Teaching Muslim Girls in American Schools. (Women of the World)

This article uses Muslim women educators who have lived in the United States for more than a decade and those of others to discuss how American teachers can improve the educational experiences of Muslim girls.

Abstract

Changing demographics and immigration patterns have brought increasing numbers of Muslim students into American schools. Often, teachers in the United States know little about the norms of Islam or the cultures of Muslim students. Yet without informed and empathetic teachers, Muslim girls find themselves marginalized by struggles between the norms of the classroom, curriculum, and school and those of their family, religion, and ethnic communities. As Muslim women educators who have lived in the United States for more than a decade, we have seen firsthand the problems many Muslim girls and women face in American educational institutions. In this article, we use our experiences and those of others to discuss how American teachers can improve the educational experiences of Muslim girls. We acknowledge that although the patterns we describe apply to most Muslim women living in the United States, variations from cultural group to cultural group exist in the practice of the Muslim religion here, just as they do with any faith. Diversity Within the Muslim World All Muslims are not the same. Islam has distinct branches; the major ones are the majority Sunni group and the Shiite group. American Muslims are not all from the Middle East, nor are they all Arab. (1) The country of origin of Muslim immigrants may be Bosnia, Turkey, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, or many others. Muslims share the same religious practices and beliefs, yet they have distinctive cultural differences that influence their life-styles and worldviews. Within Islamic countries, one can find differences in behavioral norms for women because the ways in which women abide by Islamic principles often differ based on the economic status of their family, ethnic beliefs, and rural/urban differences. Because of the different culturally based ways in which Muslim girls and women express themselves, American teachers may not even recognize some of their students as Muslim, seeing them simply as Nigerian, Bosnian, or Turkish. This lack of knowledge may impede teachers' abilities to treat female Muslim students in a culturally sensitive fashion. Islamic Dress Diversity of norms for Muslim girls is evident when we look at how girls from different countries In Columbus, Ohio, schools recently, we saw a Bosnian girl wearing jeans and a shirt just as any American teenager might, a Pakistani girl wearing a traditional surwaal-khamiis without a head covering, and Somali girls wearing dearly distinguishable long dresses covering their entire body. Muslim females who observe Islamic dress codes when they reach puberty must cover their hair and entire body except their faces, hands, and feet. The degree of covering, however, depends on their culture and their families' interpretation of the religion. A classroom teacher, Stan Karp, has described these differences among his Bengali Muslim students: Some, like Jihana, covered their heads with scarves in keeping with Muslim tradition. A few wore the full veil. Others wore no special dress. (2) What the girls wear at home or with other females may differ from what they perceive as proper dress in the presence of men. Although Islamic rules dictate that women should be decent and reasonably covered, Muslim girls and women implement these rules in different ways. Islamic dress codes always conflict with what is normally worn by American girls for physical education classes. Muslim girls who follow these codes cannot wear shorts and short-sleeved T-shirts. We know of teachers who lower Muslim girls' grades because they consider them to be disregarding the rules by covering their bodies. For example, one teacher was adamant that her Muslim female students would fail if they did not wear the required shorts, even though they did participate in class activities. The parents of the gifts were concerned that this particular teacher wanted to change their daughter. …