This Is Us: Islamic Feminist School Leadership

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

Abstract

Objectives or purposes
White nationalistic rhetoric has taken center stage in many nation-states, infiltrating hatred and fear in minoritized community and school spaces. Islamophobia particularly has created a need to rehumanize educational spaces occupied by Muslim-Americans. School leaders are essential to this rehumanzation. Therefore, the purpose of this inquiry was to provide a portrait of Islamic school leaders, who are predominantly Muslim women of color, and describe how and in what ways they establish and provide supportive social environments for Muslim-American students.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
Researchers have employed a variety of theoretical and conceptual frameworks in studies on the experiences of female leaders of color in P-12 schools. The theoretical and conceptual frameworks for these qualitative studies have included feminist theories, Black feminist theories, critical race theories and other variations of standpoint theories. Because we know being a woman influences experiences of being a women of color, and being a woman of color influences experiences as a woman, in this study, both indigenous feminist and womanist literature (Collins, 1996), including Islamic feminism (Abugideiri, 2010) and intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) were used to interpret our experiences as well as our participants’ practices.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
This study combined bricolage (Kincheloe, 2001) with the autoethnographies of the two authors to provide a portrait of Islamic school leaders of color.

Data Sources, evidence, objects or materials
The authors interviewed 15 female Muslim school leaders to examine the nature of their approaches to leading Islamic schools in the United States and Canada. Follow-up interviews were also conducted along with questionnaires. The authors also constructed their own autoethnographies, which they used to augment the data as their insights as female Muslim scholar-practitioners of education expanded the analysis (Collins, 1999).

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
The intersection of religious and gendered identities informed the Muslim female leaders’ approach to building and sustaining positive Islamic school culture. From the analysis of the data, we developed an approach, termed the Islamic Feminist/Womanist School Leadership (IFSL). This approach includes: (a) perceptions of gender and religious identities as motivators for collectivist and committed school leadership, including identifying as a role model and leveraging key community resources (micro-governance); (b) perceptions of their combined engendered and religious identities spurred their communal stance developing the next generation of Muslims (macro-governance); (c) overcoming patriarchy in their decision-making as activism and advocacy (bridging micro and macro governance).  

Significance
This asset-driven IFSL framework provides insights on how Muslim female leadership can enhance their agency. This, therefore is pertinent to AERA’s theme as it expands extant knowledge of historically marginalized peoples in leadership.

Authors

• Deena Khalil, Howard University

• Amaarah N. DeCuir, American University