Research Summary: What Can RE Teachers Learn From Contemporary Biblical Studies?

What does it mean to be a Muslim young woman in Britain today? With which religious and social values do these young women identify? This research tests the idea that Muslim identity involves having particular values, among female adolescents (13 to 15 years of age). The data demonstrate that for these female adolescents, self-identification as Muslim meant a distinctive profile in terms both of religiosity and social values.

Researchers

Ursula McKenna & Leslie Francis

Research Institution

University of Warwick

What is this about?

• What values do young Muslim women in Britain have?
• How can their religiosity be described?
• Do young Muslim women in Britain have a particular profile, in relation to values and religiosity?

What was done?

The young Muslim women participated in a survey conducted across the four nations of the United Kingdom. From the 11,809 participants in the survey, the research compares the responses of 177 female students who self-identified as Muslim with the responses of 1183 female students who self-identified as religiously unaffiliated. Comparisons are drawn across two themes,
religiosity and social values.

Main findings and outputs

• Religious identity is important to young Muslim women in Britain: 84% agreed that this is so, and 88% said that being Muslim was the most important factor in their identity.
• Further, they tend to be surrounded by family and friends who think religion to be important.
• Nearly three quarters regarded themselves as a religious person (71%) but only one quarter regarded themselves as a spiritual person (26%).
• At least three in every five often talked about religion with their mother (66%) and slightly less frequently with their father (49%).
• Studying religion at school had helped 90% to understand people from other religions and 81% to understand people from different racial backgrounds. 78% found learning about different religions in school interesting, and 68% found studying religion at school had shaped their views about religion.
• 89% believed in God, 94% believed in heaven, and 89% believed in hell.
• The majority supported the views that we must respect all religions (94%) and that all religious groups in Britain should have equal rights (90%).
• 82% agreed that having people from different religious backgrounds made their school an interesting place.

Relevance to RE

There are two main ways in which this research is relevant to RE. Firstly, the findings can help teachers to be accurate when teaching about Islam in Britain today. Secondly, they can help teachers to understand the values and views likely to be held by their own female Muslim pupils.

Generalisability and potential limitations

These findings are generalisable, arising from a large survey analysed with high expertise.

Find out more

Ursula McKenna & Leslie J. Francis (2019) Growing up female and Muslim in the UK: an empirical enquiry into the distinctive religious and social values of young Muslims, British Journal of Religious Education, 41:4, 388-401.

https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2018.1437393 (open access)

Research Summary: LGBT Muslims – a different view of Islam?

The research builds on the idea that religions can be a cultural resource from which people can draw rather than a controlling background framework. In relation to Islam, different Muslim groups are seen to present different expressions of their own, that bypass traditional authorities. Anti-LGBT violence and pro-LGBT activism can both be viewed in this way. The research focuses on LGBT Muslims and their improvements on traditional Islamic scholarship, aimed at presenting Islam as a religion which embraces sexual and other forms of diversity. Teachers should take note of their challenges to notions of Islam as homophobic or authoritarian; their ‘different view’ of Islam points to diversity within the religion and how it can act as a vehicle for social justice.

Researcher

Shanon Shah

Research Institution

King’s College, University of London; William Temple foundation; Information network on religious movements; the Muslim Institute.

What is this about?

• Can people use religions ‘independently’, without referrring to official authorities?
• What are the experiences snd beliefs of LGBT Muslims?
• Can Islam be presented as a religion of equality and diversity?
• How can stereotypical views of Islam as homophobic or authoritarian be challenged?
• How might RE teachers consider these issues in their teaching?

What was done?

The researcher conducted in-depth interviews with 29 individuals – 17 in Malaysia and 12 in Britain, also observing and participating in their various social activities, including recreational sports, nightclubbing and activism, and in public events related to Islam and/or LGBT issues; and attended and made notes on congregational Friday prayers and sermons in both countries to assess if or how gender and sexuality were discussed. Media analysis was also carried out.

Main findings and outputs

• Traditionally, homosexuality is often viewed as ‘forbidden’ in Islam.
• However, some LGBT Muslims are taking charge and reinterpreting Islam to expand its notions of equality, diversity and social justice. The research looks at how they have created educational projects to spread their beliefs.
• For example, educational workshops are held during which Qur’anic passages often held to condemn homosexuality are re-interpreted: are these passages, which refer to Lut (the Biblical figure Lot), about loving, consensual same-sex relationships or sexualised forms of assault, exploitation and violence? How can these passages be squared with others that emphasise equality and diversity?
• A small number of UK Muslims are developing their religious literacy to form new Islamic groups that embrace gender and sexual diversity. They do this to reconcile their own personal identities with their faith, but also to re-shape Islam’s public profile.

Relevance to RE

• RE policy should reflect that religions need to be represented fairly and recognised as internally diverse. This research is a compelling example of these needs.
• Curriculum also should be planned to ensure that a range of views and practices within each religion is covered.
• In terms of pedagogy, the research offers rich resources. When teaching about Islam, family life and sexuality, teachers can ask pupils to consider: what are the different beliefs about these issues, within Islam? How might the different texts be intepreted, in different ways?
• Important reflective questions for pedagogy are also posed by the research. Having learned about LGBT Muslims and their understanding of their faith, pupils could be asked to reflect on how their own view of Islam has been affected by what they have learned.

Generalisability and potential limitations

By its nature, the research focuses on a minority group, but this is its appeal. It seems clear that the experiences reported are generalised, e.g. the author is right to suggest that several Islamic authorities state that homosexuality is forbidden and that gay Muslims have to work out how to react.

Find out more

Constructing an alternative pedagogy of Islam: the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Muslims, Journal of Beliefs & Values 37:3, 308-319 (published online 1 August 2016), 10.1080/13617672.2016.1212179

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13617672.2016.1212179

Research Summary: Islam without stereotypes

This article explores the ways in which Islam is presented in an essentialist way in RE in England and Wales, leading to stereotypes that are embedded in resources and agreed syllabi. It provides a critique of essentialism, and makes a case for the role of hermeneutics in teaching and learning about Islam. A hermeneutical approach is argued to be a sound way to conceptualise Islam and a pedagogical opening to make sense of it, that may help overcome some of the weaknesses of the current ways of teaching about Islam.

Research Title

Religious education and hermeneutics: the case of teaching about Islam

Researchers

Dr Farid Panjwani & Dr Lynn Revell

Research Institution

Institute of Education, University College London / Canterbury Christ Church University

What is this about?

• In what ways do stereotypes enter presentations of Islam in RE?
• How can these be overcome?
• What contribution can hermeneutics make to the improvement of teaching and learning about Islam?

What was done?

This is a scholarly, analytical discussion of Islam and educational practice, focussed on the dangers of essentialism – defined as follows on page 268 of the article:

“Essentialism is the belief that a thing has a set of characteristics which make it what it is. Often this is accompanied with an assumption that how an idea or a phenomenon was in its original state, determines its essence.”

This limits engagement with the varieties of Islam and may set up Islam as the antithesis of ‘Western values’.

Main findings and outputs

• Academics often criticise essentialist views of Islam, but the tendency persists in RE resources and curricula.
• From p.270: “In endless textbooks we can see the playing out of this narrative as adherence to the same markers (dress, beliefs, festivals, rituals) are identified as the defining characteristics of belonging to religious communities. Approaches to the teaching of Islam that define Muslims through a focus on essential, ahistorical features are in effect creating and legitimising a stereotype.”
• Ibid.: “Even where diversity within Islam is recognised it is represented within cultural silos so that ‘different types’ of Muslims appear as a series of stereotypes, the liberal Muslim, the extremist Muslim, the Pakistani Muslim etc.”
• A second problem is to describe Islam as a ‘world religion’ by the use of common themes, beliefs, practices and concepts rooted in Christian traditions.
• Rather than just presenting diversity we need to explore why there is diversity in the first place. It is because of a hermeneutical process; when people first heard the Qur’an, different kinds of responses were made depending on the situations of the hearers. This process continues. There is no single teaching on attitudes to other religions, for example. Different communities place different boundaries and “Muslims make Islam as much as Islam makes Muslims”. (p.274)

Relevance to RE

Readers are strongly encouraged to read the original article in full, as lack of space here prevents sufficiently detailed summary. However, two clear pedagogical recommendations are made in its conclusion. First, rather than posing questions such as ‘what is Islam’s view on Christianity?’, it is better to ask ‘how have Muslims understood Islam’s relationship with Christianity?’. Second, the role of pupils should change – they should be enabled to enquire into different meanings; this is how religions continue to remain relevant and pupils can participate in this process for themselves.

Generalisability and potential limitations

As it is not a presentation of empirical data, the factor of generalisability does not really apply in this case. Rather, teachers are invited to weigh up the article’s arguments and try out and evaluate its pedagogical recommendations in practice.

Find out more

Farid Panjwani & Lynn Revell (2018) Religious education and hermeneutics: the case of teaching about Islam, British Journal of Religious Education, 40:3, 268-276.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01416200.2018.1493269?journalCode=cbre20

Research Summary: Authoritative female UK Muslims

There is a new generation of female Islamic authorities in the UK. They are setting up their own institutes and emphasising the importance of drawing from within the Islamic tradition in the British context. They stress their unique ability as women to provide personal and collective guidance that addresses the needs of Muslim women in Britain. But they recognise the limitations of presenting guidance as ‘women’s work’; they sometimes present gender as irrelevant in their work. They are developing and imagining new understandings of Islamic knowledge and leadership. It is a move away from binaries such as liberal/orthodox Islam, or resistance to/compliance with established religion.

Researcher

Giulia Liberatore

Research Institution

University of Edinburgh

What is this about?

• Islam in Britain.
• Authority and leadership in contemporary Islam.
• Islamic knowledge.
• Gender and piety in Islam.
• Experiences of Islam.

What was done?

The research is part of a larger ethnographic research project on female Islamic authority and guidance in the UK, conducted between April 2015 and October 2019. It involved mapping a broad range of female authorities across the country, analysing their online presence, interviewing over twenty-five female Islamic authorities (scholars, teachers, preachers, as well as authorities providing legal advice or counselling), visiting spaces of learning, attending classes and retreats, speaking to audience members and discussing the topic with male Islamic authorities and other experts in the area.

Main findings and outputs

• Islam is changing.
• There is a new generational of influential, younger, female Islamic authorities in the UK. They are not a cohesive group, they experience different opportunities and situations.
• They have some things in common: teaching in English, teaching in informal spaces, addressing a broad British Muslim audience and sometimes using social media to teach.
• They are known for high levels of scholarship and personal piety.
• They are life guides, addressing issues such as marriage and relationships, though referring to Islamic sources in a ‘traditional’ way. Many young UK Muslims are in need of spiritual guidance, to practice Islam in a ‘western’ context. Women are seen as natural guides, within Islamic tradition.
• These women do not see themselves as ‘liberal’ in contrast to ‘conservative’ teachers. They can be seen as part of an emerging European Islam.

Relevance to RE

This research has high relevance to RE. Teachers can use it to develop their own subject knowledge in line with current research. The research is ground-breaking, illustrates some new and significant themes and provides evidence on the roles of women in Islam that can help teachers to challenge stereotypes. Another particularly valuable point is how distinctions such as ‘liberal’ and conservative’ might not always adequately describe different experiences of Islam in the contemporary world.

Generalisability and potential limitations

This research deliberately illustrates a trend, rather than giving findings that can be generalised across the experiences of Muslims. It gives good detail and analysis on a significant set of changes regarding the transmission of Islam in the UK, however, and readers are encouraged to study the original article, freely available from the link given below.

Find out more

The original article is Giulia Liberatore, Guidance as ‘Women’s Work’: A New Generation of Female Islamic Authorities in Britain, Religions 2019: 10 (11), 601.

The article is available open-access at https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10110601