Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / In compliance with the Constitution, the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996 requires that every child attend school from age 7 (or grade 1) to age 15 (or grade 9, whichever occurs first). The Western Cape Education Department (WCED), the constitutional custodian of education in the Western Cape Province, requires that all informal institutions accommodating learners of school-going age register their learners for an educational curriculum. It is an essential requirement that all learning institutions (religious or otherwise) provide the necessary academic support for their learners.

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This dissertation deals with the sort of culture that forms the organization of education and its contents of two multicultural nine-year compulsory schools. The analysis is based on ethnographic work on the municipal school Tallskolan and the free independent Muslim school Jibrilskolan. To illustrate the sorts of social integration offered by Tallskolan and Jibrilskolan and explain whence they came, I have used Alexander’s (2006) conception of incorporation and civilsphere. In relation to the concepts, landscapes of meaning and systems of meaning (Reed, 2011) I ask what they can tell us about the expectations which members of society direct towards themselves, and in particular pupils with an immigrant background and the multicultural schools which they expect to help them into society.The result shows that the prioritizing of Tallskolan's school heads and the municipality changes at the same rate as that of the social geography of the residential district. School politics have tried in different ways to desegregatethe pupils through closing down the intermediate school stage and offeringschool attendance at other schools, but have failed due to parental protest.Overall changes that have been realised during the latter period is a drive to give further educational training to teachers of Swedish as a second language. When looked at through the theoretic concepts of the dissertation these priorities mirror an adaptation to society's main cultural practice. The result for Jibrilskolan shows that the school prioritizes the development of the pupils' Muslim identity and their self-confidence. The school consists of teachers with both Swedish and Muslim backgrounds. The actual teaching activates different opinions as to the degree that religion influences the teaching. Divergent opinions are overruled, however, as teachers with a Swedish background see that Islam can also be used as a resource. The Muslim teachers help the teachers with a Swedish background to explain and convince the Muslim parents to let their children participate in activities which they otherwise would probably not have done. Based on the theoretic concepts of the dissertation the prioritizing mirrors a great variety of different perspectives on knowledge, values and norms.

The application of Qur'ān and Hadith in the teaching of life skills in Muslim schools in South Africa. This study explores the application of Qur‟ān and Hadith in the teaching of life skills, as part of the Islamic Studies curriculum, at Muslim schools. The study further discusses the need to equip learners at Muslim schools with the necessary skills, values, attitudes and orientations that are conducive to greater participation in adulthood. The study is aimed at examining the potential of an Islamic perspective to meet these needs. The discussion focuses on five areas: health development, personal development, social development, physical development and orientation to the world of work. The research reveals that the Islamic Studies curriculum can be holistically integrated with life skills development, and the Qur‟ān and Hadith can make a significant contribution for the optimal implementation of this learning area. Muslim schools are urged to implement the recommendations made in this study. The sustained training of educators and the continuous development of learning support materials is needed to ensure that this learning area achieves its objectives. / Religious Studies and Arabic / M.A. (Islamic Studies)

The aim of the thesis is to examine how children as social beings and actors form themselves within the framework of a school institution that adults have set up in order to shape them in deliberate ways through nurturing education. The study is based on long-term fieldwork in a Muslim faith school in Sweden. Muslim schools have aroused a great deal of debate in Swedish society. Opponents have argued that Muslim schools lead to segregation and social exclusion, that these schools risk not promoting the fundamental values of society and that children in these schools are met by religious propaganda. Advocates of these schools have maintained that in public schools the Muslim identity is eroded by ignorance, lack of understanding and racism. Muslim schools instead offer children knowledge of their culture and religion in a way that enhances their identity and makes them secure and whole human beings who can be integrated into society. The debate reflects that school institutions function as loci for contested forms of socialisation in society; national, ethnic, religious, or the struggle of other groups for cultural production and social reproduction in which they are united in the role and importance attached to the school institution in the shaping of young people. In the debate children appear as passive receivers and products of adults’ upbringing and education, which represents both threat and opportunity. The debate around Muslim schools reflects adult-centred ideas of socialisation, where the adults’ upbringing and education is placed at the centre of the process in which children are formed into social persons. What emerged from this study is that children are social actors who shape themselves and that this shaping is more of an informal social process than a formal education process. The study raises the profile of how the school constitutes an environment in which children are in the majority and adults in the minority; a social environment in which children have significantly more social contact and a greater number of social relations with each other than with adults. The school as a child-centred social environment is reflected in the fact that it is principally children who shape each other rather than adults shaping children. / Hur formas barn i en muslimsk skola? Muslimska skolor har väckt stor debatt i Sverige. Motståndare har uttryckt att dessa skolor leder till segregation, att de riskerar att inte förmedla samhällets värdegrund och att barn där möts av religiös propaganda. Förespråkare har hävdat att i den kommunala skolan bryts barns muslimska identitet sönder av okunskap, oförståelse och rasism mot muslimer. Genom muslimska skolor erbjuds barn istället kunskap om sin kultur och religion vilket stärker deras identitet och gör dem till trygga och hela människor som kan integreras i samhället. Debatten reflekterar hur skolinstitutionen fungerar som lokus för nationella, etniska, religiösa eller andra gruppers ”kamp” om kulturell produktion och social reproduktion i samhället. Den gemensamma nämnaren för förespråkare och motståndare till muslimska skolor är den roll och betydelse som skolinstitutionen tillmäts för att avsiktligt forma den uppväxande generationen. De delar en vuxencentrerad syn på socialisation. Barn framstår som sociala produkter av de normer och värderingar som lärare förmedlar i skolan, vilket utgör både hot och möjlighet. Den här studien problematiserar den vuxencentrerade synen på barns socialisation som kommer till uttryck i debatten kring muslimska skolor. Studien visar att barn är sociala aktörer som formar sig själva och att formning snarare är en informell social process än en lärarstyrd utbildningsprocess. Studien belyser skolan som en vardaglig miljö där barn är i majoritet och vuxna i minoritet; en social miljö där barn har betydligt fler relationer och intensivare umgänge med varandra än med vuxna. Att skolan i social bemärkelse är barncentrerad innebär att det där framförallt är barn som formar varandra än att vuxna formar barn. Studien bygger på ett längre fältarbete bland barn i en mellanstadieklass i en muslimsk friskola.

The application of Qur'ān and Hadith in the teaching of life skills in Muslim schools in South Africa. This study explores the application of Qur‟ān and Hadith in the teaching of life skills, as part of the Islamic Studies curriculum, at Muslim schools. The study further discusses the need to equip learners at Muslim schools with the necessary skills, values, attitudes and orientations that are conducive to greater participation in adulthood. The study is aimed at examining the potential of an Islamic perspective to meet these needs. The discussion focuses on five areas: health development, personal development, social development, physical development and orientation to the world of work. The research reveals that the Islamic Studies curriculum can be holistically integrated with life skills development, and the Qur‟ān and Hadith can make a significant contribution for the optimal implementation of this learning area. Muslim schools are urged to implement the recommendations made in this study. The sustained training of educators and the continuous development of learning support materials is needed to ensure that this learning area achieves its objectives. / Religious Studies and Arabic / M.A. (Islamic Studies)

This thesis presents an argument for the use of dialogic halaqah to develop the personal autonomy of young Muslims in twenty-first century Britain. It begins by developing a theoretical grounding for Islamic conceptualisations of personal autonomy and dialogic pedagogy. In doing so, it aims to generate dialogue between Islamic and ‘western’ educational traditions, and to clarify the theoretical foundation of halaqah, a traditional Islamic oral pedagogy, that has been adapted to meet the educational needs of Muslim children in contemporary Britain. Dialogic halaqah is daily practice in two independent British Muslim faith-schools, providing a safe space for young Muslims to cumulatively explore challenging issues, in order to facilitate the development of selfhood, hybrid identity and personal autonomy, theorised as shakhsiyah Islamiyah. This thesis examines the relationship between thought, language, and the development of personal autonomy in neo-Ghazalian, Vygotskian and Bakhtinian traditions, and suggests the possibility of understanding shakhsiyah Islamiyah as a dialogical Muslim-self. This theoretical work underpins an empirical study of data generated through dialogic halaqah held with groups of schoolchildren and young people. Using established analytic schemes, data from these sessions are subjected to both thematic and dialogue analyses. Emergent themes relating to autonomy and choice, independent and critical thinking, navigating authority, peer pressure, and choosing to be Muslim are explored. Themes related to halaqah as dialogic pedagogy, whether and how it supports the development of agency, resilience and independent thinking, and teacher and learner roles in halaqah, are examined. Moreover, findings from dialogue analysis, which evaluates the quality of educational dialogue generated within halaqah, that is, participants’ capacity to engage in dialogue with each other, as well as with an imagined secular other, are presented. The quality of the dialogic interactions is evaluated, as is evidence of individual participant’s autonomy in their communicative actions.

In this qualitative case study, I investigated the experiences of teachers employed at Muslim schools in the Gauteng Province in South Africa regarding the enabling and constraining factors for the implementation of EE at their schools. The study was inspired by the observation of the ongoing environmental problems in South Africa such as water shortages and environmental degradation with the realisation of the possible contributions that the Muslim schools may make in addressing such problems if they were to implement EE. Although some research has been conducted to indicate the challenging and supporting factors related to the implementation of EE in South African schools, little has been done regarding such factors in Muslim schools in Gauteng Province. Due to my pre-existing knowledge of the principles of the Quraan and Ahaadith (Prophetic traditions) which bears the guidelines for the practices of Muslim communities (including schools) and values regarding the environment, I regarded the limited research on this topic as a serious gap in literature. To contribute knowledge to this gap, a case study of five Muslim schools located in the Gauteng Province was conducted to observe their EE-related practices. These schools were selected through a convenience sampling technique which was followed by the purposive selection of 15 information-rich teachers for semi-structured, face-to-face interviews. These research methods were preceded by the analysis of the Qur’aan and Ahaadith (Prophetic Traditions) as well as the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) as stated in the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) document. Findings indicated that EE implementation in the participating schools is enabled by factors such as inclusion of EE in the school’s extra-curricular activities and teamwork among teachers to implement EE. Conversely, there are factors such as the lack of time and physical space as well as the lack of teaching resources related to EE which constrain the implementation of EE in these schools. Among the recommendations made was that Muslim school teachers need to participate in in-depth training courses directly related to EE implementation. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Environmental Education)