State-Funded Faith-Based Schooling for Muslims in the North

Abstract

An emerging option in several European countries has been the state provision of publicly funded Islamic education. It is an alternative that lies at the heart of concerns over religious freedom, equal rights to education, integration, and social cohesion, but that is also connected to matters of securitization and the state's attempt to control Islam. This article compares the provision of faith-based schooling in general, but publicly funded Islamic education in particular, in Finland and Sweden-two neighboring countries, historically and culturally connected, but with a different approach to faith based schooling.

Something more beautiful: educational and epistemic integrations beyond inequities in Muslim-minority contexts

“…Primary goals of this type of Islamic education are motivated by faith-informed senses of responsibility in seeking knowledge and self-development – “not merely to satisfy an intellectual curiosity or just for material worldly benefit but to grow up as rational, righteous beings” (Ashraf, 1979, as quoted in Halstead, 2004, p. 519) – and include enacted spiritual, moral, intellectual and social development of individuals, communities and societies. This type of education in the Islamic tradition is, for many people, a highly valued form of education (Ahmed, 2021; Berglund, 2019b; Memon, 2019), yet it has been stunted by educational aspects of colonization and an ongoing lack of appreciation for its importance. This has resulted in educational research and practice falling short of serving Muslim learners and, as a neglected field, has resulted in policies and practices that “often fail to achieve intended aims” (Shah, 2019, p. 351).…”

“…(The ways in which it is experienced in other minority educational communities is beyond the scope of this paper.) It is evidenced in the ways in which schools in Europe teach about religion in general and Islam in particular – confessional and secular approaches – with discussion ongoing as to which produces more socially coherent citizens (Berglund, 2019b). Panjwani (2017) critically described a “felt double alienation” (p. 603), based upon a perception of alterity between dominant English and minority home cultures and often expressed as a problematic amplification of Muslim religious identity into Muslimness , as a publicly enacted phenomenon and an “Islamic allegiance beyond race and ethnicity” (p. 603), whereby “the diversity of identity-attributes is compressed to a religious attribute (religification) and the religious differences are denied to create a single homogenised Muslim (essentialism)” (p. 604).…”

“…Spiritual development is far from fostered in most public schools; simultaneously, the Islamic schools where Muslim youth seek spiritual development are often denigrated in the secular public eye (Berglund, 2019a). These schools are often included at the center of public debate over whether and how Muslim citizenship is expressed and optimized (Berglund, 2019b). The focus of this paper is confessional Islamic education for children and youth, as distinct from other varieties, and can be understood as: "efforts by the Muslim community to educate its own, to pass along the heritage of Islamic knowledge, first and foremost through its primary sources, the Qur'an and the Sunnah" (Douglass and Shaikh, 2004, p. 4).…”

Medborgerlig integration på muslimske friskoler

“…Efterspørgslen er stigende og kan udtrykke et øget aktivt tilvalg af skolerne i sig selv eller et fravalg af en folkeskole, der ikke tilbyder minoritetsreligions-undervisning som i bl.a. Belgien og Finland (Berglund, 2019;Merry og Driessen, 2005), og ofte har lavere faglige forventninger til muslimske elever, isaer drenge (Kühle, 2015;Gilliam, 2018).…”

The Influence of Organizational Culture and Work Motivation on Teacher Performance at the International Standard School, Amanatul Ummah Mojokerto

“…Schools are educational institutions that have an obligation to serve public education which aims to provide intelligence for the nation's successors (students)(M. Abdullah, 2019;Berglund, 2019). Therefore, the role that schools have is very important and used as a means of carrying out the need for an education.…”