Full Description
Islam in the School Curriculum explores the conceptualisation of school-based Islam on two levels: as a symbolic category in English religious education as a consequence of policy shifts, and as pedagogic discourse at the local community level in state and Muslim schools. Using recontextualisation theory, the author examines the relations between educational governance, social interests and cultural epistemology as they pertain specifically to symbolic constructs. In the aftermath of September 11 2001, the teaching of Islam has assumed geopolitical significance, coming under close scrutiny internationally. Much of this attention has been directed at madrasas in Muslim countries, yet Islam in schooling contexts in the West has remained a blind-spot. In the UK, heightened anxieties about home-grown terrorists point to the need for a better understanding of Islam in both state and faith schools. Shiraz Thobani explores the role played by national and local policies and pedagogic practices in the production of school-based Islam in a secular, liberal context and makes an important contribution to the sociology of the curriculum and the study of religious education.
Contents
List of Tables; Abbreviations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Policy Contexts and Disputed Knowledge; 2. Researching School-based Islam; 3. Tradition and Innovation in the Curriculum; 4. Liberalism and Social Parity; 5. State, Religion and Cultural Restoration; 6. The Micropolitics of Representation; 7. Symbolic Imaginings in State Schools; 8. Creating the New Community; 9. Politicized Islam and Civic Engagement; 10. Recontextualized Culture and Social Implications; Glossary; References; Index.
