MuslimCrit: Anti-Oppressive School Leadership for Muslim Students

• In Event: Educational Leadership and Islam: Critical Approaches to Identity, Advocacy, and Possibilities

Abstract

Objectives or purposes
We theorize ways school leaders can use MuslimCrit to understand and critique how Muslim students are situated in and experience U.S. schools. The framework, which we refer to as Critical Muslim Epistemology—or simply MuslimCrit—is similar to earlier critical epistemologies such as decolonization theories, Critical Race Theory, Feminist Theory, Critical Indigenous Theory, and LatCrit among others.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Islamophobia is at an all time high in the United States. It is not possible to measure the devastating impact that President Trump’s call for a “ban on all Muslims entering the United States” has on Muslim students in school. Muslim students continue to be marginalized in unimaginable ways—most notably when Ahmed Mohamed introduced a science project to his classmates and teachers, only to be suspended by the school and arrested by local law enforcement for bringing a bomb to school. Thus, we reflect on earlier research on African American Muslims (Akom, 2003; Jackson, 2005; Suad Nasir, 2004), and consider the voices within this marginalized epistemic.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
The components identified in this essay address two broad areas: one, what anti-Muslim bigotry have Muslim students experienced in school; and two, what behaviors, understandings, or narratives are unique to Muslim students in school. We seek to understand MuslimCrit by reflecting on the unique anti-Muslim oppression faced by Muslim students, and the unique Islamic understandings and behaviors.

Data Sources, evidence, objects or materials
We use the experiences of African American male Muslims to learn how they are marginalized, exist comfortably and with dignity, and what other ways they experience schooling.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
This article is organized into three parts. The first part is rooted in identifying and understanding how anti-Muslim bigotry exists in behaviors and discourses in schools. MuslimCrit not only offers this identification and critique of anti-Muslimness; it also is decolonizing in that it offers many affirmative understandings and faith expressions as well. There are many expressions of Muslim decolonizing epistemologies that are influenced by local histories and cultures. In the second part of the article, we highlight three characteristics that emerged from student experiences in this study. While these three affirmative epistemological attributes—the active pursuit of religious learning and knowledge, a worldview of centering and prioritization of community over the individual, and the embodiment of engaging in protest and debate— were identified in this work as being relevant to Black Muslim realities in the U.S., we acknowledge that there are many attributes that are present with other Muslims and even other Black males. Finally, in the third part of the article, we conclude with a discussion around how school leaders can enact culturally responsive school leadership for Muslim students in school.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
This study builds on current critical epistemologies to include the experiences of Muslims. This is especially relevant to AREA’s theme as it advances critical perspectives and challenges us to consider wrenching truths.

Author

• Muhammad Khalifa, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities