Experiences of Islamic and secular education in Sweden and Britain

Project manager

Berglund, Jenny - Senior Lecturer

Financiers

Swedish Research Council

Project type

Research

Experiences of Islamic and secular education in Sweden and Britain

This project examines the experiences of young Muslim school students in Britain and Sweden who move between compulsory schools and supplementary Islamic classes. Traced respectively to ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ educational perspectives, these two educational settings are generally perceived in polarized term. In this context, the growing diversity of provision particularly in the decentralised and voluntary Islamic sector also tends to be neglected. Despite the plethora of studies on “European Islam” and intercultural education, this field remains under-researched particularly in relation to the direct experiences of the students themselves. In this light, the aim of this comparative research project is to deepen our understanding of how these different learning traditions complement and/or counteract each other from the student perspective.. Derived from several pilot studies, the broad hypothesis that will be examined is that, contrary to a widespread view within and outside the educational establishments in Sweden and the UK (and other Western countries), the two (internally varied) types of education may be in certain respects complementary. The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council and Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions

Experiences of Islamic and secular education in North East London

In this part of the project, Dr Jenny Berglund and Dr Bill Gent will be studying the experiences of Muslim students at a large secondary school in northeast London who move between Islamic and secular education in their daily lives. The aim is to find out how they might use the knowledge and
skills that they acquire in Islamic education, especially Qur’an studies, in their mainstream schooling as well as how what they learn in mainstream school might impact on how they learn in Islamic classes. The project is designed as an action research project where the scholars will be working together
with teachers at the school who are interested in improving teaching and learning for all their students.

Dr Mohammad Nafissi

Dr Bill Gent

Research area / geographic area

Historical and Contemporary Studies Study of Religions Historical Studies Philosphy & religion Europe

Project time

2015 — 2018

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Page updated

31-05-2019