This article focuses on the reported experiences of Muslim students that regularly shift between Muslim 'supplementary education' (including its traditional confessional focus on learning to read Arabic and then memorise and recite the Qur'an) and mainstream school education (including its 'inclusive' form of religious education'). The aim has been 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 often seemingly disparate institutions. A further aim is to place our findings within the growing field of intercultural education. Though both types of education are often thought to be distinct and oppositionalthe former as nonconfessional and 'modern', the latter as confessional and 'outmoded'both English and Swedish students were able to identify a degree of symbiosis between the two, particularly in relation to the process of memorisation. Thus, it became increasingly clear to the researchers that Muslim student reflection on their participation in both traditions of education had an intercultural dimension in the sense of encouraging dialogue and discussion across educational cultures prompting new knowledge and understanding. This article lays out some of the evidence for this conclusion.
This article presents the results of a participative study, involving a group of 27 British Muslim students aged 15-18, who were given the opportunity to reflect on the implications of having participated in two different 'traditions' of education: that is, Muslim supplementary education (in its various forms) and state mainstream schooling. The project was participative in that school senior managers had invited the researchers to carry out the research as part of their constant striving to identify the conditions under which students learn best. Both the design and outcomes of this research programme are presented and discussed in this article. One of the main findings is that the students experience the skills of memorization and focus as positive transferables. The findings will be discussed in terms of the concept of liturgical literacy.
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