Since 2011, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has hosted approximately 1.4 million displaced Syrians (GOJ, 2017). Nearly 83% of Syrian refugees in Jordan reside in host communities (Betts & Collier, 2017); one-third are children between five and 17 years (UNHCR, 2020). The influx of school-age refugees from Syria has created unprecedented challenges for teachers, schools, and host communities in Jordan. Jordan has committed to improving education for both its national and refugee populations, as is evidenced through the “sector specific objectives” (p. 57) delineated in the Jordan Response Plan (GOJ, 2017). To that end, the government of Jordan has provided copious quantitative data on quick impact projects proposed, conducted, and evaluated through JORISS, the official platform for response and relief efforts. However, there is a significant need to better understand, from the perspective of teachers, the realities of the impact of the Syrian Refugee Crisis (“Crisis”). To better grasp the long-term repercussions of the Crisis on host-community education in Jordan requires an assessment of all affected parties, especially those charged with carrying the brunt of the burden in the Kingdom’s efforts to “ensure sustained quality educational services for children and youth impacted by the Syria crisis, through a holistic, inclusive and equitable approach” (GOJ, 2017, p. 56).

Building off prior research on emergency education response (EER) interventions (Myrick, 2021), this paper is an interview-based, exploratory study in which educators working in host-community public schools in Amman provided firsthand accounts of how teaching environments may or may not have changed since the Crisis began. Specifically, the study sought to discover how the Ministry of Education’s double-shift teaching plan for Syrian refugee children affected teachers’ professional and personal experiences and, subsequently, their ability to provide quality education for their students. Teachers responded to prompts about their professional history, classroom setting and resources, workload changes, physical and psychological effects, job satisfaction, and overall thoughts on the government’s response to the Crisis. Analysis of transcript data followed a grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Results revealed six dominant themes: physical spaces, learning environments, interpersonal relationships, student-centered problems, physical and mental fatigue [burnout], and sense of duty/job satisfaction. Some of the challenges to teaching identified within these core concepts included: difficulties with classroom management, disengaged parents, decrease in some students’ desire to learn, physical and psychological effects of teachers working multiple jobs, and feelings of being unappreciated. Teachers innately turned to Al-Ghazali’s Master-Pupil Relationship and Islamic Educational Psychology principles to support refugee students’ individual, educational, and psychological needs. These behaviors aligned with the Hashemite Kingdom’s education philosophy, which draws heavily on its foundations in “Arab-Islamic civilization, the principles of the Great Arab Revolution and the Jordanian national experience” (GOJ, 1994, p. 2). This case study underscores that teachers working with refugee students face additional, specific challenges in their efforts to provide quality education. Two crucial findings — the importance of flexibility and the value of empathy to educational situations — may provide insight into the needs of teachers who work with students from various diasporic backgrounds.

Key Words: Refugee education, sense-of-belonging, Islamic Educational Psychology, education in emergencies

Keri Myrick, Ph.D., is director of the Office of Global Engagement and Special Programs at the University of Houston Honors College. She received her doctorate in higher education leadership and policy studies – comparative and international education. Her dissertation work examined the challenges to Syrian refugee education in Jordan. Her research interests include Education in Emergencies, refugee identity and student development, and sense-of-belonging in post-national adolescents. She has participated in multiple research fellowships to the Middle East, where she examined K-20 education in Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan. She is also director of the Medical Ethics & Humanitarian Aid: Service-Learning Program in Jordan. Keri has published and presented on the benefits of reflection in high-impact practices. She has recently been appointed to the School for International Training’s Partnership Council and serves as Educational Liaison to the Bilateral Chamber of Commerce and the Osgood Center for International Studies.

Raudah Yunus is a researcher, writer and social activist based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She currently teaches at the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Teknologi MARA. Raudah specializes in Public Health, with interests in ageing, elder abuse, and health of vulnerable populations. She completed her MPH and doctorate degrees at the University of Malaya in 2015 and 2018, respectively. Raudah actively advocates for senior citizens and refugee communities in Malaysia through her regular newspaper writings. She co-founded Relief, Education and Development (READ Malaysia), a local NGO that facilitates access of refugee children to primary education.

Azerbaijanis have passed a rather complex trajectory of national development from the nineteenth century onwards. Through the consequent historical periods, education and identity formation in Azerbaijan was guided by influences of the policies and ideas of russification, sovietization, and Westernization. Hence, religious identity has never been a factor to be considered in this development process. Now Azerbaijan is in the process of advancing its new development strategy for the next decade. Education has been announced as one of the five national development priorities by presidential order. Simultaneously religious identity has started being emphasized in political and social discourses and the theme is being heavily debated by the public representing secular and religious views of national development.
Azerbaijan has made considerable progress in opening public and social space to women. Education is one area of employment where Azerbaijani women have succeeded (Voluntary National Review - Azerbaijan, 2017) regardless of complex societal and organizational barriers and challenges. Some have advanced through the glass ceiling into education leadership (Eagly, 2007). However, they still seem underrepresented in the top power, including education. The insufficient representation may lead to limited opportunities in decision making about the future of the country, its education and educational leadership.

The study aims to provide the opportunity to raise the voice of women leaders in education and to explore their perception of female leadership and views on how they envision a new stage of national development in this regard. We strive to find answers to the questions: How do women leaders see the role of education in the national development process? What kind of education does a nation need to build a new identity? What should be a role of Islam in the national development process? What is the role of women leaders in the process of educational development? Enthused by the premise that Azerbaijanis as a nation may not grow further, if not attends to the quality of female educational leaders and/or female educational managers. To investigate experiences of women leaders in national development process while navigating and finding their way in the society and educational organizations, Leadership, Identity, Organizational Behavior, and Organizational theories may be implied qualitatively (Adams, 2012; Astin & Astin, 2000; Azmi et al., 2014; Eagly, 2007; Madsen, 2008; Popa, 2012; Wilson et al., 2016; Wolverton, Bower, & Hyle, 2008).

This qualitative study seeks to explore via in-depth interviewing nine, the most remarkable female vice-rectors, school leaders, education experts and policy makers, the current state of Muslim women’s education leadership practice in Azerbaijan and illustrate the challenges and barriers they may encounter in the societal and organizational levels. The study focuses on some new directions for future research to address unrepresented female leadership in education.
This research may conclude that communication, developing and maintaining relationships, building up teamwork, problem-solving, decision-making, and job experiences regarding gender-role or religious stereotypes could challenge and impede female educational leader growth. This research may generate knowledge on female educational leadership for policymakers and stakeholders in Azerbaijan and near geography.

Key Words: Female educational leadership, Muslim female leaders, identity, Azerbaijan

Dr. Vafa Yunusova is an Assistant Professor in Education Management in the School of Education, ADA University and earned her Ph.D. in Educational Administration from Michigan State University, the U.S. in 2019. She received BC and MA from Azerbaijan University of Languages. She earned a tenure track as a senior lecturer at the department of Regional Studies and International Relations at Azerbaijan University of Languages, then transitioned to Innovations and Further Education Department. Dr. Yunusova also graduated from the Intensive Course in Development Skills in Training Teachers and Trainers, Warwick University, the UK CELTE in 2004 and Language Teacher Trainers Course, Essex University, International Academy, the UK in 2010. As of 2008-2017, during the summer terms with some intervals, she has been a visiting scholar in the U.S. and taught Azerbaijani Language at SWSEEL and School of Global & International Studies, IU Summer Language Workshops and worked as a material developer at CeLCAR.

Ulviyya Mikayilova is an expert with diversified ECE & SNE training design, delivery project experience, curriculum development and policy analysis in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. She is a Fulbright scholar (Teacher College, Columbia University, 2006) and has taught university courses: Introduction to Gender and Gender and Politics (Baku State University). She currently serves as an Assistant Professor at ADA University (Baku, Azerbaijan) and teaches several courses within Leadership and Management in Education Master Program. Ulviyya Mikayilova is a member of the Public Council at the Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan.

In his final sermon Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught clearly that no one is superior to another because of skin color, and that the Muslims are one brotherhood. It is this brotherhood of Muslims referenced by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) that can, at a philosophical level, be considered the “Muslim World.” This “brotherhood” exists as an ideal in the minds of most of those who practice the religion of Islam. The reality of the “Muslim World” in today’s geopolitical global context, however, is a collection of nation states ranging from those that have sizable Muslim majorities, to those where Muslims make up significant minorities, to those where Muslims are in the extreme minority.

There is a certain myth that runs rampant in this Muslim world, or as Muslims like to call it, the “Muslim Ummah.” It is a myth that posits that racism and racial prejudice don’t exist, and that in the words of Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) last sermon “every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood.” This myth exists from the desert cities of north Africa to the islands of the Indonesian archipelago, and in most predominantly Muslim lands in between. It is a myth that took particular hold on the minds of African American converts (or “reverts” as the self-definition has become known) to Islam. Viewing Islam as a psycho-cultural refuge from the ravages of America’s unique brand of white supremacy, Muslim African Americans have often been quick to embrace their Muslim brothers and sisters from around the world, an embrace that in many instances has overlooked the racism and colorism that has been rampant in their native lands. While it is true that the phenomenon of white supremacy has a uniquely European origin and quality, the Muslim world has been plagued by color consciousness and colorism that are manifested within 1) cultural contexts that predate European racism, and 2) societies that have, within the last five centuries, been economically, socially and culturally ravaged by European colonialism, and its attendant white supremacist ideology.

This paper will examine the manifestation of colorism in the Muslim world and the potential of educational practices as an antidote by taking a look at 1) the role of colorism in those societies that pre-date European colonialism, 2) the role of colorism among colonized peoples, 3) descriptions of colorism in Muslim Arab countries, and 4) an examination of the potential application of the principles of Anti-Bias Anti-Racist (ABAR) pedagogical principles to the practice of education in Muslim communities. The paper will conclude with a discussion of the role of teacher training institutions in addressing the divisive role that colorism plays in the Muslim world today.

Key Words: Colorism, Anti-Racist Education

Dr. Hakim M. Rashid is a Professor and former Chairman of the Department of Human Development and Psychoeducational Studies at Howard University. He has served as a Fulbright Scholar at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia and a Visiting Professor at Khartoum University in Sudan. A former Research Associate at the High Scope Foundation, he has also been a preschool teacher and a center director. Articles written by Dr. Rashid have appeared in the Journal of Negro Education, the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Muslim Education Quarterly, Educational Research Quarterly, Contemporary Education and Young Children, among other publications.

Drawing from a year-long critical ethnographic study of youth citizenship in small town America, this paper examines how Muslim youth of the Somali diaspora are misrecognized and pushed out of the community imaginary, yet simultaneously form supportive coalitions with other youth (Muslim and non-Muslim alike) from nearby towns through non-formal educational activities. I build off Shirazi (2018) who found the educational experiences of youth reveal broader “struggles over which bodies, histories, and cultural practices count as American” (p. 116). Focusing on the everyday politics of misrecognition and refusal in non-formal education spaces reveals how youth contest their experiences of national belonging, as well as shape the communities in which they live.

According to some theorists, rural areas are celebrated as a fundamental expression of the authentic and original intention of the nation (Holston, 1999). In longstanding Republican-voting, homogenous, rural American-Midwestern communities, many Somali refugee and immigrant families have settled to work in manufacturing plants. Due to media stereotypes of the “Muslim terrorist,” young Somali males are misrecognized as threatening in the Midwestern imaginary (Abdi, 2015; Puar, 2007). This stereotype exacerbates anti-Black racism prevalent in these small rural communities. This project transpired in a specific small town (Hampton) marked by a series of violent incidents, warranting a federal investigation into the harassment of Somali-American students in the high school.

Derived from observations of high school American football games, this paper focuses on two themes as experienced by the youth – misrecognition and refusal. First, the primarily white student section was seemingly out-of-bounds for the Somali youth in attendance at these games, as was integration with the majority white crowd that expressed great familiarity with each other. The Somali students’ actions, even though they were similar to the other students, were instead described as weird by several community “gatekeepers.” Focusing on the everyday actions at football games reveals how Somali students were misrecognized as threatening and thus, pushed out of community and national belonging. Secondly, Hampton Somali youth chose to switch sides to sit alongside the opposing town’s student section and then cheer for their “rival’s” majority Sudanese team. These youth, after being excluded from the Hampton imaginary, sought a space where they could feel “at home” and where people who looked like them were celebrated. This instance exemplified how the Somali youth refused the town community that excluded them and instead formed an alternative coalition of belonging with each other and like-minded individuals. The reactions of these Black Muslim youth, rejecting the imposed imaginary, reshapes the very notion of what it means to belong in Hampton and thus, in the United States.

Focusing on non-formal spaces in a small-town American context challenges the urban focus of past research within globalization. At a time where tense debates around “who counts” as an American abound, awareness of youths’ experiences open up critique and imagination of a more inclusive future for these individuals, these rural, small-town communities, and the nation at large.

Key Words: National Belonging, Rurality, Social Justice Movements

Heidi I. Fahning holds her Ph.D. in Comparative and International Development Education from the University of Minnesota. Her research and professional interests involve youth conceptions of national identity, civic engagement, and societal belonging specifically in rural, rapidly changing communities in the United States and globally. Her dissertation research was an ethnographic study of how diverse youth experience national belonging in a small Midwestern town grappling with economic, political, and demographic shifts.

Education, Islam, and secularism are at the forefront of France’s national plan for preventing radicalization. Apart from the measures that it presents as means for fighting against “Islamism”, this national plan makes its focus on “Islamist radicalization” rather than radicalization in general very clear. Additionally, out of its five prevention axes, two are closely tied to the education sector. In fact, the first prevention axis is dedicated to “shielding minds from radicalization”: an objective that the French government calls on attaining through reinforcing secular teachings and practices within schools.

Despite the abundance of scholarly critiques of France’s secularism (or laïcité) policies—mainly pointing out their potential discriminatory nature against the country’s Muslim population—the French government still sees laïcité as a tool that can build a common and inclusive culture in schools. Such perception is often cited as the motive behind France's reinforcement of laïcité in schools in response to the threat of “Islamist radicalization.” However, to this day, there are no government-led empirical studies and very few scholarly ones that examine the impact of France’s reinforcement of laïcité in schools on Muslim youth, and the latter’s alleged effectiveness in “shielding minds from radicalization.”

In this study, I explore how Islam and laïcité interact inside the French public educational space and within the broader context of counter-radicalization. I primarily rely in my analysis on Mahmoud Mamdani and Wendy Brown’s work—particularly applying their framework of the “culturalization of politics” to examine how the French state’s discourses and policies around radicalization, laïcité, and Islam are used to politicize and “confessionalize” (referencing Olivier Roy’s work) the allegedly neutral and secular French public school.

In order to understand the impact of such politicization and confessionalization of the education system in France on Muslim youth and prospects for radicalization, I used primary data that I collected through in-depth and semi-structured interviews. These interviews were conducted in France (using snowball sampling) with Muslim youth from different backgrounds who have spent at least the entirety of their high school education in a French public school and who graduated after the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack.

The major findings of this study showcase how educational secularization in French public schools acts as a barrier between Muslim youth and their ability to construct well-integrated and well-represented social and political identities. The informants see France’s secularizing educational policies as a form of assimilative control that strips them of their rights and freedoms, stigmatizes them for their differences, and excludes them from France’s socio-political spheres. The respondents’ perceived sense of social and political disaffection varies by individual and is influenced by intersecting identities, such as: gender, socio-economic status, race, and citizenship. These findings suggest that the current politicization of public educational spaces through secularization can contribute to the social and political disaffection of Muslim youth in France: an outcome that could, in turn, serve as a catalyst for radicalization.

Key Words: Islam, Secularism, Education, Radicalization, France

Walid Hedidar is a UNESCO Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education where he is pursuing a master’s in International Educational Development. His research examines the use of public education systems to influence, shape, repress individual and social identities and transformations. Walid was previously a research assistant at the University of Geneva and the Brookings Institution. He also consulted for UNDP Tunisia and UNESCO IIEP Dakar. Walid holds a BA in Anthropology and International Affairs from the University of Denver. In his free time, he co-runs LEAPS Academy, a teacher training startup based in Tunisia.

In this presentation, we seek to provide insight into the impact of full-time Islamic schools on the development of a Muslim identity for its students. The presentation includes 1) review of research on Muslim identity formation in the cultural West, 2) findings from a qualitative study with Islamic school alumni in the United States, and 3) concrete suggestions for how Islamic schools can better support positive Muslim identity development for their students. The presentation has implications for Islamic school educators as it relates to pedagogy, curriculum selection, and intentional development of school culture that fosters Muslim identity in a non-Muslim majority context. It therefore makes a contribution to JEMS readership by providing empirical research about the impact of Islamic schools on the identity formation of Muslim students in the United States and other countries where Muslims are a religious minority.

Identity formation is considered an essential task that often takes center stage during adolescence. The school environment is an important context for positive identity formation, which has been associated with desired developmental outcomes such as positive self-esteem, agency and psychological well-being (Smith, et al., 2020). While individuals construct multiple identities that are historically-situated, fluid and shift over time and context (Rogoff, 2003), the development of a strong sense of self grounded in core religious beliefs and values is an ideal that many parochial schools strive to support. Likewise, over the past 90 years, full time Islamic schools in the United States have been established with an underlying goal of helping students construct a strong Muslim identity (Memon, 2020).

In this presentation, we share the results of a qualitative study with 37 Muslim participants of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds who attended a portion of middle or secondary education in full-time Islamic schools and graduated in the past 10 years. The data was analyzed using phenomenology to center participants’ lived experiences and the researchers’ role in the co-construction of meaning. The findings from this study suggest that the impact of Islamic schools on the construction of students’ Muslim identity was mixed. Many participants felt confident and comfortable to publicly proclaim their identities as Muslim in contexts outside of their Islamic schools. They identified the positive impact of extracurricular activities or teachers who were seen as caring mentors to students. Some participants identified factors that sometimes negatively impacted their Muslim identity, such as narrow Islamic studies curriculum that presented a singular method of interpreting and practicing Islam and/or curricula that did not include relevant topics such as sex education.

The presentation concludes with suggestions for educators in Islamic schools. The suggestions speak to participants’ critiques and incorporate best practices in the field of education broadly, while centering Islamic principles and pedagogy. Suggestions include cultivating a school ethos which fully embodies the principles of Islam, honoring the diversity within Islam in terms of religious interpretation, historical contributions and cultural practices, and student-centered and inquiry-based pedagogy.

Key Words: Muslim Identity, Islamic Schools, Youth

Shaza Khan is the Executive Director of the Islamic Schools League of America (ISLA). Her professional and research interests center around adolescent development and identity formation, specifically focused on Muslim American youth. Her work at ISLA includes providing professional development for full-time Islamic schools and engaging in critical research related to Islamic education. Dr. Khan has previously taught Islamic studies at weekend and full-time Islamic schools and worked as a curriculum developer for a major international Islamic books’ publishing company.

Seema Imam, EdD (USA) serves as Chair of The Islamic Schools League of America, is Professor of Education and served twice as Co-Chair of National College of Education, and Chair of University Senate. Seema taught for 25 years. She taught online for five years, “Integrating, Infusing, Initiating, Curriculum for Islamic Schools,” in Islamic Teacher Education and taught for 16 years in Chicago schools. She was founding principal of Universal School in IL, an Islamic Pk-12th grade. She holds teaching, principal, and superintendent certifications. Seema’s research and writing focus is on diversity and technology. Seema is author of Chapter 10, With New Standards in Mind: Selecting and Integrating Educational Technologies. She is author of Chapter 3, Separation of What and State: The Life Experiences of Muslims in Public Schools, “Muslim Voices in School Narratives of Identity and Pluralism” 2009 and a children’s book, “I am Listening.” Seema consults with many schools, coaching both teachers and principals. She serves as a consultant to Legacy International Online HS.

Since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, the world has witnessed a surge in the number of International Organizations (IOs) created to coordinate between nation-states on varying issues. In the Arab world, a key region of the Muslim world, a similar process took place following the wave of decolonization in the 1960s and 1970s, and for newborn nation-states, the need for cooperation was even more pressing, hence the creation of regional organizations around the same time. It is surprising that while there are innumerable studies about global IOs in education (Mundy 1999 and 2007, McGuigan 2007, Mundy & Verger 2015, Martens & Niemann 2018), the role of regional organizations seems overshadowed. Although they are important in their field and in their regions, we know little about them and their interactions with global IOs (Olaniran & Agnello 2008, Olcott 2010, Collins & Rhoads 2010, Morgan 2017). This can be explained through the undeniable hegemony of powerful IOs, which is a fact nowadays; some IOs have become more influential than some states and can therefore impose their own agendas on them (Mundy 1999 and 2007).

This research reveals new insight regarding the role that regional organizations play in the design of education policy in the Arab and Muslim world, and how these policies are shaped by the interaction between regional and global IOs. In order to do so, and using a post-colonial framework for the analysis, I have conducted a qualitative case study of a regional IO focusing on the Arab world and an important actor in education policy: the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO). The study analyzes data through an extensive desk review of the organization’s own publications (research, policy briefs, strategic documents) and publications by partner organizations. The data is complemented by interviews with current and former ALECSO staff. The paper uses thematic analysis to identify and analyze patterns of meaning (Gavin 2008, Braun & Clarke 2014). The research aims to make two main contributions to the educational literature; firstly, it provides a better understanding of the scope of work of regional organizations compared to global ones, and secondly it sheds light on the role played by regional IOs in the education policy travel process.

The analysis reveals insights into the role of regional IOs in the Muslim world, regarding how the ALECSO is unmoored between two trends that pull it in different directions; its spoken aim to counter Western hegemony in the region on the one hand and the dominance of certain IOs that necessarily define other organizations’ work on the other hand. Thereby, the organization tries through its policy-making to prove that it is only concerned with the interests of its member states, focusing on policies of promotion and preservation of Arab culture and especially the Arabic language, the language of Islam. However, it also emulates global IOs in numerous ways by often resorting to using global guidelines and criteria to measure educational quality.

Key Words: ALECSO, IOs, education, regionalism

Cherine Sabry is an Erasmus Mundus scholar. Most recently she has graduated from the GLOBED (Global Education Policies for Development) Masters programme, jointly offered by the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (Spain) Universität Bremen (Germany) and the University of Cyprus. From Alexandria, Egypt, she has practical work experience working for International Organizations in Egypt, as well as some international experience in NGOs in Brazil and Belgium.

In Niger, several Islamic associations have come to occupy the public space since the democratisation and liberalisation of the country started in the 1990s. Pursuing different goals as their names indicate, some of these associations emerged in educational contexts. The nationwide Association des Étudiants Musulmans du Niger (AEMN) has branches in each of the eight Nigerian universities. The AEMN also cooperates with Clubs des Jeunes Musulmans (Muslim Youth’s Clubs) present in secondary schools. The association is often a partner of Islamic conferences held in private institutes of higher education. Additionally, the AEMN works with the Association Nigérienne pour l’Appel et la Solidarité Islamique (ANASI – Nigerian Association for the Islamic Call and Solidarity), an association that primarily targets officials in public administrations and leaders in the economic and financial private sector. These collaborative structures and strategies show how a national Islamic association tries to reach out to different spheres of the society from pupils to elites. By primarily targeting educational institutions, the AEMN disseminate a Salafi-inspired vision of Islam, according to which being a good Muslim and a good citizen on an individual level should benefit to the whole nation.

Rather than being active on a grassroots level, the AEMN concentrates its efforts on the educational system, acknowledging that the condition for realising a better and more just society is to start with education, and perhaps to change its mode rather than its content. It is thus interesting to notice how the association aims at building a bond between working elites and students that are called to rule the nation or occupy important positions in the future. Niger’s tumultuous political path to democracy and socio-economic fragility have encouraged the creation of new kinds of religious agendas through associative life. For Muslim leaders, it is not enough to merely spread Islam, right religious practices and righteous behaviours. They actively seek new ways to achieve their reformist agenda and reaching a few key positions in society is part of their strategy. How did Islamic associations pervade supposedly secular institutions of education? How did they impact Niger’s educational landscape, especially the Université Abdou Moumouni (UAM) of Niamey?

During fieldworks conducted at the UAM in Niamey, Niger, from 2019 to 2021, I attended several activities organised by the AEMN’s branch on campus, talked to its members and interviewed one of its leaders. For its educational purpose, the AEMN regularly hosts events like conferences and sermons, during which they invite Muslim scholars. The AEMN’s structure includes Comités Da’wa (Da’wa committees) that are dispatched in every faculty. Through their makaranta - a Hausa word that designates a space of learning or schooling -, these committees offer students to learn Islamic subjects and to read the Qur’an. These activities therefore cover a wide range of educational values and Islamic knowledge that students may lack because most of them come from the public school system in which French is the official language and “Western” subjects dominate. 

Key Words: Higher Education; Islam; Secularism; Morality

Vincent Favier is a doctoral candidate at Freie-Universität Berlin, Germany and affiliated with the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin, Germany, where he is part of the Junior Research Project entitled "Religion, Morality and Boko: Students Training for a Good Life" (Remoboko). He holds a Master’s Degree in African Studies from the Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Germany, for which he made a short documentary film on Wagogo’s music traditions in Tanzania. His current research interests focus on the relationships between religiosity, knowledge and performance among Muslims and Christians at the Université Abdou Moumouni in Niamey, Niger.

Within the United States, research on Muslim communities’ education is a fairly recent area of academic inquiry especially since the 9/11 attacks. Some scholars have looked at how educational experiences of young American Muslims influence their understanding of citizenship (Abu El-Haj, 2015), others have examined young Muslims’ literacy and language practices within schools in order to explicate how those practices inform students’ identity formations (Sarroub, 2005). Yet, another emerging area of inquiry has been examining educational experiences of young American Muslims within Islamic educational contexts within U.S. context (Aminy, 2004; Kashani, 2014; Read& Hussein, 2018). These studies have looked at the role of Islamic education in students’ moral socialization (Aminy, 2004), in young American Muslims’ engagement with the American civic society and forging a space for Islam in the United States (Kashani, 2014), and the role that Islamic private schools play in young American and European Muslims’ integration into their host societies (Read& Hussein, 2018). Yet, seldom have scholars looked at the role that weekend Islamic schools and other forms of supplementary education play in the well-being of diasporic Muslim societies as well as their integration into the host society. As such, the proposed paper will draw on data collected from a multi-year ethnographic case study of an Islamic Saturday school in order to illuminate how instructional practices that draw from indigenous Islamic epistemologies can serve as potential tools that elevate young Muslims’ sense of self-confidence within anti-Muslim geopolitical contexts.

In the 2016 Presidential Campaign, the American Muslim community faced a new surge of Islamophobic attacks. These anti-Muslim bigotries have had real, physical, and emotional effects on the day-to-day lives of the targeted communities both in the United States and abroad. Young school-aged American Muslims have not been immune to such forms of stigmatization. Dr. Halim Naeem, president of The Institute of Muslim Mental Health, has stated that school-aged Muslims are facing Islamophobia at a crucial time in their identity development. This has resulted in increased cases of depression and anxiety among Muslim American youth (Irshad, 2015). What is then necessary on our part as scholars of education focused on Muslims communities, is tapping into the resources available within them. In this paper, I aim to examine the potentialities of Muslim communities’ educational practices in equipping young American Muslims with epistemological tools and knowledges to protect themselves from the harms of Islamophobic rhetoric. To answer this I examine the classroom discourses and linguistic practices within the school’s Islamic ethics classes.

Analysis of classroom discourse portrays participants’ understanding of their image within the US society and the causes of such stereotypical portrayal. Discourse analytic approaches show that through discursive practices, such as debating and presentations, students are not only educated about their position within the sociocultural portrait of the United States, but also equipped with an epistemic framework aimed to reinstate their sense of dignity and belonging. Findings from this study encourages us to rethink our educational practices and learn from immigrant communities ways through which dignity can be reconfirmed.

Key Words: American Muslim Youth, Education, Islamic Discursive Practices, Islamophobia

Maryam Moeini Meybodi is a researcher in the field of educational linguistics. In her work she examines the role of language and its use in the identity development of young second-generation American Muslims. She received her Ph.D. in May 2021, from the University of California Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, where she specialized in the Language, Literacy and Culture program. Dr. Moeini Meybodi’s academic expertise covers multiple disciplines such as applied linguistics, anthropology of education, and immigration studies. In summer 2021, she founded the Adeeb Tutoring Center LLC, an online educational platform serving Muslim communities in the United States.

Hifth is an age-old tradition recognized by Muslims as an immense spiritual accomplishment, and it is a common practice for families to have at least one child fulfil this prophetic tradition. South African Muslims are no different and have upheld this tradition for many years. Today, it is no longer undertaken in an informal schooling system, but constitutes established, institutionalized studies that children attend on a full-time basis, necessitating their exit from mainstream schooling. Due to government requirements, hifth schools are including other subjects such as English, Mathematics and Social Sciences. The Western Cape Education Department (WCED), the constitutional custodian of education in the Western Cape Province in South Africa, requires that all informal institutions accommodating learners of school-going age register their learners for an educational curriculum. It is therefore an essential requirement that all learning institutions (religious or otherwise) provide the necessary academic support for their learners. The implementation of these programmes varies, however, and they are offered to the learners in conjunction with the hifth studies. These additional subjects are cumbersome for the learners undertaking hifth, who already have a huge workload. With this comes many challenges, and this study focused on the psychosocial and emotional challenges these learners face. In South Africa, there is a dearth of research associated with hifth schooling, and absolutely no documented research could be located regarding the integrated hifth programme and its impact and effects on learners.

This study explored the psychosocial and emotional challenges that learners undergo when studying hifth. The study utilised Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development in an endeavour to understand the development of the children attending these institutes. A qualitative methodological framework with an exploratory research design was employed. The sample was purposively selected and consisted of 24 learners between the ages of 11 and 15. The learners were selected from six hifth schools in Cape Town. Data was collected through semi-structured individual interviews and was thematically analysed with Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-phase process of thematic analysis.

Results indicated that learners experience social, emotional and academic challenges. Social challenges such as pressure relating to family and societal expectations, lack of socialising with family and friends, peer pressure and managing their screen time. Emotional challenges caused by stress, anxiety and personal problems adversely affect their academic performance. Furthermore, they experience academic challenges related to adjusting to their hifth studies, academic management and coping with the Mathematics and English classes. To mitigate these challenges, many of these learners employ coping strategies such as engaging in leisure activities, parental assistance and various personal coping strategies. In addition to employing these coping strategies, many of them receive support from family, peers, teachers and tutors. They also utilise technology in the form of Qur’an apps and listening to their favourite qari to assist them with memorisation. In addition, learners felt that they required more conducive learning environments, both at school and at home.

Key Words: Adolescence, emotional challenges, Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, Hifth, Hifth schools, psychosocial

Faiza Toefy is a registered Psychological Counsellor in private practice and a researcher. She holds a Bachelor of Human Science degree majoring in Psychology from the International Islamic University in Malaysia. She completed her Masters in Psychology and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. studies in Psychology at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. Faiza has a professional background in education management and counselling in the NGO and private sector. She has a keen interest in student interventions, psychological well-being and resilience.

The term ‘Boko Haram’ literally means “Western Education is evil.” This has been a philosophy from which the terrorists draw to prosecute their attacks in northeastern Nigeria since 2010. This study seeks to redirect this depiction of the Muslim world. With the recent and ongoing Boko Haram terrorist attacks alongside the broader rise of internal displacement and propagation of terrorist philosophy across Northeastern Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin, it appears that new educational curriculum as a foundational tool for counter terrorism is imperative. This study adopts a qualitative methodology, which derives from extensive fieldwork from Northeast Nigeria and review of existing secondary data drawn from seminal studies within the period 2010 to 2021. The objective of the study is to make a new contribution to the wider literature, which is significant to both an understanding of the specific contexts of curriculum development — one that also speaks to the contemporary context of Boko Haram terrorism, the Muslim world and broadened educational curriculum. The paper highlights the significance of new educational curriculum as a tool of counter terrorism. It draws attention to the role of educational curriculum in the construction and maintenance of a distinct peaceful social order across the Muslim world. This emphasis on counter terrorism not only underscores some neglected aspects of educational curriculum but also better accounts for the specific ways terrorism could be mitigated through teaching and learning. The aim is to redress the rise of terrorism and what appears to be an unprecedented moment in the history of contemporary Muslims and, in particular, education in northeast Nigeria. This helps to provide on-the-ground evidence and illuminates broader contemporary problems of Boko Haram terrorism affecting Nigeria and its educational system. Findings suggest that the Boko Haram philosophy, which denigrates western education as evil, has accounted for false indoctrination, massive terrorist attacks including the abduction of school girls, burning down of schools and propagation of alternative teachings and belief system antithetical to the dominant educational system. Findings further point out that redesigning educational curriculum among the Muslim communities of Northern Nigeria has a far reaching implication for policy, pedagogy and development. The particular Nigerian experience offers useful scholarly insights and policy options following the recent listing of Nigeria as the third most terrorized nation in the world by Global Terrorism Index — this depiction of reality highlights the significance of new educational curriculum for educational development of Nigeria. The paper concludes that without redesigning educational curriculum, terrorism and Muslim fundamentalism may not be mitigated. The evidence presented expands the understanding of the broader diversity of educational curriculum. This can help understand and assess the future success of education in the northeast and new policy direction.

Key Words: Curriculum, Education, Muslim, Boko Haram, Terrorism, Nigeria

Cajetan Amadi holds a PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Port Harcourt. He is a member of several professional bodies including the Nigerian Council for Educational Psychologists (NCEP). He has published several articles in learned journals, both locally and internationally.

Introduction: With the contemporary movement toward equity, diversity, and inclusion of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in North America, there is a critical need to enhance the equitable understanding of diverse cultural backgrounds in curriculum and library resources. Recently, researchers have shown an increased interest in multicultural education to promote the appreciation of diverse cultures among young learners (; Bennett 2001; Copple & Bredekamp 2009; Hansen-Krening, 1992; Morgan, 2009; Quintero 2004). The purpose of reading multicultural children’s literature is to expand cultural understanding of those who have different beliefs and values from us (Baghban, 2007; Klefstad & Martinez, 2013). Harris (2015) asserts that in the United States, “out of the 5,000 plus children’s books and 2,000 young adult literature books published, less ten per cent are written and/or illustrated by individuals that are African, Asian, Latino, or Native American” (p. 11). Other scholars have reported that many countries including the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are still underrepresented in children’s early resources (Callaway, 2010; Jackson, 2010; Shedd, 2001; Torres, 2016; Wingfield, 2006). The underrepresentation of scholars from diverse backgrounds in authoring children’s books can suffer from non-indigenous and Eurocentric construction of textual sources in the North American multicultural society, which questions the authenticity of its material.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the representation of the Middle East in children’s literature and verifying the authenticity of its portrayal. Through the framework of critical multicultural analysis and using content analysis methodology, I will examine the ideologies that underlie the text and pictures of postcolonial Middle East in children’s literature. These ideologies include social, political, and cultural themes and the understanding of how they align with the values of the ethnic and religious diverse population of the Middle East.

Methodology: The proposed research is guided by a qualitative methodology, informed by critical multicultural analysis (Botelho, 2004; Botelho & Rudman, 2009) and a postcolonialism analytical approach to children’s picturebooks. Since story picture books are read more often in early childhood and elementary settings and this is an age “when ideas about other cultures begin their formation” (Torres, 2016, p. 194), the inductive analysis will investigate the themes and contexts of the published realistic fiction and nonfiction picture books about Middle East in North America for ages three to nine. The data resources that I aim to use for my research comprise of library data on Muslims and available multicultural children’s literature.

Significance: With the increasing population of Middle Easterners in North America and growing of Islam as the second largest religion with more than a billion adherents (Callaway, 2010), the imbalanced portrayal of this group is a potential challenge to unity and peace in democratic nations. This research will contribute to understand how Middle East countries in children’s literature are represented as a basis to provide space for authentic culturally diverse representations in children’s literature which would inform a positive interaction among Muslims and non-Muslim groups.

Key Words: Multicultural literature, Middle East, Muslims, Young children, Picturebooks

Mahshid Tavallai is currently an Iranian American PhD student in the Faculty of Education at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. She has previously completed her master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction for Diverse Young Learners at George Mason University, Virginia, with concentration on Early Childhood Education. Drawing on her master’s degree and PhD concentration, her current doctoral research focuses on multicultural education and the presentation of the Middle East in children’s literature. She has also worked as an educator in various educational settings in Iran, US, and Canada for the past fifteen years, focusing on disseminating multicultural literature.

Publishing an article is a feat in and of itself no matter where your work is accepted.  Recently, the emphasis on academic work publishing in the west, more specifically, the United States has grown.  There is so much important work happening across the globe, but is not as widely published.  Part of the reason is an English language proficiency barrier.  The other part of the reason is authors not completely understanding the article organization as well as the review process.  This talk focuses on demystifying the publication process in order to have better success in getting more scholarly work accepted across the globe.

Dr. Anastasia Khawaja (she/her)is a senior instructor of English at INTO University of South Florida and an adjunct professor for the department of English also at University of South Florida. She has a PhD in Second Language Acquisition and Instructional Technology, an MS in Multilingual/Multicultural Education, and a bachelor of arts in music and Spanish.  She is the chair of the TESOL International Membership Professional Council, and an involved member of several affiliates including TESOL Gulf and SS TESOL.  Her current research engages with peace education and breaking the binary understanding of the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict through the exploration of language use. Her most recent work appears in the volume Policy Development in TESOL and Multilingualism.

Introduction

Rural Upper-Egypt is characterized by relatively low educational attainment and a conservative religious culture that holds onto traditional habits and customs where girls are assumed to be marginalized (Sieverding and Elbadawy 2016). In such areas, families are often judged on the community’s perception of the behavior of a family’s girls/women outside the house. Fear of sanction for violating social norms can sustain conservative values and attitudes (Harper et al. 2018). These circumstances may result in more family control over females and less women’s empowerment (Paterson 2008).

Education can empower girls, increasing their aspirations for more education and making them conscious of their rights regarding the timing and circumstances of their marriage (Warner 2014). The community schools (CS) program in Egypt was said to create “new norms and social meanings” (Zaalouk 2004:27) for the students and the wider society. The student-centered, child-friendly, active-learning pedagogy of the CS is supposed to transform students and develop progressive attitudes. Over the years, the Ministry of Education took up the CS movement and also constructed mainstream government primary schools (MPS) throughout the country. Hence, the CS and the overall educational environment in Egypt have changed.

Girls become empowered when they have choices about the direction of their lives, the opportunity to select among those choices, and the ability to act on the decisions they make (Kabeer 1999). Two of the areas we assess are pivotal in determining a girl’s future – her education and her marriage. Programs that seek to foster girls’ empowerment frequently focus on delaying marriage, in large part because this allows girls to complete their education (Murphy-Graham and Lloyd 2016).

Research Questions

Zaalouk’s (2004) most recent work only studied CS students before and after entering school. Our research is the first in Egypt that compares the attitudes and empowerment of girls in CS with those of their peers in MPS. We examine whether education, in general, and specifically type of school, affect girls’ empowerment in conservative communities such as those of Upper-Egypt. Further, we investigate to what extent parents influence their daughter’s thinking.

Data and Methods

We use data from three Upper-Egyptian villages. We focus on girls 8-15 years of age enrolled in CS and MPS. The study used three questionnaires: 1) a household questionnaire to provide family background information; 2) a girl questionnaire to measure her attitudes and sense of empowerment, and 3) a parent questionnaire to record their attitudes and the degree to which they think their daughters should be empowered.

We use descriptive statistics to profile girls who attend CS and MPS. To construct the empowerment domains related to girls’ role in decision-making about schooling and marriage, we use factor analysis.

Conclusions

Preliminary results suggest that CS and MPS girls largely share the same attitudes, and, as conservative societal norms dictate, all girls generally follow the views of their parents, even though this often leaves young girls disempowered. In Egypt, CS are no longer transformative. Rather, they should be seen as adaptive, delivering effectively the same education as MPS.

Key Words: Empowerment; Girls; Community Schools; Mainstream Primary Schools; Rural Upper-Egypt

Fatma Abdelkhalek is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Stochastics of Budapest University of Technology and Economics, and holds a demonstrator position at the Faculty of Commerce of Assiut University in Egypt. She worked as an applied statistician and data analyst at the Social Research Center of American University in Cairo for several years. Her current work focus is social sciences research. She uses likelihood methods, statistical modelling and simulation among other statistical techniques to examine social issues related to education, community schools, harassment, poverty, employment and child mortality.

Ray Langsten is Senior Research Fellow at the Social Research Center of the American University in Cairo. He has a PhD from the University of Michigan in Sociology/Demography. His current research focuses on education, mainly measurement issues related to the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as aspects of education in Egypt. Recently he has been studying literacy in Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa.

For many religiously minded Muslim parents in Bangladesh, madrasas (Islamic seminaries) offer a comforting response to a rapidly globalizing world. Experts believe madrasas have negligible contributions in creating skilled human resources in the country, still they received on average 11.5 percent of the total education budget in the last few years. Apart from about 9,000 government-registered madrasas, there are numerous other institutions across the country offering religious education without registration. Contribution of madrasa graduates at the national level is negligible despite some recent moves to update their course curricula. The Quomi (independent) madrasa education system is mostly supported by religious endowments, charity, and individual and organizational contributions. Authentic data on the Quomi system of madrasas are difficult to find. The emergence of Quomi madrasas exclusively for female students in Bangladesh and other parts in South Asia as well is relatively new as compared to the male dominated Quomi madrasa education system. Parents expect that education will enhance women’s domestic role and increase their marriage prospects. Many parents consider that madrasa, as Islamic religious institution, serves both religious lessons and general education to their daughter and thereby, increases religious piety and prepares them for future household roles. Moreover, certain Islamic etiquette and behavior are promoted among the female students in many madrasas such as wearing headscarf and purdah (veil) that are often considered as a good way of protecting women from oral abuse and physical assault from the male dominated world. This article is based on an extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two Quomi madrasas during the period of February to March 2021 in Bangladesh based on semi-structured interviews with students and their teachers. The students in the madrasa are guided in proper Islamic rules from early morning to night that helps them be habituated in proper Islamic manners and etiquettes. In this sense, the girls’ madrasa can be referred to as a ‘total institution’ that is disciplining the docile bodies of women to be perfect in a certain way. A few of the female madrasa-graduates have strong desire to enter into male dominated religious sphere primarily for household economic benefits and for raising their social status. I would argue that the proliferation of girls’ madrasa education inadvertently opens the possibility of new social and religious roles for Muslim women. The trained women from the madrasas have been taking part in madrasa-teaching, Islamic preaching and in other forms of socio-religious activities that have been predominated historically by the male Islamic scholars and clergies. Such new activities of madrasa-educated Muslim women have, indeed, transformed their traditional roles by taking them out from private to public spaces. This article first spells out what the problems and challenges are for girls’ education in madrasas, and it will depict how these women often negotiate with their male counterparts for accommodating them in the religious sphere and, second, outlines strategies for improving the quality of girls’ education in madrasas.

Key Words: Madrasa, employment, marriage

Dr. Mokbul Morshed Ahmad is an Associate Professor in the School of Environment, Resources and Development, Asian Institute of Technology. Prior to that he was an Assistant Professor in the department of Geography and Environment, Dhaka University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He holds a PhD. in Development Geography from Durham University, Durham, UK (2000).

The role of violence in schools with regards to the educational and social emotional experience is an important one. In Jordan, a Muslim-majority country, bullying in schools is ubiquitous. Based on our behavioural research the most common forms of bullying in Jordan are physical, verbal and social, occurring fairly equally among boys and girls. In understanding the psychological, social and cultural drivers of these practices, our findings pointed to a number of important factors: that traditionally parents and caregivers in the Jordanian context often perpetuate this behavioural by encouraging children to defend themselves in the name of their family’s honour; that bullying is poorly understood nor is it considered a serious problem; and that bullies, whether children or adults, are often seen as having admirable “strong personalities”. Our research consisted of a literature review, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. 

To address these drivers and ultimately shift the pattern of bullying in schools, MAGENTA partnered with UNICEF to develop an Edutainment series to be used as educational content within schools. This format of content allowed us to address and entrenched traditions, beliefs and social norms through a nuanced and deliberate approach of character design, story-line development and behavioural change journey. The content was designed to be used by teachers in concert with active facilitation pre- and post-screening in schools. Each episode is designed to target a specific behavioural driver and key message. 

In order to reflect the media consumption habits of adolescents in Jordan, the series is designed to be disseminated in schools, online and on social media. The series, ‘Shababeek,’ is comprised of 14 episodes and set in an average middle class neighborhood fraught with bullying. Viewers follow the struggles of individuals in the school, observing their positive solutions to addressing bullying, as well as their missteps. The series links adolescents of different backgrounds with a common experience of being bullied. The series features interwoven stories of the different characters, sometimes the bully, sometimes the victim, emphasizing that bullying can happen to anyone and everyone has a role in stopping it. It features Jordanian children as actors and is grounded in formative research with adolescents in Jordan in order to most directly reflect the language, attitudes and lives of children in Jordan. 

The use of an edutainment series is a novel approach in Jordan and reflects the need for creative and engaging solutions to changing pervasive behaviors. Media is a critical means of engaging adolescents with social behavioral change communications (SBCC) messaging and has a unique ability to challenge and redefine normative expectations. By placing such a strong focus on depicting relatable, realistic scenarios, the series aims to reflect the viewer in its plot and characters. Thus, the series is truly a Jordanian depiction and designed to resonate with viewers to inspire meaningful reflection and positive change.

Key Words: Bullying, Jordan, Violence

Sarah-Jean founded Magenta with a mission to disrupt the space of behavioral change communication, combining scientific rigor and technological innovation. Her vision is underpinned by over a decade of research and communications experience, working across the Middle East, Asia and Africa. There she has advised a diverse range of governments and international organizations on enhancing their communications interventions in support of broader policy objectives. She holds a Masters in Engineering from the University of Cambridge with a scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is currently a guest lecturer on Strategic Communications at King’s College London, Department of War Studies. She speaks basic Arabic and Farsi. In addition, she sits on the board of a number of not-for-profits, promoting education for women and freedom of speech.

It is widely supposed that there is an appropriate and vital role for music in Religious Education (RE). However, the answer to the question of ‘how music should be included in the teaching of RE?’ remains uncertain. This paper examines the position and role of music in RE to offer a better way forward for their collaboration. This interdisciplinary study incorporates aspects of education, music, Islamic theology, emotion, psychology, and philosophy. This study aims to address music as a way of fostering students’ affective and cognitive responses in the context of effective Religious Education (RE), as well as to provide curriculum guidelines for musical activities of RE.

The hypothesis within this study is that music with its capabilities to stimulate emotions and facilitate the communication of knowledge can enhance RE, by fostering students’ meaning-making process, owing to their emotional and cognitive engagement with the classroom subject. On a broad theoretical framework and comprehensive literature in different research fields, the premise of the current paper is that music and RE are related in various aspects.

With a mixed-method research design, this study encompassed three interrelated types of investigation: conceptual-hermeneutical, empirical-analytical, and phenomenological. The critical assessment of relevant literature and prevailing theories of emotion, cognition, music, makam in Turkish musical culture, and meaning-making were central to the present study to identify possible ways in which RE practices may apply these concepts more meaningfully and effectively. In particular, from its basis in music and Islamic theology, this study develops a distinctive theoretical foundation for the concepts of ‘musical emotions’ and ‘communication of knowledge with music’, and for the context of RE.

For the empirical investigation, this paper evaluates the field of RE from the perspectives of students and of RE professionals. Then, it discussed the implications of the findings in line with the existing literature and policies. For measuring emotional response to listening to Turkish makam music (consisting of 12 excerpts), I used the Geneva Emotional Music Scale (GEMS-25) with selected student populations (n= 350). Regarding the historical associations of Turkish makam music with emotional stimulation, five excerpts were successful in inducing the intended emotions and five excerpts were partly successful. Furthermore, RE professionals (n= 20) were interviewed with a method of grounded theory, in order to better understand the current place of music in RE and future implementation possibilities. However, it was expressed that, despite the potential revealed by this study, a modest number of initiatives of using music in RE is far from reaching a broad range of adoption and support. By using thematic approach, I integrated these concepts and theories for the musical activities of RE, to provide a pedagogical model for effective RE in Secondary schools. Correspondingly, in this pedagogical model, student, music, environment, and teacher are the emerging themes of the musical activities of RE, due to their personal/ intrinsic, cultural/ religious, and situational/ responsive dispositions.

This study discloses important questions surrounding the ongoing debates of emotions in education, music in RE, and music in Islam. However, as a concluding remark, this paper demonstrates that, for the development of students’ feeling and cognition, the practice of musical activities in Secondary RE classrooms might be a constructive and inspiring revolution for RE––even though this potential is mostly ignored in the present era.

Key Words: Religious Education, music, emotion, knowledge, meaning-making

Yusuf Ziya OGRETICI is a PhD researcher with the School of Education, University of Glasgow, where he submitted his research with the title of ‘Bridging Theory, Experiment, and Implications: Knowledge and Emotion-Based Musical Practices for Religious Education’. He was awarded the YLYS-2013 MONE-TURKEY scholarship (£105.000). He gained his MTheol. (Religion, Literature, and Culture-2016) in Glasgow-UK, MA (Religious Education-2012) in Turkey, and BA (Theology-2009) in Turkey. His research interests extend to emotion, values, morality, culture, and music in the context of religious education. He works as an Education Expert at the Ministry of National Education- Turkey. 

In recent years, some innovative teaching models have been developed for the purpose of shifting learning responsibility from teachers to students. One of these models is the flipped classroom (FC). Flipped classroom, which is a student-centered learning pedagogy, has been proven to have positive effects on learners’ achievements. This study aimed at investigating the impacts of (FC) model on enhancing students’ grammatical competence. To achieve that, a mixed methods approach was adopted. In the first phase of this study, a quasi-experimental research design was used to show if there were any significant scoring differences between control (n=20) and experimental group (n=20). Two intact groups (2nd year baccalaureate level) from two different high schools in Larache city, Morocco, participated in this study. The control group was taught by the researcher who used computer-assisted instruction (data-show projector) to teach content lesson of the four conditional types. The experimental group was taught by another teacher using flipped classroom methodology. A post-test was used to test the two groups. In the second phase of this study, a randomized sample of students from the experimental group were interviewed to explore their perceptions of this pedagogy. The findings obtained showed that the post-test scores were in favor of the treatment group, but the results were not statistically significant. The interview responses indicated that students were satisfied with this pedagogical model as it gave them opportunities for interaction with their instructor and classmates. In conclusion, it has been recommended that instructors should diversify their teaching methods by adopting innovative pedagogies with the objective of making students active agents in the learning process.

Key Words: Flipped classroom, computer-assisted learning, student-centered learning, grammar, Morocco

Jillali Nakkam is a high school teacher with 10 years of experience. He received his Masters degree in Linguistics in 2010 from Ibn Tofail University in Kenitra, Morocco. In 2017, he got enrolled in doctoral studies in the same university. His field of interest is digital education and critical thinking. His thesis is on the effect of flipped classrooms on critical thinking development. He has published an article titled, ‘Evaluation of reading comprehension questions in ELT Moroccan textbooks.’

Research on factors affecting students’ performance in the Arab States has mainly focused on socioeconomic status, school resources, teacher performance and community characteristics. Though the education sector benefits from substantial government support, the quality of education -- as it is assessed by the scores of students in international evaluations such as TIMSS and PISA -- at the primary and secondary levels remains poor. One factor which may have an impact on students’ performance and which has not benefited yet from a real focus in the Arab countries is the language capital. Language capital or more simply ‘the mother tongue’ is the set of skills that are acquired during childhood with no particular effort and strengthened in school. A body of research which examined the association between the acquisition of a language and student academic achievement have recognized the effects of language on mathematics performance. Some researchers argued that language fluency positively influences mathematics achievement. Others showed that students who received their instruction in a second language experienced lower achievements than native students. Moreover, it has been recognized that students with a good mastery of their first language are efficient acquirers of a second language. For Arab students, the acquisition of language capital does not appear to be an effortless process since Arabic differs from ‘the mother tongue.’ Even though the ‘linguistic distance’ is small, students in Arab countries are not likely to be fluent in Arabic because they live in a ‘dialect-dominated’ environment. This in turn will reduce sharply efficiency in language acquisition. In this research study, we focus on the impact of the language of instruction on fourth grade students’ performance in TIMSS 2019 mathematics and science evaluations. Our sample is composed of 8 Gulf States and two benchmarking participants, which administered the tests in Arabic and English (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Abu Dhabi and Dubai). The sample of students is composed of native students whose mother’s tongue is Arabic and who took the tests in Arabic and English. We rely on the propensity score methodology to study the effect of using English as a language of instruction on students’ performance in mathematics and science.

Key Words: Language capital, students' performance, Gulf countries, TIMSS, propensity score matching

Donia Smaali Bouhlila holds a Ph.D. in development economics and a research diploma (HDR). She is a full-time assistant-professor at Faculté des Sciences Economiques et de Gestion de Tunis. She is an associate editor at International Journal of Educational Development. She is a research associate at the Economic Research Forum (ERF) and a senior researcher at Laboratoire Prospectives et Stratégies de Développement Durable (PS2D). She is interested in the different aspects of human development. She is comfortable in using both state-of-the-art technologies and analytic techniques. She has published different papers in different journals and she has been awarded in 2016 in Atlanta (US) by the CIES for her distinguished service in educational reform.

Imen Henta holds a Ph.D in Family Economics from University of Cergy-Pontoise. She is a full time Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Management of Tunisia. She is a researcher at the Laboratory for Research on Quantitative Development Economics (LAREQUAD). She is interested in the different aspects of Family Economics. She is comfortable in using both state-of-the-art technologies and analytic techniques.

Todays’ children live in a media-rich digital environment in which they observe technology, explore it, and play with it. Electronic games (e-games) are one of these technologies which are widely used by children. Research studies suggest that well-designed games can help children foster their development from all developmental aspects. The aim of this paper is to assess e-games used by Jordanian children aged 5-8 years old in terms of their appropriateness for children. A random sample of 35 electronic games used by K-3 Jordanian children was selected to explore to what extent these e-games are developmentally appropriate for children. The researcher developed a developmental scale to assess children’s e-games. The developmental scale consisted of 10 domains: Age appropriate, individual appropriate, easy to navigate, interactivity, technical design, accessibility, culturally appropriate, clarity, instructional design, expending challengers, appropriateness of the content, avoiding bias, violence, and inappropriate content. Results indicated that e-games used by Jordanian children showed a moderate level of appropriateness. Moreover, the results revealed that the domains related to “clear instruction,” “interactive,” and “technical design” were the most appropriate, while domains related to “nonviolence,” “real-work model,” and “age appropriateness” were the least developmentally appropriate. Furthermore, there were significant differences in the appropriateness of children’s e-games due to age groups. Based on the results of the study, some recommendations are presented.

Key Words: Electronic games, Preschool children, Kindergarten, Developmentally appropriateness

Fathi Ihmeideh is an associate professor of early childhood education in Queen Rania Faculty for Childhood at the Hashemite University in Jordan. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Huddersfield, UK, in 2006. His primary research areas focus on early literacy development, early childhood technology, parental involvement, and early childhood education in the Arab Gulf region. Fathi Ihmeideh has over a decade of experience in university teaching, training, developing early childhood curricula, preparing and evaluating childhood teacher education programs, assessing educational awards, and consultations.