Sustaining Religious Literacies in Authoritarian Eras: Re-membering Humanity in Early Childhood Classrooms

• In Event: Culturally Sustaining Early Literacy Pedagogies and Our Futures: Dynamic Stories and Practices from PK-6 Communities

Abstract

Objectives:
Religion and religious identities shape people’s experiences of being/knowing in this world. These funds of knowledge are central to many students’ social locations, traditions, and literacies (Sadiq, 2022). Drawing on culturally sustaining pedagogies (Paris, 2021; Paris & Alim, 2017), we share research examining how early childhood teachers engage in humanizing practice to sustain religious literacies of Muslim students who experienced displacement and sought refuge.
Perspectives:
Grounded in critical, sociocultural perspectives of literacy (Castanheira, 2018; Gutiérrez, 2008; Lankshear & Knobel, 2011; Rowsell, etal, 2018), our understanding of religious literacies encompasses the range of practices, skills, and understandings that individuals develop to interpret, negotiate, and participate in religious and spiritual contexts and communities (Sadiq, 2022; Skerett, 2014). Our culturally sustaining perspective of religious literacies in early childhood instruction considers how socially embedded cultural, religious, and institutional practices recursively mediate children’s meaning-making processes and reinforce particular worldviews and identities (Davila, 2015; LeBlanc, 2017). These are dynamic and vary within and across cultural communities, and intertwined with issues of identity, power, and cultural belonging (Bauer, et. al, 2024; Muhammad, 2024; Sadiq, 2022).
Methods:
Deriving from multiyear study of stories, storytelling, and restorying of human displacement and seeking refuge, this qualitative research is guided by traditions of practitioner inquiry (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009), ethnographic methods (Emerson et. al, 2011; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) and critical multicultural analysis (Botelho & Rudman, 2009). Primary data was collected with Somali and Afghan children and their families through participant-observation at school, at home, and in their community. Additional research activities included literature and artifact content analyses, reflexive journaling, and semi-structured interviews with focal children, parents/guardians, and teachers.
Data Sources:
Data derived from fieldnotes, interview transcripts, and a corpus of narrative picturebooks written for early childhood audiences about children with experiences of displacement and seeking refuge. Interviews with children and their parents/guardians were conducted in English or Pashto and translated by the researcher into English. Interviews with teachers were conducted in English and Urdu. Data analysis was multicycle and inductive, documented through research memos that tracked iterative analyses (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014).
Results and Significance:
Findings suggest generative practices through which the religious literacies of children and their families are affirmed and flourish. Children’s interpretive frameworks are expanded through a participatory approach to storytelling that incorporates multiple perspectives and family narratives. As students are increasingly exposed to a diversity of Muslim voices and stories across a broad spectrum of human experiences, teachers encourage their students to contribute their own stories, to question assumptions, and value multiple perspectives. By engaging in meaningful projects that affirm their faith-based values, children develop sophisticated skills that are essential for becoming informed citizens and align with the literacy curriculum in meaningful ways. Our work invites educators to affirm their students as storytellers, resilient, and possessing a wealth of knowledge. Such practices invite educators to dispel misconceptions and fears about Islam, allows us to see the "whole" student, and enables us to make our curriculum more beautiful with the funds of knowledge of the children we teach.

Authors

• Serena Wilcox, Wayne State University

• Assadullah Sadiq, California State University - Channel Islands

• Nora Peterman, University of Missouri - Kansas City

• Ekaterina Strekalova-Hughes, University of Missouri - Kansas City