Unpacking Australian Educator Discomfort With Being Responsive to Muslim Learners

• In Event: Drawing on Islamic Educational Theories and Practices to Dismantle Racial Injustice

Abstract

1. Objectives or purpose
In Australia’s public schools, despite significant curricular and pedagogical advances in the areas of equity and inclusion, it remains unclear how and to what extent educators support the diverse religious identities of learners. Inspired by the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers that states teachers should be ‘responsive’ to the diverse identities of learners, this paper will examine educator perspectives of being responsive to the religious identities of Muslim learners in one public high school in Sydney.

2.Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
This study locates its theoretical underpinning within two intersecting lenses: critical faith-centered epistemology (CFCE) and culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP). Both CFCE and CRP draw inspiration from critical race educational scholarship that initially demanded attention on racialized inequity in schools and since has been applied to multiple “axes of differentiation” including race, class, gender, and religion. Critical race educational scholarship questions not solely overt expressions of discrimination but the hidden processes and structures of power that maintain disadvantage and subordination of some over others. Within this literature archive, religion and religious ways of knowing requires greater attention. To address this gap, we purposefully coalesced CFCE and CRP.

3. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
This study brings together methods borrowed from critical ethnography and critical policy studies. This study works from the standpoint that the school is a key site of reform through translation and enactment of educational policy. Informed by key principles of power and relationality in critical ethnography, the research question and protocol attempted to engage teacher perspective on issues related to marginalization and in/equity with respect to religion. Methodologically, the study does not draw from ethnography in the strictest sense but employs ethnographic methods such as interviews, focus groups, school walk-throughs, and analysis of policy texts.
4. Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
This article draws data from a larger qualitative study conducted at four Australian secular public schools where over 50% of the student population self-identifies as Muslim. The data for this paper comes from one case study school located in Sydney. Semi-structured focus groups, interviews, and school walk-throughs were the primary form of qualitative research methods used.

5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
Initial findings reveal that despite challenging arrangements of the school community, the school leaders and educators exemplified a strong commitment to being responsive but dismissed opportunities to avail from religious ways of knowing.
6. Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
Muslim learners remain a vulnerable and marginalized cohort in Australian classrooms. Yet, when inclusion intersects with religion, multiple studies have found that educators either refuse or are reluctant to engage. A variety of moves towards inclusion have been made, by accommodating religious observance through prayer spaces, dietary needs, and curricular exemptions, and by recognizing religious and cultural heritage through celebrations and festivals. However,such forms of inclusion can reinforce narrow and essentialized conceptions of culture and religion.

Authors

• Nadeem Memon, University of South Australia

• Dylan William Chown, University of South Australia