Comparative Analysis of Contemporary Functions of Islamic K-12 Schools from Around the World

• In Event: Highlighted session: Religious teaching and learning across diverse cultural settings and contexts

Proposal

Understanding contemporary Islamic education goes beyond exploring into Quranic hermeneutics, how transmission of knowledge is expected to occur and its key terms but to debates around it, the role of nation states, current socio-global dynamics of the world. Among modern scholars, Ashraf (1985) argues that Islamic knowledge rejects a metaphysical approach to comprehension of knowledge because of the "abstract ideas at the center" while "Muslim approach to knowledge including all sciences was ontological" (p. 7). Rahman's argument emphasizes 'the Context' of approaches to the development of Islamic education then and now as well as the future in an indirect way. This has also been the essence of Ramadan's (2006) and Khan's (2006) argument over ramifications of different Islamic views. Ramadan (2006) argues that the first thing we have to keep in mind is that there is only one Truth; however, the diversity of opinions in the application of this Truth may change as a result of each matter's unique conditions. Khan's (2006) approach reinforces this perception when he argues that matters of the past do not necessarily reflect contemporary needs and accordingly, we should take into consideration 'now' to fulfill the modern interests.
While these modern theoretical discussions have taken place on components of an Islamic approach to education, different social, religious, ethnic and national dynamics of many countries have given birth to various needs for and structures to Islamic schools. In Turkey, the secular state has kept Islamic schools under its control as religious public schools to prevent the formation of an independent religious structure. In the U.S.A., the secular state prohibits funding of not only Islamic but any religious educational institution to prevent state support on formation of religious structures. Islamic schools in the U.S. have therefore had to exist as private school. In neighboring Canada, thanks to Multicultural Act of 1988, Islamic schools are able to receive both legislative and financial support from their “provincial governments” and their intentions are considered to be for both “individual” and “social development” (Ali & Bagley, 2015, p. 5). In the largely Roman Catholic Philippines, these schools mainly exist in the form of weekend and after schools in the southern Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. In Nigeria, these schools have evolved from being “Koranic schools” to “Islamiyya Schools” with larger female populations (Dahuru, 1998). In Israel, Islamic education is commonly referred as Arab education and is controlled by the Israeli state where there is also a separate supplementary Muslim education (Suwaeed & Ali, 2016). In the Indonesian model, teachings of the Quran, prophet Mohammed and Islamic history are traditional components of Islamic education along with character education. In the European nations where, Muslim populations are a minority, the faith of these schools are determined by each state’s approach to secularism such as recognition of religious minorities to their full dismissal (Fuess, 2017).
In this study I use content analysis of existing literature on social, political, and educational aspects of Islamic education and Islamic schools of the countries mentioned above while applying conflict theory offered by Sadovnik (2007) where the argument is that “schools function in the interest of the dominant groups in a society” (p. 4). I aim to descriptively analyze and compare socio-political, educational and religious functions of Islamic schools between countries where Muslims are in the majority and the minority status. Sub-questions that will allow for such an analysis are: What is the role of governments in formation of Islamic schools in the countries of this research? How do the educational contents may vary from one country to the other in accordance with their national and local needs and interests? What are the dominant groups whose interests these schools serve for?
In significantly Muslim countries, the struggle is to create a religious national identity where Muslim citizens’ shared worldviews are also shared with their national counterparts in their struggle is to catch up on their nation’s needs. In other words, Muslim Nigerians learn to become how to be Nigerian and Muslim together like Filipino Muslims through a shared culture and history with non-Muslims of their countries. For Turkish or Indonesian Muslims, as Islam is already the dominant religion, these schools may focus on how to construct a balance between religion and the influence of Western values. The Arab Israeli struggle for Islamic schools also means a demonstration of their struggle for existence and recognition “in their own land”. In North America, these schools seem to mainly help to create a Muslim and non-Muslim understanding of Muslim communities and construct a strong religio-cultural component to their national (American or Canadian) identity in order not feel marginalized.
The reason why countries from distinct regions of the world are brought together in this study is to understand how contrary to the concept of Islamic education, which is independent of politics but emphasizes learning and teaching of sciences through recognition of the existence and oneness of God, contemporary global politics of the world have led to ramifications of this perspective and accordingly Islamic schools. This is significant to analyze for two main reasons. First, current dynamics of these schools and their possible implications for the Muslim ummah (worldwide one single Muslim community) in terms of their diverse needs and interests are still ambivalent. Next, it is necessary to investigate the extent to which the political characteristics of such different countries (e.g. post-colonial vs. no colonial history, secular vs. non-secular, etc.) may continue to impact perpetuation of Islamic schools.

Author

• Derya Dogan, Indiana University