Drawing on Islamic and European educational traditions: developing hybrid pedagogies for a cohesive and sustainable future

Pedagogy as Dialogue between Cultures: exploring Halaqah, an Islamic oral pedagogy used to generate culturally relevant dialogic education in UK Islamic primary schools Many educators argue that sustainable futures require... [ view full abstract ]

Pedagogy as Dialogue between Cultures: exploring Halaqah, an Islamic oral pedagogy used to generate culturally relevant dialogic education in UK Islamic primary schools

Many educators argue that sustainable futures require pedagogy that empowers communities and individuals to critically reflect and actively participate in building shared futures. This paper examines a small-scale British Muslim community education project, 'Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation’ (ISF). ISF grew out of collaboration by home-schooling Muslim mothers and is based on a ‘Holistic Islamic Education’ (HIE) paradigm. HIE arises from Islamic epistemology, tawhid-ul-‘ilm, (wholeness/unity of knowledge); conceptualising education as holistic and transformative; nurturing shakhsiyah (character/identity) through tarbiyah (spiritual and moral upbringing).

This paper presents research about a pedagogical initiative in ISF schools called Halaqah. Halaqah is an Islamic oral pedagogy that has been adapted for the UK context through enhancement of its inherent dialogic and critical nature. Children are encouraged to think dialogically and collaboratively about issues and concepts. As Halaqah is a traditional form of Islamic intellectual and spiritual learning, the holistic education children participate in aims to develop their personal and spiritual autonomy, confidence and self-esteem within an Islamic worldview so that children can skilfully and confidently engage with others to build shared futures within their local communities. Children are encouraged to embrace the Islamic concept of 'stewardship' where humanity is charged with the responsibility of ensuring sustainability of the environment. The question of how far this project successful in achieving its aims is explored through presentation of data from a small-scale qualitative study?

Ecopoiesis: towards a spiritual ontology in education for post-technological sustainability This paper asks what approaches to pedagogy are consistent with the creation of sustainable futures, and what philosophical... [ view full abstract ]

Ecopoiesis: towards a spiritual ontology in education for post-technological sustainability

This paper asks what approaches to pedagogy are consistent with the creation of sustainable futures, and what philosophical assumptions and principles should underpin it. It proposes that education is a life-long process of learning to be who we are - as those beings ‘for whom Being is an issue’, in Heidegger’s definition. This is the fundamental nature of ontological understanding.

If, as Ricoeur claims, to understand is to go beyond (déprise) and to return (reprise), if the two movements are mutually responsible, then the making of Man in God’s image can be understood as the essential hermeneutic connection between the divine, or supra-human, and the human as historically rooted in tradition.

When this is lost sight of, reduced to a poetic or religious trope, both spirituality and fundamental ontology lose their purchase and are replaced by metaphysical constructs which eventually reveal themselves as nihilist, resulting in unsustainability at every level, personal, social and global. Education becomes a techno-rationalist process at the service of international development whose characteristic qualities are those of Enframing.

Through questioning, we can find a way back to the source of this process as the destining of Being or poiesis. By connecting at this, poietic, level to global environmental concerns for the flourishing of the oikos or home we share not only as a biological species but as centrally necessary for the revealing of Being, we can connect to a new destining of Being as eco-poiesis.

Cooperative Pedagogy for Citizenship and Sustainability This paper investigates Cooperative Learning as a pedagogic response to the student-centred learning (SCL) paradigm promoted by business and governments and examines how... [ view full abstract ]

Cooperative Pedagogy for Citizenship and Sustainability

This paper investigates Cooperative Learning as a pedagogic response to the student-centred learning (SCL) paradigm promoted by business and governments and examines how its potential for community empowerment and citizenship, specifically in the UK Muslim context.

Signed by 46 Ministers of Education, the Bologna Process 2009 communiqué positions SCL as the key to economic success by providing the skills required in the 21st century. According to the OECD, these skills include critical thinking, communication, collaboration, initiative, self-direction, leadership and responsibility.

SCL pedagogy also has the capacity to enable community empowerment and active citizenship and this area is well-researched. In spite of this, shifting to SCL has been largely ineffective across all educational phases, as such skills do not fit current assessment tools and because SCL is traditionally perceived as difficult to manage for teachers.

One solution to this conundrum is structural Cooperative Learning, which uses tightly organised and controlled classroom cooperation to secure measurable results through strategies of collaborative enquiry, non-competitive interdependence, individual accountability, and the space to negotiate understanding. In relation to low resource learning environments, Cooperative Learning will fuse with any materials available and requires very little teacher training.

Using European Muslim pupils as an example, this paper demonstrates how such collaborative classrooms potentially facilitate in-depth discovery and negotiation of identities and cultural values as well as comprehensive, relevant subject knowledge to engage positively and effectively with the wider community using 21c skills. Such an approach can empower active citizenship for sustainability.

This symposium aims to explore educational pedagogies from Islamic spiritual and dialogic traditions that are being used in the European context to find common ground between communities for a sustainable shared future. By... [ view full abstract ]

This symposium aims to explore educational pedagogies from Islamic spiritual and dialogic traditions that are being used in the European context to find common ground between communities for a sustainable shared future. By framing the issue from Islamic, cooperative, dialogic and spiritual perspectives this symposium examine a range of ways that education can be transformative for both Muslim minorities and host communities in western contexts in relation to sustainability. The symposium examines the potential for Muslim minorities to engage with their neighbours in building a cohesive society that sustains human dignity and respect for the environment.

The impact of drawing on non-European traditions, in this case Islamic traditions, in developing attitudes of cultural respect, trust and co-operation as well as skills of collaboration, critical reflection and life-long independent learning is explored. The principles and assumptions underpinning Islamic traditions that are used by particular minority projects and those underpinning more mainstream narratives about sustainability are investigated and overlaps are considered. The symposium further considers potential implications for cross-cultural collaboration in other global contexts in relation to education for sustainable futures.