Diss. Linköping : Linköpings universitet, 2007.

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 purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of principles and ethics that dominate four schools with a Muslim profile, two in Sweden and two in England. The specific objectives of the study are:  to examine educational policies with regard to primary schools with a confessional orientation in Sweden and England; to compare two primary schools with a Muslim profile in Sweden with two such schools in England; and in these four schools to describe and examine the manner in which school heads, teachers and other staff deal with the encounters between the values found in the national curriculum of Sweden and England respectively and the principles and ethics embodied in their private philosophy of life; to describe and examine the views of school heads, teachers and other staff on school leadership and any educational, ideological or personal role model they emulate; to describe and examine the expectations and views of parents with regard to the school with a Muslim profile; and describe the views of the pupils regarding their schools and the norms and values in school and; finally, to examine the attitudes of some local authority politicians in Sweden to MP schools. The findings indicate great difference between the two schools with a Muslim profile in Sweden, on the one hand, and the two schools in England, on the other. The fundamental reason for that lies in the parameters which had been established in these countries as the conditions for being permitted to establish and run a school with a confessional orientation. Since the schools in both countries had conformed to the relevant legislation and framework in their respective countries with regard to such schools, they had therefore consequently developed in different directions. / Partly financed by Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council)