Somali Children and Qur'anic Literacy Practice: The Case of Three Somali Refugee Families Living in Kenya

• In Event: Toward a Humanizing and Equitable Discourse With Refugee Newcomers: Resisting the Double Standard

Abstract

In educational contexts, and more so in the US, Somali children, like other refugee families, are often positioned as learners who have a singular identity–– they are mostly perceived as academically deficient and struggling with language and literacy (Shapiro & MacDonald, 2017). Yet, Somali children have many identities: being multiliterate, multilingual, and Qur’anic literate are among them. In particular, one’s identity as Qur’anic literate is consequential for school-based literacy learning. As emergent readers and writers in English, Somali students could use Qur’anic literacy as a resource to draw upon at school. However, there exists limited awareness about the potential of Qur’anic literacy (Moore, 2011).

Somali children across the world attend Qur’anic schooling. For some, it is their only formal schooling, while for others it is a second school that complements secular schooling. For many Somalis, Qur’anic schools represent an experience of stable, organized schooling over time. Qur’anic schools were sustained even during the civil war in Somalia, despite disruption of many aspects of the educational practices and institutions. The value that this practice holds among Somalis goes without saying (Abdi, 1998; Bigelow, 2010). This knowledge is important for disrupting what Adichie (2009) called the danger of “one sided story,” a story that portrays Somali children as disrupted and deficient in their education. Qur’anic literacy practices of Somali children, while different from school type literacy, have much to offer as the ability to read and write texts is a shared goal between the two practices that the children are involved in (Rosowsky, 2008).
In this presentation, I share knowledge gained from a qualitative case study that explored the family literacy practices of three Somali families with refugee backgrounds. Emerging findings provide a window into one school community’s support for children’s home and community literacies. The teachers interviewed acknowledged the kinds of additive strengths children attending Qur’anic schools bring to their school literacy learning and made commitments to support their children’s linguistic diversity by creating classrooms that embraced linguistic diversity that support refugee learners. At home, families remained steadfast in sustaining Qur’anic literacy and in shaping their children’s religious identities. The children in this study attended a Christian school whose administration spoke highly of the skills the children brought from their Qur’an school. At a time of heightened islamophobia, it is encouraging to shed light on spaces where religious difference does not come in the way of coexisting and providing equitable education.

Author

• Saida Mohamed, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author