as well. Roald further notes that despite the fact that many of these movements are influenced by theories advanced in prominent Islamist classics, their leaders tend to adapt such theories to the particular contingencies of their local context. 92 In an article about Quran education in Kisumu, Kenya, the Swedish scholar Jonas Svensson examines the role of the Quran as a living text within IRE and finds that when the Quran is approached more as a cognitive source [of] knowledge, guidance and norms, this tends to diminish its status as a sacred religious text. 93 Finally there is the study by Torsten Jansson about how dawa (the call to Daun & Walford Daun & Walford Globalization, Modernization and Education in Muslim Countries (edited by Rukhsana Zia) also deals with Islamic education. In this anthology, education and Islam are discussed in relation to globalisation and modernisation, with several authors showing that modernisation of education does not necessarily mean westernisation. The volume contains conceptual as well as national studies from a variety of Muslim countries. Another such volume is Hefner & Zaman In Islam and Education, edited by Susan L. Douglass and Munir A. Shaikh, both Islamic religious education and Islamic education are discussed, but in terms that are more general than those found in this work, see Douglass & Shaikh Roald Svensson 2006:24. 32

21 Islam) is mediated in children s picture books, which points to a process of negotiation between Islamic revivalism and British pedagogical models. 94 Apart from the above mentioned studies, I have published five articles concerning the content of IRE, all of which have relied upon the fieldwork that has informed this study. 95 In researching the available literature I have thus far found no other study that focuses on the content of IRE either within or outside the Swedish school system. As such, it is hoped that the present work: 1) makes an original contribution to our understanding of how Islam, as a minority religion, is mediated within the particular environs of a secular school system; and, 2) increases our understanding of how Islam is mediated in the general environs of a Muslim minority situation. The preceding review of relevant research has been intended to give the reader an indication of where this work locates in relation to other academic disciplines. The following chapter on theory and method presents these connections in more explicit terms Jansson 2003b. See Berglund 2006a, 2006b (Swedish and English version), which deals with Quran education at a Muslim school in which the liturgical aspects of the Quran are stressed (the study is included in this thesis). See also: Berglund 2008b, which focuses on the Quran as a source of knowledge; Berglund 2008c, which deals with the use of Music in IRE; and, Berglund 2008c, which deals with teaching materials. These studies are included in this thesis. 33