Islamologi.se’s kompis Jenny Berglund, som nyligen disputerade på en avhandling om muslimska friskolor i Sverige, höll förra veckan en presentation av sin forskning vid University of Jordan i Amman. Jenny presenterade bland annat allmän information om friskolor i Sverige och Europa, men också mer specifika resultat av sin forskning gällande innehåll och form på den explicit islamiska undervisningen i skolorna. Jordan Times rapporterar om tilldragelsen:
“Many [Muslim] students have an inner struggle,” Berglund remarked, explaining that this struggle has emerged between the religious and the European identity, especially after 9/11 and the Danish cartoons deemed insulting to Prophet Mohammad in 2006.
“Teachers try to tell them that ‘it is ok, you can be both Muslim and Swedish’,” she told the audience, adding that all Muslim schools in Sweden are mixed primaries that give one to three Islamic religion hours per week, including religious narratives, Koran texts and chanting.
Särskilt intressant är också de jordanska studenternas kommentarer om muslimska skolor i Sverige. Bland annat säger studenterna i artikeln att skolorna inte är “riktigt islamiska” då de följer sekulära lagar. Men också att det är ett bra initiativ att lära ut religion på ett opartiskt sätt, vilket svensk läroplan föreskriver.
Läs mer
här."Källa, bloggen Islamologi.se 16 april 2009:
Artikeln i Jordan Times på engelska nedan återgiven i sin helhet:
"Professor Jenny Berglund gives a lecture about her PhD dissertation on Muslim schools in Sweden at the University of Jordan last week (Photo by Thameen Kheetan)
By Thameen Kheetan
AMMAN - Muslim schools in Sweden are trying to find common factors between Islam and “fundamental values” of the secular state to answer debatable questions on religion that have arisen after 9/11, according to a Swedish professor.
Subjects discussed during religion classes at these schools must abide by rules of “equality, individual freedom and solidarity” of the Swedish community, where some 400,000 Muslims live with Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs, constituting a nine million “heterogenic” population, Professor Jenny Berglund told students of the University of Jordan (UJ) last week.
The remarks are results of her PhD dissertation on Muslim schools in the Scandinavian kingdom, which she presented to some 50 members of UJ’s Conversation Club on Thursday.
She explained that since 1993 when the first Muslim school was founded in Sweden, some 15 of these managed to couple Islamic teachings with the country’s diversity and the state-controlled education system, which has been imposing for 13 years an “informative and unbiased” obligatory religious education curriculum for all schools.
She explained that since 1993 when the first Muslim school was founded in Sweden, some 15 of these managed to couple Islamic teachings with the country’s diversity and the state-controlled education system, which has been imposing for 13 years an “informative and unbiased” obligatory religious education curriculum for all schools.
According to this curriculum, students are supposed to learn about different faiths, without promotion of any particular religion, noted the professor.
With nine officially recognised as Muslim schools in Sweden, Berglund said some six to seven can be put in the same category as they are “Swedish-Arabic” institutions that teach Islamic religion. The state finances all public and private schools in the country.
Islamophobia has been going on since the 2001 Al Qaeda-led attacks on New York and Washington and different attacks by Islamist extremists, one of which killed more than 50 in London in 2005. She said that a discussion has been going on in Sweden over the purpose and curricula of Muslim schools.
“Many [Muslim] students have an inner struggle,” Berglund remarked, explaining that this struggle has emerged between the religious and the European identity, especially after 9/11 and the Danish cartoons deemed insulting to Prophet Mohammad in 2006.
“Teachers try to tell them that ‘it is ok, you can be both Muslim and Swedish’,” she told the audience, adding that all Muslim schools in Sweden are mixed primaries that give one to three Islamic religion hours per week, including religious narratives, Koran texts and chanting.
The 40-year-old Södertörn University professor explained that each school writes its own Islamic curriculum, which triggers variation in religion interpretations. She added that many teachers seek the help of curricula coming from Muslim countries rather than develop their own.
“Many people think they are all the same, but in fact they come from different political and social backgrounds,” she told the students, adding that the general idea is that these schools are “all extremists”.
She said “quite a small” percentage of Muslim students go to these schools, while others are enrolled in public ones.
Some Muslim parents prefer to put their children in the congregation’s schools because they fear the state’s schools might promote “negatively biased views” of Islam, in addition to disregard of Islamic food, dress, prayers and the fasting month of Ramadan, she said.
According to Islam, believers have to pray five times per day, should neither eat pig meat nor drink alcohol, and women should cover their head with a hijab.
According to Islam, believers have to pray five times per day, should neither eat pig meat nor drink alcohol, and women should cover their head with a hijab.
Parents also have feared less tolerance in state-run schools, added Berglund, noting that some are also worried that teachers of the informative religious curriculum would address issues in a way that promotes bias, thus agnosticism.
Enrolling their children in Muslim schools, these parents “find their involvement in the educational process easier due to the language and culture”, explained Berglund, pointing out that these citizens include those who migrated from the Muslim world as well as Swedish converts to Islam.
At Swedish Muslim schools, students get religious holidays off, with some public institutions now doing the same as many Muslim students automatically take these days off, she added, noting that after they finish primary school, Muslims usually attend weekend classes in order to continue with their religious education.
Berglund said she chose Muslim schools to discuss in her dissertation because she could not find any research on the same issue since the appearance of these schools. “Also when I looked for research from other European countries, I found that there was hardly any research,” she told The Jordan Times.
She said such research was needed “both so the schools and the teachers themselves can get a scholarly analyses of what they are doing, and also because different kinds of schools can learn things from each other”.
Surprised with the number of Muslims in the north-European country, UJ students doubted that these would receive “real” Islamic education in Sweden.
“They might teach Islam well, but external factors and the war on Islam will have an effect,” Deena Mikkawi, 18, told The Jordan Times.
Rather than developing their own curricula, 22-year-old Ayat Shkeerat thinks Swedish Muslim schools would better “import teachers and curricula from the Muslim world”.
Muhammad Fares, 24, said these schools “are not as I expected”, explaining that they are “not really Islamic” because they have to abide by rules imposed by the secular government.
“It’s nice that a foreign, secular, liberal country teach all religions objectively,” noted Khaled Kayyali, who studies electrical engineering. “It is not enough to teach Islam only until primary school… but it’s a good start,” the 22-year-old told The Jordan Times.
The club was founded in 2004 at UJ’s Language Centre with the aim of allowing students to practice their English outside the classroom setting.
15 April 2009"
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