Jenny Berglund

Teaching Islam with music

We can note a varied use and attitudes to song and music in Islam. In the classroom of Sana – a primary school teacher of Islamic religious education (IRE) in a Muslim school in Sweden – music is an important but not uncontested part of IRE. The music not only supports themes discussed in the classroom but also gives variation to the education. A popular feature is when Sana shows music videos of Sami Yusuf, a young Muslim artist in the ‘Eurovision song contest’ genre, who sings Islamic pop songs. It happens that children comment and say that the pop music she plays in the classroom is haram, forbidden. Sana seldom touches upon the notion of music as forbidden or unlawful in the classroom, but nevertheless it is visible in her choices of music and the way she presents the music for the children. Outside the classroom, in discussion Sana talks about the necessity of finding Islamic role models that attract the young, instead of ‘bearded old men’ that might have interesting things to say but have neither ‘the looks nor the language’ to attract young people. Sanas use of music within IRE is discussed to seize the meanings associated with music and understand the educational choices Sana makes in relation to music. This paper is based on fieldwork that took place during 2005 and 2006.

Secular normativity and the religification of Muslims in Swedish public schooling

ABSTRACT This article suggests that the secular norms which influence much of the Swedish school system silence the voices and experiences of young Muslims who also attend Islamic supplementary education. It is based on interviews with 20 Muslim students in Sweden who reflected on their experiences of attending supplementary Islamic education in parallel to their secular schooling. Despite the variety of Islamic education reported by the students, they all held in common that they had learned to read and memorise the Quran as part of their Islamic education. A majority of the students reported that they avoid mentioning their Islamic education classes and their memorisation skills in secular schools since the reaction of teachers has proved to be negative. Those who mentioned that they attended supplementary religious education classes were immediately classified as ‘too religious’, a category that most wanted to avoid. The article shows that to memorise a sacred text stands in stark contrast to much of the educational ideals that prevail in Swedish modern schooling, where a discourse of secular normativity prevails. By using an identity economics model I show that what is perceived as prestigious and rewarding in the Muslim context risks being turned into a cost in the setting of a secular school.

Teachers only stand behind parents and God in the eyes of Muslim pupils

In the course of reviewing a recent quantitative survey of approximately 1300 Swedish youths on subjects like religion and leisure activities, I came across a finding which seemed intriguing to me: some 50% of those identifying themselves as Muslims reported that they confided in their teachers (compared to only 5% of non-Muslims) for help with personal problems. Supplementing this finding with several studies as well as my own interviews, I explore its possible meanings and examine its implications relative to such matters as the value of relational skills in teaching, the content and direction of teacher training, the importance of the teacher–student relationship, and the potential of teachers to facilitate integration.

Crossings and crosses : borders, educations, and religions in northern Europe

This volume critically explores the state of religious and civic life and politics on the margins of state spaces by analysing the themes of borders, education, and religions in northern Europe. It suggests that the formation of religious and civic identity through education is not becoming less parochial and more culturally open. It also challenges the idea that secular liberal democracies are by definition uninvolved in matters of faith.

Princely Companion or Object of Offense? : The Dog’s Ambiguous Status in Islam

Negative attitudes toward dogs are common in Muslim societies. Thus, in studying both past and present Muslim writings on dogs, a contradictory picture emerges, indicating that Muslim attitudes tow ...

An ethnographic eye on religion in everyday life

There are many pitfalls associated with teaching about religions. One such pitfall entails the risk of presenting religions as stereotypical monolithic systems; that is, all who belong to a particular religious tradition think and act in the same way. I like to call this sort of stereotyping the ‘robotic tendency’ because it has a habit of reducing practitioners to robot-like beings that uniformly perform identical actions. This article concerns how the adoption of what I have termed an ‘ethnographic eye’ can help educators to avoid both unfortunate stereotypes and the robotic tendency when teaching about religions.

Teaching Orthodox religious education on the border

In geographical areas bordering those of other states, the function of educational systems, as the means for states to foster their citizens, is challenged by ambiguities and tensions connected to intercultural experiences. In this article, I illustrate some of the findings from a project that studies religious education in four border areas around the Baltic Barents Sea, by bringing forward the case of a school teacher who teaches Orthodox religious education (ORE), in a town in Finland close to the border with Russia. Thus, the aim is to present and discuss ORE in Finland as well as to understand what implication the border situation can have on religious education.

Continuity and Change: Experiences of Teaching Religious Education in the Light of a Life Trajectory of Hifz and Secular Education

ABSTRACT In this article, microhistory is used to (1) bring understanding to some of the educational, but also social and political questions that at present surround Muslims schools and Islamic Education in England; and (2) to question oft created dichotomy between Islamic and secular education, by bringing forward an educational journey, consistent of both Islamic education and secular education. The focus lies on the life of a British hafiz who works as a religious education teacher at a Muslim school in East London.

The Study of Islamic Education : A Litmus Test on State Relations to Muslim Minorities

In this paper I argue that it is possible to understand publicly funded religious education as a litmus test for church-state-society relations and that the specific study of publicly funded Islami ...

Islamic Religious Education in Muslim Schools: A Translation of Islam to the Swedish School System

In the literature about Islamic religious education (IRE), the process of teaching Islam to the younger generation is often referred to as “transmitting Islam”. Obviously, there are certain “facts” that often are transmitted from one generation to another, such as names of prophets, the five pillars of Islam and the words of the Quran. But what significance and meaning these persons and concepts have is not necessarily “transmitted”. In this paper, I argue that using the concept of “transmitting” brings about several problems, such as giving a static view of the process of Islamic education, thereby neglecting the contextualisation that is an important part of all teaching. Drawing on Homi Bhabha, I instead suggest that the concept of translation is more accurate to what teachers of Islamic religious education do, since translation includes notions of interpretation and thereby shows the power teachers have when they make educational choices. The empirical material used in the chapter stems from fieldwork in Swedish Muslim schools.