Michael S. Merry

Social Exclusion of Muslim Youth in Flemish‐ and French‐Speaking Belgian Schools

The question posed by Altay Manco points to the dilemma faced by many Muslims in Belgium, but the answers to this question are by no means simple. In what follows, I will examine how Belgian “concentration” schools, schools with heavy concentrations of non–European Union, typically Muslim, immigrants, challenge educators and policy makers. To situate this challenge properly, I will consider the broader Belgian social and political context, including regional governmental responses to the perceived “problem” of concentration schools, the role of parental involvement, and the expectations of teachers. These considerations will clarify the structural arrangements that exist prior to any assessment of Muslim children per se. There are, of course, manifold differences among Muslims within the various ethnic groups, but the literature available on the subject has focused overwhelmingly on its two largest ethnic groups—Turks and Moroccans. It is currently impossible to obtain statistical information on religious belief in Belgium. Therefore, inferences about religion are made from one’s ethnic background.

Patriotism, History and the Legitimate Aims of American Education

This article argues that while an attachment to ones country is both natural and even partially justifiable, cultivating loyal patriotism in schools is untenable insofar as it conflicts with the legitimate aims of education. These aims include the epistemological competence necessary for ascertaining important truths germane to the various disciplines; the cultivation of critical thinking skills (i.e. the ability to even‐handedly consider counterfactual evidence); and developing the capacity for economic self‐reliance. The author argues that loyal patriotism may result in a myopic understanding of history, an unhealthy attitude of superiority relative to other cultures, and a coerced sense of attachment to ones homeland.

Can Intimacy Justify Home Education

Many parents cite intimacy as one of their reasons for deciding to educate at home. It seems intuitively obvious that home education is conducive to intimacy because of the increased time families spend together. Yet what is not clear is whether intimacy can provide justification for one’s decision to home educate. To see whether this is so, we introduce the concept of ‘attentive parenting’, which encompasses a set of family characteristics, and we examine whether and under what conditions attentive parents risk loss of intimacy by sending their children to school; or, alternatively, whether they can avoid this risk by educating children at home. What we will determine is whether families who exhibit the specified characteristics are prima facie justified in educating their children at home under the conditions of interest. We argue that, for attentive parents, home education not only promotes greater intimacy, but also provides insurance against the loss of intimacy that may occur under certain conditions when children attend schools.

Advocacy and Involvement: The Role of Parents in Western Islamic Schools

Abstract Muslim parents share many of the same ideals that other religious parents do when considering comprehensive religious schools. For those who see Islamic schooling as a viable option, supporters claim that these schools help to (1) preserve the culture and customs passed down from generation to generation, and (2) provide Muslim children with a proper identity consonant with ones home environment, thereby ensuring a positive sense of self. In this article the author will explore the role that Muslim parents play in Islamic schooling; in particular the author will examine the reasons why those parents who favor Islamic schools do, and what they hope to gain either for themselves or their children by enrolling them.

Teachers’ Understanding of Multicultural Education and the Correlates of Multicultural Content Integration in Flanders:

The bulk of scholarship on multicultural education continues to focus exclusively on U.S. education. Previous studies published in this field also have focused largely on topics that are considered relevant for the United States, whereas little attention has been paid to topics that are less problematized in the United States. In this mixed-method study, we explore teachers’ understanding of multicultural education in Flanders (Belgium), and we examine whether teacher and school characteristics correlate with the degree to which teachers integrate multicultural content. Survey results with 706 in-service teachers from 68 schools and in-depth interviews with 26 teachers from 5 schools are used. The results point out that teachers focus mainly on religious diversity when they were asked about their understanding of multicultural education. However, their understanding was largely limited to the “contributions approach” and “additive approach” to multicultural education. Multilevel analysis revealed that ethnic minority teachers reported higher levels of multicultural content integration than native-White teachers, and teachers working in schools with higher share of ethnic minorities and public (State) schools incorporated more multicultural education than teachers working in elite-White schools and Catholic schools. Implications for both the literature on multicultural education and educational policymakers are discussed.

The relevance of cosmopolitanism for moral education

In this article we defend a moral conception of cosmopolitanism and its relevance for moral education. Our moral conception of cosmopolitanism presumes that persons possess an inherent dignity in the Kantian sense and therefore they should be recognised as ends‐in‐themselves. We argue that cosmopolitan ideals can inspire moral educators to awaken and cultivate in their pupils an orientation and inclination to struggle against injustice. Moral cosmopolitanism, in other words, should more explicitly inform the work that moral educators do. Real‐world constraints on moral action and the need to prioritise one’s sometimes conflicting responsibilities will often qualify cosmopolitan justice as supererogatory. This fact does not absolve persons from aspiring to see themselves as having the moral obligation to help others in need, while recognising that their factual obligations are more modest in being bound by what they are actually able to do.

The effects of integration and generation of immigrants on language and numeracy achievement

In many Western countries the pressure exerted on immigrants to integrate has become intense in recent years. Efforts to preserve their ethnic identity through multicultural recognition has now been replaced by the requirements of active civic participation and assimilation. Of course integration is considered important not only for the immigrant parents but also for their children. The central question in this article is whether there is a relationship between the degree of integration of the immigrant parents and the generation of their children on the one hand and the level of language and numeracy achievement of the children on the other. To answer this question we use data collected in 2008 from the Dutch COOL5–18 cohort study. The information comes from more than 9000 immigrant and 16,000 indigenous children and their parents. The results show that as immigrant parents are better integrated and their children are of later generations, the language and numeracy skills of the children improve, though there remain large differences in achievement between different ethnic groups.

The Conundrum of Religious Schools in Twenty-First-Century Europe.

In this paper Merry examines in detail the continued – and curious – popularity of religious schools in an otherwise ‘secular’ twenty-first century Europe. To do this he considers a number of motivations underwriting the decision to place ones child in a religious school and delineates what are likely the best empirically supported explanations for the continued dominant position of Protestant and Catholic schools. He then argues that institutional racism is an explanatory variable that empirical researchers typically avoid, though it informs both parental assessments of school quality as well as selective mechanisms many mainstream religious schools use to function as domains of exclusion. He then distinguishes between religious schools in a dominant position from those serving disadvantaged minorities and argues that the latter are able to play a crucially important function other schools only rarely provide and hence that vulnerable minorities may have reason to value.

Constructing an Authentic Self: The Challenges and Promise of African-Centered Pedagogy.

Abstract African‐centered pedagogy aims to cultivate a positive and productive culturally based identity for Black children, and African‐centered schools endeavor to supply that cultural base, placing the history, culture, and life experiences of individuals of African descent at the center of everything that they do. Our study examines the historical contexts in which African‐centered education has emerged and the justification for racially separate schooling. The article’s major contribution is its examination of whether African‐centered schools prepare Black children to participate in a democratic society and whether the construction of an essentialist racial identity might compromise their mission and success. We conclude that African‐centered schools provide many of the same strengths found in other forms of community‐based education but that they must continue to wrestle with essentialist notions of Black identity on which its discourse is built.

On the right track? : Islamic schools in the Netherlands after an era of turmoil

The Netherlands currently has 43 Islamic primary schools. Each is fully subsidised by the government. Yet since the first school was established in 1988 Islamic schools have been confronted with obstacles by the Ministry of Education, bad press and increasingly strict state supervision. Under pressure to improve their image, since 2008 Dutch Islamic primary schools have turned their attention away from expanding their numbers and instead focussed on improving school quality. In this article we describe the various developments and draw upon large scale empirical research to demonstrate the present state of affairs both in terms of cognitive and non-cognitive pupil achievements. We argue that the present results offer reasons to be cautiously optimistic.