Negotiating Identity and Tradition in Single-faith Religious Education - A Case Study of Islamic Education in Finnish Schools

Buchtitel

Acknowledgements

Abstract

Table of contents

1 Introduction

2 Religious education in Europe

2.1 Religious education in the context of a multicultural Europe –similar challenges, different approaches

2.2 Religious education in Finland

2.3 Criteria in analysing the legitimacy of approaches to religiouseducation: liberal educational values and human rights

2.4 Competing ideals of religious education: neutrality of the subjectand personal development of students

2.5 Are religions fitted into a liberal worldview in religiouseducation?

3 Islamic education

3.1 Basic principles of Islamic education

3.2 Islamic and liberal educational ideals in conflict?

3.3 Organising Islamic education in Europe

3.4 Islamic education in Finnish schools

4. Data and methods

4.1 The aim of the study

4.2 Paradigmatic starting points:anti-positivism, critical theory and ethnographic methodology

4.3 Methodological choices: case study and ethnography ineducational settings

4.4 The data gathering process and the participants of the study

4.5 The process of analysis

4.6 Validity of the study and the position of the researcher

5. The original refereed articles

I Developing religious identities of Muslim students inthe classroom: a case study from Finland

II Developing students’ willingness to encounter difference –teachers’ practices in Islamic education

III How Finnish Muslim students perceive and deal with religious andcultural difference: negotiating religious tradition with modernliberal and postmodern ideals

IV Teaching Islamic education in Finnish schools:A field of negotiations

6 Summary of research findings: Islamic education as a fieldof negotiations

6.1 Supporting students’ identity development:how teachers negotiate the value of autonomy

6.2 Supporting the willingness to encounter difference:how teachers and students negotiate the value of tolerance

6.3 Representing Islam: how teachers negotiate the diversity andlegitimacy of Islam

6.4 Contributing to the emergence of Finnish Islam:how teachers negotiate Islam in relation to its context

7 Discussion

7.1 Evaluation of the study

7.2 Supporting the identity negotiations of Muslim youth

7.3 Promoting tolerance

7.4 Pursuing reconciliation and respect – not neutrality

7.5 Concluding remarks: implications for religious education andfuture research

References

Appendices