No Muslim is just a Muslim: implications for education

Abstract

It is widely accepted in academia and state policies that recent years have seen an increasing stress on publicly enacted Muslim identity in Britain and in many other parts of the world. Less recognized is the fact that many among those who call themselves Muslims do not share religion as predominant identity-attribute for themselves. Such people go by many appellations including secular Muslims, cultural Muslims etc. Similarly, that which goes by the name of Muslim culture is indeed a 'religio-secular' culture. Despite this reality, media, policy and educational discourse about Muslims continues to work with the binary of Muslims as religious and the West as secular. This means we are raising new generation in an empirically unsound and socially unhealthy image of the self and the other. This article will trace the rise of religion as the predominant pubic identity-attribute, challenge this phenomenon by showing its empirical vulnerability and detrimental social effects, and propose the need to reconceptualise the nature of identities attributed to people with Muslim heritage in pedagogical narratives.

Building a terrorist house on sand: a critical incident analysis of interprofessionality and the Prevent duty in schools in England

“…The Department for Education's REsilience programme, which ran until 2012 (Miller 2013) encouraged schools to engage with local community mentors, who were often faith group representatives. While such community led approaches have been criticised for both silencing voices within communities (Bhopal 2010;Shannahan 2010;Sirin & Fine 2008) and for contributing to 'religification'the foregrounding of religious identity to the detriment of racial, economic, local and other factors, particularly among Muslim youth (Francis & McKenna 2017;Panjwani 2017), these critiques largely frame the need for more inclusive, intersectional and democratic forms of representation. Furthermore, the same needs for culturally responsive, community-based strategies have been remarked on as prerequisites for effective counter-extremism work (MacNair & Frank 2017;Tiflati 2016;Wilner & Dubouloz 2010).…”

Introductory commentary

“…Relatedly, it is important to explore if young people in Scandinavia, who identify as Muslims, run the risk of being "religified," that is, to what extent the role of religion and their Muslim identity is reinforced and emphasized over other aspects of their lives and identities (e.g., Berglund, 2017;Panjwani, 2017;Panjwani & Moulin-Stożek, 2017).…”

‘I don’t necessarily identify myself as a Muslim [RE] teacher?’: considering the limitations of the category ‘Muslim’ in the case of ‘Muslim RE teachers’

“…They note that with this 'play' the category 'religion' becomes 'used and resisted exactly like 'race', 'gender', or 'ethnicity'', incorporating different intersecting identities to construct both recognised and new ways of being Muslim (2017, 592). Similarly, Panjwani (2017) poignantly reminds us that 'no Muslim is just a Muslim', exploring how a 'Muslim' identityattribute is co-constructed along with other intersecting identities.…”