Canadian Islamic Schools: Unraveling the Politics of Faith, Gender, Knowledge, and Identity (review)

The compatibility of ethno-specific schooling with pluralism and secularism is often questioned in modern democratic societies, especially with regard to religious traditions, such as Islam, often stereotyped as less adapted to the requirements of common civic values. Many competing normative arguments are raised in this regard by academics, opinion-makers, and even the general public. But the lack of research on the role and actual functioning of such institutions, their formal and hidden curriculum, as well as the lived experience of teachers, parents, and students who attend them is striking, both in Canada and abroad. Thus, Jasmin Zine’s endeavour, a critical ethnography of four diversified Toronto Islamic schools over a period of more than eighteen months, some of which she was associated with as a teacher or a parent, can only be commended. The result is a rather fascinating book that sheds light on many relevant issues. For the sake of brevity, I will focus on four of them.

The first one, discussed in chapter 4, concerns the reason why students and parents choose an Islamic school and the benefit they gain from it. Although the main results were as expected (such as providing a socially- and spiritually-based alternative to secular public schools, protecting students from negative influences or contributing to the reproduction of Islamic identity and lifestyle), others were less so. Indeed, many Islamic schools play a role in promoting equal access to education by rehabilitating wayward students. This section of the book also shows that students who opt for Islamic education do not live in a ghetto and have many contacts with students in public schools or in the neighborhood. A second issue, explored mostly in chapter 8, concerns the curricular and pedagogical strengths and challenges identified by the various educational stake-holders, especially in a context where independent community-based schools, not funded in Ontario, are largely under-resourced.

However, the most interesting part of the book, in my opinion, lies in chapters 5, 6, and 7, in which Zine, using what she characterizes as a critical faith-based epistemology, analyses with subtlety and empathy, but no complacency, two main challenges facing today’s Islamic schools. On the one hand, how do girls construct their gender identity through the compulsory or freely chosen wearing of the veil and in reaction to the double standards they sometimes face, not so much in teaching and learning, but in school norms and hidden curriculum? On the other hand, to what extent do Ontario Islamic schools differ from mainstream institutions regarding the knowledge they transmit, given their relatively limited room for maneuver, to go astray from the official curriculum (which they need to respect both to get ministerial approval and to attract and retain their clientele)? Although she has had to conclude that Islamic and mainstream knowledge are usually only juxtaposed, she documents fascinating instances where the integration of both perspectives actually provide students with a more meaningful and a more pedagogically-sound experience (for example, filling the gap concerning Muslim contributions in Mathematics, History, Sciences and searching for complementary knowledge in these domains in the Holy Scriptures).

The book has, nevertheless, some shortcomings that may irritate some readers, or at least limit its use with non-specialists or undergraduate students. I will concentrate on three elements. The first, stemming from the fact that it is derived from a Ph.D. thesis, is the heavy theoretical and epistemological apparatus she describes at length in the first ninety pages of the book, the relevance of which is not always obvious in the later, much more grounded, analysis. In some passages of the book, I was also puzzled by her rather unidirectional and not very complex description of mainstream education in Canada and of its treatment of Muslim students. Indeed, many studies show that, like Islamic schools, public schools are also sites of unequal power relationships and of significant breakthroughs in...