Teaching Islamic education in Finnish schools: A field of negotiations

Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 740e749

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Teaching and Teacher Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate

Teaching Islamic education in Finnish schools: A field of negotiations Inkeri Rissanen* Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki, PL 33, 00014 Helsinki, Finland

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 5 July 2011 Received in revised form 7 February 2012 Accepted 8 February 2012

The challenges of contemporary multicultural societies have resulted in changing aims for religious education and the necessity to adjust teacher education accordingly. The processes of negotiation related to the coexistence of different religious and cultural groups are intertwined in the Finnish curriculum for religious education. This case study examines three Islamic education teachers who negotiated intra- and inter-religious tensions as well as tensions between societal and religious orientations of education. Through their ideological, pedagogical and interpersonal negotiations teachers can mediate the contested practices of Islam as well as the ideals of liberal democracies and contribute to the emergence of Finnish Islam. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Religious education Multicultural education Teacher role Islam Case study Finland

1. Introduction According to Thomas Popkewitz (1997), the curriculum is “the practice of social regulation and the effect of power” related to state authority, and includes standards of truth that direct individuals to understand the world in a certain way. Educational theorists increasingly perceive the curriculum as a social construction that is shaped by historical and cultural factors. It can be seen as a process of negotiation and social practice existing between social context and individuals (Hökkä, Eteläpelto, & Rasku-Puttonen, 2010). In this study, the Finnish curriculum for religious education is understood to reflect the negotiations of the coexistence of different religious and cultural groups as well as ideologies in Finnish society and more generally the negotiations between minorities and dominant cultures in modern multicultural societies. The focus is on the emergence of these negotiations in the context of Finnish Islamic education and in the ways in which Islamic education teachers mediate them. In this way, the practices of social regulation and ways of changing people associated with the curriculum will be recognised as well as the standards of truth that guide the practices of teaching. The need to reconsider educational orientations for religious education teachers has increased in times of cultural change: the challenges of contemporary multicultural societies have resulted in

* Tel.: þ358 505734884. E-mail address: inkeri.rissanen@helsinki.fi. 0742-051X/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2012.02.001

changing aims for religious education and the necessity to adjust teacher education accordingly (Bakker & Heimbrock, 2007, 7e8). Even though there is a great variety of approaches to religious education, in general a shift from confessionalism to liberal approaches is observable (Barnes, 2007). This means that religious socialisation has been replaced with more distanced and objective ways of studying religion as well as with an increased focus on social aims, such as tolerance and respect for difference. In the contemporary situation, where the relationship between culture and religion has become more complex (Roy, 2010), religions are battling for authenticity and barriers are built between exclusivist religiosity and the secular world (Hull, 2006), the significance of religious education is seen as preventing the political instrumentalisation of religion and contributing to dialogue. Religions are increasingly considered to contribute to tolerance. Religious education in which students are seen as actors in their own traditions and encouragement towards the critical consideration of religious influences comes from insiders within religious groups might have a vital role in enhancing this positive role of religions, because students with a commitment to an absolute religious truth are not easily affected by educational interventions which judge their religion from the outside (Hull, 2006; Skeie, 2006). These perspectives have also affected the curricula for religious education in Finland. According to the Freedom of Religion Act (Uskonnonvapauslaki, 2003), students have the right to their own religious education if there are a sufficient number of students belonging to the same religious affiliation in the same area. Currently there are 13 different curricula for religious education

I. Rissanen / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 740e749

in Finnish schools. However, the content and aims of religious education are not constructed according to the interests of religious communities, and religious instruction is no longer defined as confessional in nature. In practice, this means that religious practice in the classroom is prohibited and the aims of religious socialisation have been replaced with goals which concern the students’ personal development. The Finnish national core curriculum for religious education stresses both the acquisition of knowledge and the personal development of pupils (Finnish National Board of Education, 2004). Even though the focus is on students’ own religious tradition, other religions are also covered and one of the main goals of religious education is to educate the students’ readiness to encounter plurality in their environment. Thus, it is possible to regard religious education as a space for negotiating the coexistence of different religious groups in a multicultural society. The Muslim population in Finland only began to grow in the late 1980s. Over the past few decades the number of Muslims in Finland has rapidly increased, but the Muslim population is still relatively small e approximately 0.8 per cent of the Finnish population (Martikainen, 2009). Finland has long been regarded as quite a homogeneous nation, most of its population (nowadays roughly 80 per cent) belonging to the Evangelic Lutheran Church. When an awareness of the Islamic presence in Finland awoke in the 1990s, it was considered alien and threatening, and the general opinion concerning Muslims is still negative (Martikainen, 2009; Sakaranaho, 2006, 252e253). However, educational policies are a good example of efforts that have been made to make the Finnish mainstream more sensitive to cultural and religious diversity. Education in Islam is a relatively new phenomenon in Finnish schools. When the first curriculum for Islam was drafted in the 1990s, the nature of Islamic education was clearly confessional. The new National framework curriculum for Islam, designed after the Freedom of Religion Act came into effect in 2003, was not made in close co-operation with the Muslim communities, although some Muslim teachers were consulted (Sakaranaho, 2006, 359). Instead of religious socialisation, the 2006 Curriculum for Islam declared the strengthening of students’ Islamic identity to be a goal of Islamic education (Finnish National Board of Education, 2006a, 2006b). According to the curriculum, students should be aided in understanding the significance of Islam for themselves and for society. Education in Islam should also aim at helping pupils to understand, and interact with, those who think and behave differently. Despite the marked plurality of the Muslim population, due to practical limitations only one kind of Islamic education, “general Islam”, is being offered. This necessarily positions Islamic education as a space for negotiating the coexistence of different Muslims. Even though researchers are talking about “the emergence of local Islams in Europe”, due to the ethnic and cultural diversity of migrant Muslims and the fact that these subgroups often form their own associations, it has sometimes been difficult to improve co-operation between them (Buijs & Rath, 2002; Jensen, 2010). The challenges facing Islamic education are numerous: there is a lack of teaching material, teachers are obliged to circulate between numerous schools, classes are heterogeneous and parents of Muslim pupils are sometimes very demanding (Sakaranaho, 2006, 373e382). Furthermore, only a few teachers have formal qualifications for this challenging job. However, there are teachers who are very active in developing Islamic education as a school subject and in improving the position of its teachers: in the beginning of 2011 The Association for Finnish teachers of Islamic education was established. According to a qualitative interview study, teachers of Islam support this present way of organising religious education according to the

741

students’ own religion which, according to them, best takes into account the interests of minorities and the majority, as well as facilitating the integration of Muslims into Finnish society (Lempinen, 2002, 106, 120). The Finnish curriculum combines liberal and confessional approaches to religious education, the former offering knowledge about religions but primarily aiming at the well-being of society, the latter supporting religious socialisation and students’ religious development. This requires teachers to mediate between the selfunderstanding of religions and the social aims of education prominent in the liberal democratic context. Thus, religious education becomes a meeting point of societal and religious viewpoints and a space for negotiating the possibility of committing to the common values of liberal democracies while still holding on to a particular religious tradition. According to Moran (2006), maintaining a fruitful tension between the nation state and religion can be seen as one of the most important roles of religious education. Religious education can also provide a context for evaluating politically and ideologically loaded topics, such as clashes between the ideals of religious traditions and modern liberal democracy (see Gearon, 2006). These perspectives seem to fit quite naturally into the Finnish curriculum for religious education that positions teachers as mediators in negotiations between religion and society. In this way, RE teachers play a significant role in mediating politics and religion (Skeie, 2006, 317). Recognising the teachers’ need to mediate the negotiations connected with the curriculum for religious education indicates a shift of focus from the role of the RE teacher simply as a transmitter of religious tradition towards more transformative aspects of teaching. Balancing between conserving and critical practices of teaching has been a widely debated subject among philosophers of education. Mark Mason (2000) has attempted to overcome this juxtaposition by representing teachers as socio-cultural critics and critical mediators of knowledge. He regards teaching as both a conserving practice reproducing socio-cultural arrangements and as a subversive practice making cultural practices accessible to students and helping them to see the socially constructed nature of their assumptions. In this way, the teachers should deepen the students’ understanding of the norms in which they are socialised (Mason, 2000). This kind of way of helping students make their own informed choices about socio-cultural practices has also become a common goal for religious education. However, in educational research concerning religion in schools, it is often assumed that teachers are “neutral agents of the state”, and discussions centre on students and religion with no attention paid to how teachers’ religious views affect their ways of implementing the curriculum (White, 2009). Furthermore, these kinds of transformative roles for teachers are not encouraged by market-oriented policy makers, who seem to prefer an uncritical celebration of different voices with no need to educate the students’ critical capacities (Niyozov & Pluim, 2009). However, according to Hargreaves (2003, 2), meeting the challenges of knowledge societies in a global community requires that “teaching and teachers will reach far beyond the technical tasks of producing acceptable test results, to pursuing teaching as a life shaping, world-shaping social mission again”. The increased permeability of schools have made it necessary to engage more intensively with groups outside of schooling and take their concerns into account, actively creating trust and respect by negotiating common values and principles with these groups (Hargreaves, 2000; Sachs, 2000). Thus, there is a need to consider teachers’ perspectives in order to keep in mind the complexity of the interactions integral to their profession and to fight against the deprofessionalisation of teaching (Niyozov, 2010, 36).

742

I. Rissanen / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 740e749

However, there is a lack of empirical research in which the negotiations and practices of social regulation intertwined in the curriculum for religious education would be recognised and the ways in which teachers mediate these negotiations and act as agents of the politics of religion analysed. Buchardt (2007) has presented a way of studying the connection of RE teachers’ practices to wider political debates and multiculturalism discourses by means of analysing the discursive practices of teachers. She, however, confines herself to considerations of the teachers’ role inside the classroom. Furthermore, even though there is an increase of studies concerning Islamic education, the perspective and role of its teachers remains a neglected area (Niyozov & Pluim, 2009). However, Heimbrock (2007) has observed Islamic education teachers in modern western contexts who are drawn to a process of reconstruction due to the necessity of negotiating between minority and majority cultures, heterogeneous Muslim communities, as well as western educational ideals and Islamic principles. Teachers of Islamic education teaching Muslim students in western contexts are also considered an interesting focus of this case study, which endeavours to understand the complexity and significance of the processes of negotiation that shape the religious education teachers’ profession. 2. Data and methods In the wider case study examining Finnish Islamic education, of which this paper is a part, three courses of Islamic education in Finnish comprehensive and upper secondary schools were observed. From these courses, 16 students were interviewed. The students participating in the observed courses were first- or second-generation immigrants from eight different countries, aged from 13 to 19. Previously, classroom observations have been analysed and reported with a focus on ways of developing the students’ religious identities (Rissanen, 2012a) as well as their willingness to encounter difference (Rissanen, 2012b). This paper, on the other hand, focuses mainly on interviews with the teachers (n ¼ 3) as well as on the curriculum, but occasionally refers to the results from these previous analyses in order to validate the interpretations from the teachers’ interviews. During the process of data collecting, the necessity of the teachers to carefully balance between different sources of influence as well as the multiplicity of their interactions became evident and raised an interest in the variety of negotiations integral to their profession. Due to the inductiveness of this study, the way of conceptualising the process of negotiation has been formed in the process of analysing the data. However, it has been affected by an understanding of teaching as a net of interactions and as a process of continuous, reflective decision making (Kansanen et al., 2000). In this study, negotiations are understood as interactive interpersonal processes as well as processes of balancing between different sets of values and ideals. Observing teachers as mediators in these negotiations refers to their interactions with members of the school community representing different interest groups as well as to their inner self-dialogic processes of making normative educational decisions according to criteria set by these groups, the written curriculum and themselves. All these interpersonal, pedagogical and ideological negotiations were found to be closely entwined and are regarded as reflections of wider societal negotiations. The main research question of this paper is: How do teachers mediate contested meanings and practices of Islam as well as values and ideals of liberal democracies as these are negotiated through the Finnish curriculum for religious education? The methodological design of this study draws from educational ethnography, which aims at a deeper understanding of cultural phenomena at schools and in classrooms (see Gordon,

Holland, & Lahelma, 2007). The study was conducted inductively with a continuous interplay between formulating the research questions, collecting data using unstructured methods, and qualitative content analysis. Many of the guiding principles of the study, such as paying attention to wider ideological processes that affect the micro-social details in the classroom, have been adopted from the tradition of critical ethnography (see Foley & Valenzuela, 2005). Qualitative case studies were considered a productive approach that would contribute to an understanding of particulars, and three teachers were selected for this study. The aim was not to seek out representativeness; rather, observation of the teachers provided an opportunity to learn from them. All three were experienced teachers, practising Muslims and were familiar both with Finnish educational values as well as with the diversity of Islamic traditions. Teacher 1 and Teacher 2 were male and immigrants, Teacher 3 a native Finnish woman who had converted to Islam many years earlier. They all taught at the same time in various schools and at various school levels in the metropolitan area of Helsinki, but only one course per teacher was observed by the researcher, which means that the data include observations in three different schools. Semi-structured interviews with the teachers were conducted after the observed courses. They lasted from one to 3 h, and dealt with three main themes: thoughts about the Finnish organisation model of religious education, thoughts about the aims and significance of religious education, and experiences of teaching Islam in Finnish schools. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. An important ethical concern of this study is to ensure the anonymity of teachers, and for this reason detailed information about them is not given. Teachers were informed of the purpose of the study, and informed consent was also provided for the schools, students and their parents. Only those students willing to participate and given parental permission were interviewed. In the analysis the various negotiations were identified from the interview data and sorted into main categories and subcategories, and their relation to the tensions within the curriculum was analysed. The categories of analysis are represented in a compact form in Table 1, and elaborated in the results section using examples from the data.

Table 1 Teachers’ ways of negotiating tensions within the Finnish curriculum for Islamic education. 1. Negotiating the tension between religious education as religious socialisation and religious education as socialisation to liberal democracy 1.1 Pursuing student’ personal development and citizenship through religious socialisation

2. Negotiating the tensions between traditions within Islam

1.2 Interpreting modern liberal values in an Islamic framework

2.2 Building trust between practitioners of different Islamic traditions

1.3 Balancing between normative and descriptive ways of teaching

2.1 Negotiating and promoting a common Islamic identity

3. Negotiating the tensions between Islam and other religious as well as cultural practices and groups 3.1 Representing tolerance and openness towards the other as Islamic values 3.2 Giving meanings to religious and cultural diversity by concentrating on commonalities 3.3 Balancing between the self-understanding of Islam and the self-understanding of other traditions 3.4 Increasing mutual understanding

I. Rissanen / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 740e749

3. Results 3.1. Negotiating the tension between religious education as religious socialisation and religious education as socialisation to liberal democracy Systems of ideas that are embedded in the practices of schools change over time, and place the child in different epistemological spaces (Popkewitz, 1997). These changes relate to practices of social regulation and it is important to analyse them critically. In Finland, the shift of aims from religious socialisation to the students’ personal development is ambiguous and reflects the process of negotiation between confessional and liberal forms of religious education. The aim of Finnish religious education is for students to gain a deeper understanding of their own religious tradition. However, the nature of religious education should not be different from other school subjects e the orientation should always be educational, not religious. According to a memo from the Finnish National Board of Education, experiential forms of learning and ways of familiarising students with forms of religious practice are needed, but all learning activities should be grounded on pedagogical reasons. In practice, ways of interpreting this instruction vary. This kind of curriculum compels teachers to balance between different orientations: the line that can be drawn between supporting the development of a deeper understanding of one’s own religion and religious socialisation is thin. The teachers of this study mediated this aspect of negotiation by emphasising students’ personal development as integral to the Islamic perspective, as demonstrated by Teacher 2: Teacher 2: ..In all religions there are values that should be told to the students. Because if there is nothing in their head, or there can be anything, and they’re growing up every day, every week, so..they won’t become full human beings. So the values are there, and children have to be reminded and told about them. Tolerance, respect towards other people[.] Not only your own subject Islam, but all these things.we believe that Islam is one religion among many others, and at the same time Muslims believe that Islam covers everything, the whole life.how you go to the shop, what you do there, how you act at home. everything. In this way, the holistic understanding of the Islamic way of life led to perceiving the aims of students’ personal development in the curriculum. Here the Finnish educational goals of developing responsible and well-adjusted citizens, and the Islamic goals of educating children to be responsible Muslims are not dissimilar. However, in some respects, this departs from liberal religious education, which aims to offer material for personal identity development in order to facilitate the students’ ability to choose their own values and beliefs (see, for example, Wardekker & Miedema, 2001). The teachers in this study, however, wanted to develop the students’ personal development and well-being through socialisation to Islamic values (Table 1). Muslims have felt under pressure to adopt the western values of equality and multiculturalism, and this has increased their distrust of liberals and increased Muslim assertiveness: the national values that Muslims are asked to accept in Europe can be seen as local versions of the ideology of liberal democracy, the justification of which is debatable (Joppke, 2008; Modood, 2003). However, the teachers of this study sought to balance the impossibility of changing or reforming ideas of Islam and the need to take into account values which are prominent in modern western contexts. Furthermore, they negotiated between religious and societal orientation by invoking the curriculum, Finnish law and common educational ideals to justify their teaching practices:

743

Teacher 3: This has been mentioned in the curriculum this. strengthening of an Islamic identity, and it is clear that.I don’t, we don’t educate believers here, as you know, not to religiosity but it’s the same as. if there is a black child, so if you are smart you begin to support his/her identity in this white society right from the start so that he/she feels it is totally ok (to be black). Teacher 1, who has quite a normative way of teaching, tells why he regards it as his most important task to “give students what they need” in religious education, meaning a sufficient understanding of their own religion: Because it is the right of the student according to Finnish law, to be taught about his own religion. That’s why this is important. Municipalities give this opportunity, and that’s why I think it’s important, according to the law, that he knows his own culture, and what his parents believe in. While supporting the development of the students’ religious identity, the teachers also considered it important to support their identities as Finnish citizens. In the Finnish core curriculum for religions the societal orientation is expressed in the aims of understanding religion as a cultural and societal phenomenon, being able to act in an ethically responsible way, and encountering difference in the surrounding society. Nevertheless, in the case of minority religions in a diasporic situation, such religions have greater difficulties in transmitting their tradition. Here the way of concentrating on the cultural and societal significance of religion does not help students to gain a deep understanding of their tradition. However, in a similar manner to the ways of balancing between the aims of religious socialisation and students’ personal development, teachers in this study balanced between the aims of developing citizenship and developing religious identity by supporting citizenship through supporting religious identities. They all referred to the idea that in itself the fact that there are curricula for different religions ideally creates an understanding that national identity is not dependent on a certain religion. The fact that society guards religious rights by offering religious education was considered to contribute significantly to students’ identity development and provided a way of supporting their commitment to Finnish society as well as encouraging them to participate in it as Muslims. This is how Teacher 1 reflected on the matter: Teacher 1: So this student who is in Finland and is a Muslim. and the Finnish law gives him/her the opportunity to get to know his/her own religion.. Because maybe this student was born here in Finland, has not seen Somalia or Saudi-Arabia, so the purpose is to support his/her identity, so that the student knows what Muslims believe in, and at the same he/she knows it is possible to be a Finn and a Muslim. So these things have to be connected in religious education. There are Lutherans, Greek Catholics, Baha’is and Muslims, but they all.this concept of being Finnish, this concept has to be like. they all can fit under it. So in this way religious education can strengthen one’s identity. [.] So because the school is a place in society, and there the student learns his/her own religion, talks about Allah and Muhammad, so there it is possible to.to be proud. So I am a Finn and I can learn about my religion. So in this sense I think religious education can support integration into Finnish society. Even though Islamic education is sometimes seen as a means either to turn Muslims into citizens or to help immigrants to maintain their cultures of origin (AlSayyad, 2002), teachers in this study seemed to regard these aspects as reciprocal and equally important. In general, in the interviews as well as during the observed lessons, the teachers emphasised the congruence of Islamic values and the values prominent in Finnish society. However, even though

744

I. Rissanen / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 740e749

not acknowledging the need for any intensive value negotiations, in the lessons the teachers seemed to constantly negotiate modern liberal values by interpreting them within an Islamic framework (Rissanen, 2012a,b, Table 1). For example, unlike presenting tolerance as a liberal democratic value grounded on relativistic standing points of liberal Protestantism, which is often the case in liberal religious education (see Barnes, 2007), it was presented as an Islamic virtue, based on principles according to which there is no coercion in religion and God has created all humans as equals. In a similar manner, autonomy as an ability to make an informed decision whether to submit to the authority of religious tradition was highlighted, but not paired with individualism or interpreted as a freedom to build one’s own religious identity by drawing from different religious and spiritual sources. All the teachers strongly emphasised those Islamic virtues that can be perceived as compatible with modern liberal values, such as honesty, reliability, fairness, peacefulness, respect and tolerance. Thus, the willingness to support the development of a deeper understanding of Islam in a manner appropriate for school religious education drew the teachers towards pedagogical negotiations that were closely entwined with ideological negotiations concerning the way of representing Islam appropriately in a liberal educational context. Teachers regarded acquiring knowledge as the most important purpose of religious education: however, the primary source of knowledge in Islam is revelation, which is very normative in nature. This led the teachers to constantly balance between descriptive and normative ways of teaching (Table 1), something that was observed in the lessons and also became evident in the interviews. In particular, they balanced between normative and descriptive ways of speaking and often referred to the outlook of “Muslims” and “Islam” instead of representing the doctrines as the truth. Teacher 3 regarded this as one of the most difficult aspects of teaching: Teacher 3: For example, when the name of the Prophet is spoken, you should explain what to say after it (referring to the Islamic convention of saying “Peace be upon Him” after speeking the name of the Prophet Muhammad), because this is what Islam teaches, but.Of course, you should teach then that “according to Islam” you should say this, and if this (“according to Islam”) has to be repeated in every sentence, then it’s very difficult.But as I always tell my students, if I sometimes say this or that, that you should do a certain thing, it means that according to Islam, a person should do this because of God. For example, certain things that are obligatory, I always say that they’re only between man and God, of course. And then I also remind them to take into account what their parents have taught them and so on. This teacher considered a distancing and descriptive way of speaking to be challenging and unhelpful in understanding “religious language”, which is normative in nature. In the lessons all the teachers encouraged students to participate in religious discourse and adopt the perspectives of an insider to Islamic tradition (Rissanen, 2012a), which could be considered inappropriate for liberal education in a societal setting. However, taking part in religious discourse can be seen as an inevitable step when acquiring a deeper understanding of religion, and it does not have to lead to the downplaying of independent deliberation (Felderhof, 2000, 48e49). In general, the teachers wanted to utilise modern didactic and pedagogical know-how in teaching Islam. However, Teacher 2 brought up perception of the teacher’s authority as an aspect of negotiation: preserving a self-understanding of Islam requires that students respect the teacher’s authority, which is not always the case in Finnish schools. In traditional Islamic pedagogy, there is an ideal of acceptance of authoritative knowledge and the passivity of the student, and the traditionalist have sometimes

considered western secular education as anti-Islamic, promoting immorality or Christian ideals (Talbani, 1996, 70e71). However, Teacher 2 emphasised that even though it is not appropriate to think of reforming Islam, the “ways of delivering the message” should be reconsidered by taking into account the context. He endeavoured to demonstrate the congruence of pedagogical reasoning and Islamic thought: Teacher 2: Where we come from there is still corporal punishment. But we are in this country, we do sometimes yell at the students, it’s like.what we can do.but we don’t hit them. No no no, not here in Finland anymore. And we play, yes, in the classroom we play. Yesterday in one school we played football, all together. So, let’s do something together.you should know as a teacher that the purpose is to encourage the student. It has to stay clear that my subject is Islam, and all this playing is part of it. Prophet Muhammad, one time when he was praying. and his daughter Fatima. was she four years old?. and Fatima’s toy was broken, she couldn’t play with it. So he interrupts the prayer, the toy has to be fixed for his daughter. So this is how it goes, everything should not be taken so seriously. Yes, religion is a serious matter, it’s there, you can’t change it, but. you have to get along with people, especially the young ones. However, despite the teachers’ emphasis on students’ active participation in the lessons, their ways of controlling the discussions, teaching normatively about Islamic doctrines and valuing “official” Islamic viewpoints over the students’ own views departs from the ideals of liberal education, in which the students’ right to construct and present their own worldviews is emphasised in a more relativistic way. Thus, in some respects, the teachers had superficially acquired modern teaching methods based on liberal educational ideals, but had to balance these with the requirements set by a different understanding of knowledge and truth in Islamic thought. All these balancing acts between different educational orientations and teaching methods reflect the tension between confessional and liberal orientations of religious education in the Finnish curriculum. This curriculum can be examined as a process of negotiation between different interest groups (see Hökkä et al., 2010). It has been affected by religious groups, whose ideals emphasise the students’ right to learn their own religion and belong to a religious community. The curriculum has also been affected by the advocates of contemporary liberal democracies, whose educational ideals are based on an understanding of the student as an autonomous individual able to build his/her own worldview if granted religious freedom. This kind of curriculum compels teachers to mediate negotiations between these groups and balance between authoritative religious discourse based on a realist worldview and liberal educational discourse emphasising individuality and based on more relativistic standpoints. Through ideological negotiation in which Islamic tradition was interpreted in a way that enables one to understand it as compatible with liberal citizenship and individuality, the teachers in this study endeavoured to ease these tensions. These negotiations also shed some light on the academic discussion concerning the compatibility of modern western and Islamic educational principles. There are voices which emphasise their commonalities, but the teachers’ intensive pedagogical negotiations in this study confirm the need to also discuss the tensions. The central challenge seems to be in finding a way to respect and understand authoritative religious discourses while committing oneself to western educational orientations affected by constructivism, which emphasises autonomy and criticalness. The teachers in this study clearly departed from the educational

I. Rissanen / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 740e749

practices of faith communities by excluding religious praxis from the school subject, but their educational orientations still differ from the ideals of modern liberal religious education, in which the focus has shifted towards the development of an individual spirituality without socialising the students to any tradition (Nipkow, 2006, 578). However, this latter kind of education has been accused of actually socialising students to another ideology e that of post-modern relativism (Wright, 2004). Overall, educational orientations always stand on a certain ideological ground, which might consist of the values of a religious tradition or of liberal and post-modernist ideals of western multicultural societies. This means that pedagogical negotiations between different educational orientations are always connected to profound ideological negotiations. If the impossibility of educational neutrality and objectivity is acknowledged, it is clear that teaching is always both descriptive and normative, and students could be helped to understand this distinction: the ability to do precisely this has been studied with positive results (Fancourt, 2007, 64; Skeie, 2006, 309). However, respecting the right of different frames of thought to coexist in education, in the spirit of multiculturalism, requires that teachers should be able to negotiate and critically reflect on these ideological influences which affect their work. 3.2. Negotiating the tensions between traditions within Islam The Finnish curriculum seemed to encourage the teachers of Islamic education to negotiate not only the tensions between different educational orientations, but also intra- and inter-religious tensions on both the ideological and interpersonal levels. In the negotiations concerning the compatibility of Islam and western liberal values, the diversity of Muslims is often left unnoticed, even though Muslims have brought their internal conflicts to western societies (Niyozov & Pluim, 2009). Teaching “general Islam” to Muslim students who belong to different Islamic subgroups and represent a diversity of cultural backgrounds creates tensions and compels Finnish Islamic education teachers to mediate between different ideological underpinnings in Islamic thought. All teachers in this study had a conception of “true Islam” and their teaching motivation was grounded on the idea of preventing deviations from these general principles from being commonly accepted. Even though the teachers considered teaching “general Islam” unproblematic, they had to balance between presenting the existing differences as belonging to the scope of acceptable Islamic diversity or declaring them as unIslamic in order to emphasise the universal nature of Islam without declaring the identities of some of the students as inappropriate In these intrareligious negotiations the category of culture was used to both condemn and legitimise the differences. In both cases, the purpose seemed to be to strengthen the ideal of commonality of Muslims. For example, a significant ideological negotiation related to defining the limits of “true Islam” by declaring some practices as cultural, not Islamic: Teacher 1: This is important, the teacher can straightforwardly explain that you’re an Afghan. If things are done like this in Afghanistan, this is not religion. The Qur’an does not tell this. This has to be told frankly. However, all the teachers sometimes emphasised the harmlessness of differences between Muslims by emphasising their cultural nature, which meant they were not regarded as threats to Islamic unity. Teacher 2 reflected on his way of teaching about differences in the following way: Teacher 2: In an open manner, discussing things. Like hey, listen, Muslims pray in different ways, and those who do like this are ok, those who do like this are ok, and those who have to find

745

some stones before praying, and others who pray with shoes on, are ok. So, we have (lists countries and areas) in which people pray with shoes on, but in these other places they don’t. However, even though the teachers in this study made some effort to supporting the students’ ethnic identities by letting them, for example, talk about the Islamic conventions of their countries of origin, these practices were always strictly controlled and all that was at risk of being in conflict with what was presented as “true Islam”, was banned from the conversations. In this way, the teachers served as agents of politics of religion by promoting a common Islamic identity based on common faith and by emphasising the secondary nature of cultural identities (Table 1). This reflects the way in which groups involved in political life sometimes act as if there are stable and agreed identities, despite the actual diversity and fluidity of existing identities (AlSayyad, 2002). However, denying the possibility of analysing internal conflicts and controversial subjects in Muslim communities might lead to blame being put on non-Muslims, because these debates are constantly going on in other more dubious forums (Niyozov & Pluim, 2009). These ideological negotiations related to building a common identity served as a ground for negotiating the tensions inside Islamic tradition also on an interpersonal level. Since religious education is often the site of political power struggles and sometimes the political decisions concerning religious education evoke uneasiness among parents as well as religious groups in general, the ability of RE teachers to engage in dialogue and build trust by negotiating common values, principles and responsibilities becomes a significant dimension of their professionalism (Haakedal, 2007; Hargreaves, 2000; Sachs, 2000). The number of controversial issues related to understanding Islam further compels the teachers of Islamic education in western contexts to be in touch with the parents of students and to mediate intrareligious negotiations (Heimbrock, 2007). In Finland, this need is great because of the controversial issues related to creating a curriculum for teaching “general Islam”. The data of this study included various examples of the teachers’ endeavours to build trust between Muslims, presenting the diversity of Islamic perspectives and different cultural backgrounds (Table 1). All teachers reported having witnessed some kind of conflicts between Shia and Sunni students. Dealing with this subject was considered especially challenging by Teacher 2: Teacher 2: I think this is the most difficult part of our job. How can we fit into Finnish society - that canbe nicely solved, but then, how can we. (Laughter) do this among ourselves.that’s the toughest part. This is such a sensitive subject, very very sensitive, when the question is about Shias and Sunnis. This blood feud still is in people’s minds. The teachers in this study mediated these kinds of negotiations by calming down the students, talking about the variety of Islamic viewpoints and simply forbidding the students to intervene in each other’s affairs. Teacher 3 considered that her role as negotiator required a sufficient knowledge of the diversity of Islam. She mentioned the significance of the teacher’s own reputation: being known in various Mosque communities facilitates the possibility of being trusted by different Muslim parents as a religious educator of their children. All the teachers considered the situation was now better than it was before: the students come to the lessons, agree to sit next to each other and the number of conflicts has decreased. The teachers preferred a common education for all Muslims precisely because it facilitates their peaceful coexistence in school and society. Teacher 2 reflected on the possibility of having separate religious education for Shias and Sunnis in the following way:

746

I. Rissanen / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 740e749

Teacher 2: I think at least in comprehensive schools, there shouldn’t be. we do fit in the sameclassrooms, the same schools, but there should be. these panel discussions with parents. at the university level, you experts. [.] It could help if we take an example: hey look, in this country the majority are Lutherans, but don’t you see there are two official churches? So.wake up, us too, you Sunni man, you Shia man. we do fit in the same mosques, the same schools, the same apartment blocks (laughs). By mediating the negotiations between different Muslim students and being in touch with their families, teachers felt they could promote peaceful coexistence among Muslims in Finnish society. Overall, the teachers endeavoured to help other teachers, students and their parents to understand and trust each other. Doing this successfully means, however, that they themselves have adopted and promote balanced viewpoints which result from the negotiation between different ideological influences within Islam and enable them to accommodate the tensions between practitioners of different Islamic traditions. Thus, interactive negotiations between different Muslims are tightly connected to the teachers’ inner negotiations and are mediated through the negotiation of ideological standpoints. This is also the case when dealing with inter-religious relations and tensions, which will be the subject of the next section. 3.3. Negotiating the tensions between Islam and other religious as well as cultural practices and groups In this study, Islamic education also appeared to be a space for negotiating the coexistence between Islam and other religious groups and value systems in Finnish society. The possibilities and conditions for the coexistence of different religions were negotiated in the classroom. During the lessons, the teachers were observed developing the students’ willingness to encounter religious difference mainly by teaching about tolerance and openness towards the other as Islamic values (Rissanen, 2012b, Table 1). Again, this related to ideological negotiation concerning “true Islam”: the teachers promoted the notion that respecting other religions was a condition for being a good Muslim. Furthermore, the coexistence of different religions was negotiated at an ideological level through the meanings given to other religions, which mostly related to negotiating similarities and differences from an Islamic perspective (Table 1). The teachers considered it important to emphasise the similarities between People of the Book e Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This was sometimes done so determinedly, that the differences which exist seemed to be ignored (Rissanen, 2012b). In the case of Teacher 2, this negotiation was almost doctrinal in nature. He considered it important to refer to the common history of these monotheistic religions in order to support the development of tolerant attitudes, as demonstrated by the following example: Teacher 2: My way of teaching is that Islam is a religion, but remember, it’s the youngest. It’s the youngest brother or sister of the.of the three, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Remember. So don’t go and talk fanatically or act fanatically, that is silly and that is stupid. So you can deal with whoever, as long as they leave you, they.they leave you in peace so you should leave them in peace. Jesus said the same thing, David said the same thing as well as the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon all of them. This way of teaching also relates to the negotiation between liberal educational aims and religious socialisation. Liberal religious

education is sometimes accused of misrepresenting religions by promoting a dialogue based on a liberal Protestant view that emphasises the ultimate similarity and equality of religions, which does not accord with how religions actually see themselves (Barnes, 2007). However, while emphasising the similarities of religions, the teachers of this study wanted to preserve the selfunderstanding of the Islamic tradition in their teaching. The Finnish curriculum, which presents an understanding of and a tolerance towards other religions as aims of religious education according to one’s own religion, compelled them to balance between an Islamic perspective and a self-understanding of other religions (Table 1). Teacher 3 reflects on this point: Because here in comprehensive school we should talk about other religions in exactly the way they see themselves, but that is extremely difficult. I think this is a big problem. In the Islamic education lessons I can tell how Islam sees other religions. but a clear difference should be made, and that really requires expertise. Thus, even though wanting to present a self-understanding of other religions, Teacher 3 also considered it important to teach about other religions from an Islamic perspective. However, the basic teachings of Islam leave room for different interpretations concerning the position of other religions (Waardenburg, 2007; 20), and the teachers seemed to mediate the negotiation between Islam and other religions by introducing the most tolerant interpretations and concentrating on commonalities. Mediating this negotiation through the meanings given to other religions, again, positions the teachers as agents of religious politics and also as theological agents contributing to the cultural evolution of their religion. By taking an authoritarian stance and representing Islam broadly as tolerant, the teachers endeavoured to promote peaceful coexistence between Muslims and other religious and cultural groups as well as among Muslims themselves. In the contemporary situation where religions feel the need to defend their authenticity and the right to hold on to their exclusivist truth claims (see Roy, 2010), the way the teachers in this study attempted to emphasise the positive role of religion from inside the tradition might be well justified. They did not abandon the selfunderstanding of religious tradition by promoting a dialogue that was based on relativistic presuppositions, which is often the risk in liberal inter-religious education (Barnes, 2007). Instead, they aimed at increasing the students’ willingness to encounter difference openly by emphasising that this kind of behaviour is in accordance with Islamic values. Furthermore, interfaith dialogue can be constructed in a way that does not require detachment from the selfunderstanding of religions but is based on a deep comprehension of one’s own tradition (Abdool, Potgeiter, van der Walt, & Wolhuteret al., 2007), and the teachers of this study seemed to aim at developing the students’ willingness to participate in this kind of dialogue. These processes of meaning giving and negotiations at an ideological and pedagogical level also guided the teachers’ processes of mediating interpersonal negotiations in the school. In some respects, the existence of a curriculum for religious education according to one’s own religion indicates that religious minority groups are recognised and their identities legitimised in Finnish schools. Following this logic, teachers of Islamic education can be seen as representing a legitimate Muslim identity in schools, which encourages them to mediate various negotiations between members of the school community. The teachers consulted other teachers in questions concerning Islam and Muslim students and regarded offering support for immigrant Muslim students by increasing mutual understanding as one of their most important tasks (Table 1). Especially Teacher 3 expressed her willingness to

I. Rissanen / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 740e749

increase understanding by explaining things both to students and to the school staff in matters related to cultural practices in the school, such as physical education, music and art classes, school catering as well as religious assemblies. Sometimes she felt the need to defend the students’ rights and help them to deal with conflicting pressures induced by their families and the school, if in the school community the terms of integration were misplaced. This is how she reflected on the matter: Teacher 3: Well, they (other teachers) come and ask for example about those. physical education classes, if I could tell the students about the clothing, that you can’t have your scarf attached with safety pins so that there will be no accidents and you have to change your clothes and shower, so let’s arrange it and how should we arrange it. (The teacher tells how the students told her they have to go to church to a concert and she helped them in settling this matter). there are a lot of substitute teachers and new teachers. so you should actually talk about these things weekly, sometimes even more often, there’s no way the headmaster can remind the teachers all the time about these things.. The students are already quite active themselves, but they’d rather seek my help, like “you tell them why we can’t”. And the teachers come and ask how it really is with swimming or something else, when someone does this and someone doesn’t, someone eats beef and someone doesn’t. Like these simple things, but also general matters related to order and discipline, they might ask me to talk with a certain student, if he/she would then listen. According to the teachers in this study, they sometimes serve as cultural interpreters between the immigrant Muslim families and the school personnel in practical matters, due to their ability to identify with both. Teachers considered it important simply to strengthen the parents’ trust in the school community. Teacher 3 told how parents have sometimes raised suspicions about Islamic education in school, but these have been dealt with by offering adequate information and, for example, by asking all parents to come to school and discuss the principles of religious education, possibly with the help of an interpreter. The results have proved to be worth the effort: Teacher 3: The parents were really upset, they wouldn’t even greet each other, but when they left there was no end of shaking of hands, after a couple of hours of associating.so it’s like. problems can change in a couple of hours, they disappear, and this has happened on several occasions. Altogether, all the teachers emphasised the importance of cooperation with parents and did not want to undermine parents’ authority with their children. In this way, an important but unofficial part of these teachers’ roles was to be a representative of minority religion at the school, and mediate the negotiations related to the position of Islam in Finnish schools and more widely in Finnish society. The teachers’ position of being at the same time a representative of Muslim identity and a school authority enables them to help other teachers in supporting immigrant students’ integration into the school community. A need to carefully monitor the school policies in order to prevent the development of new forms of social exclusion or even racism is often mentioned: from this perspective, the importance of having teachers who represent an ethnic minority in state schools is evident, and may be even more substantial in the case of Muslim teachers (Collet, 2007; Niyozov, 2010; Osler, 1994). Other teachers have often difficulties in acquiring relevant and adequate knowledge about Islam if they do not have any contacts with Muslim communities (Aown, 2011). Thus, one of the benefits of the Finnish curriculum for religious

747

education is that it promotes the representation of minority religions among the school staff. 4. Discussion When taken as a whole, these different negotiations which occurred in the context of Finnish Islamic education reflect the wider negotiations within Finnish society as well as within Islamic communities. There are struggles between different religious and cultural groups in the schools, but in addition to these, the schools have become stages of negotiation between multiculturalism and liberal secularism, the former stressing the support for particular cultural identities and the latter relying on the ideal of secular neutrality and unifying policies (Collet, 2007). On the academic and political level, negotiations concerning the possibility and prerequisites of universal ethics as well as peaceful coexistence in plural societies are ongoing. However, it is not possible to wait for a consensus to be achieved e practical decisions have to be made all the time. In some respects, the west waits for Muslims to accept the canons of the European Enlightenment, but it would be more useful to concentrate on creating arenas for negotiation on a practical level e educational institutions being among the most important ones (Moran, 2006). By mediating negotiations related to the coexistence of different cultural and religious practices the teachers in this study created in the school a space for “inter-civilisational dialogue”, which can be seen as an alternative to the predicted clash of civilisations (Tibi, 2002). In this kind of dialogue, the changing of both parties has to be considered possible. Acknowledging the legitimacy of both the Finnish curriculum for religious education and Islamic tradition led the teachers in this study into profound ideological negotiations: they served as agents of change by interpreting Islamic tradition, other religions and modern liberal values prominent in Finnish society in a way that facilitates their coexistence. They promoted the possibility of a commitment to the common values of liberal democracies while still holding on to a particular religious tradition. Thus, on the grassroots level, the teachers contributed to the emergence of the kind of Islam that is compatible with and viable in a context of Finnish multiculturalism. The teachers’ physical presence in the school and ways of mediating the voices of young people, other teachers and parents there enabled them to promote multicultural dialogue in everyday settings. Some Muslims reject secular society due to the Islamic ideal of the inseparability of religion and state, but there are also those who wish to construct a liberal form of Islam that is compatible with European ideas of citizenship and seek the political integration of Muslims with the help of “enlightened Islamic education” (AlSayyad, 2002; Tibi, 2002). The Finnish curriculum for religious education which balances between the selfunderstanding of religious traditions and state-promoted values seems to offer a setting for creating this latter kind of religiosity. The curriculum encourages teachers to promote an understanding of Islam that is compatible with Finnish educational orientations and modern liberal values. The teachers of this study wanted to honour Islam as based on the authority of revelation, but took an authoritarian stance and represented Islam in a way that helps to ease the tensions within Islam as well as between Islam and western culture. Thus, offering this kind of Islamic education can be seen as an act of controlling Islam and Muslims, which seems to be a clear form of social regulation, which is built in to the Finnish curriculum. In this way, curriculum development can include processes of changing not only individuals but also communities and traditions (see Popkewitz, 2009).

748

I. Rissanen / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 740e749

The Finnish curriculum for religious education creates a space for essentially transformative education: there is no status quo to be transmitted, it has to be created. This kind of educational ethos is a potential development trend for educating citizenship in postmodern multicultural societies, but it requires careful considerations concerning teacher professionality. In this study, the ability to mediate negotiations between different groups of people as well as between different educational and ideological influences was observed to be at the core of the professional roles of the teachers. Their practices accorded with Mason’s understanding of teaching as both a reproducing and a subversive action as well as Skeie’s notion of religious education teachers as agents of religious politics (Mason, 2000; Skeie, 2006). On a more general level, the observations of this study indicate the problems in narrowing down the teachers’ professional roles to efficiently producing learning outcomes and acceptable test results. In multicultural contexts, all teachers are compelled to interact between different cultural and religious groups. Not only religious education teachers but all teachers in multicultural and multireligious schools have to negotiate the diversity of ideological influences that also affect educational orientations and values, the neutrality of which is no longer tenable. Pedagogical negotiations are always entwined with ideological negotiations, as demonstrated in this study by the teachers’ ways of interpreting and representing tradition when the Finnish curriculum compelled them to balance between Islamic and liberal educational ideals that are grounded on different “standards of truth” (Popkekewitz, 1997). Hence, in contemporary multicultural societies, the willingness and ability to negotiate should be a central professional skill of all teachers and especially teachers of religious education, who have to navigate between the spectrum of religious and cultural influences as well as the ideals of citizenship and different educational orientations. The ability to reflect on the ideological underpinnings of educational orientations, the contents of teaching as well as one’s own perspectives is at the core of teachers’ competence and is a necessary perquisite for mediating the negotiations integral to the curriculum. Thus, this kind of capacity for ideological reflection and self-reflection should be a central aim of teacher education together with the willingness to interact with different cultural groups affecting schooling. References Abdool, A., Potgieter, F., van der Walt, J. L., & Wolhuter, C. (2007). Inter-religious dialogue in schools: a pedagogical and civic unavoidability. HTS Teologiese/ Theological Studies, 63(2), 543e560. Aown, N. (2011). A place for informal learning in teaching about religion: the story of an experienced non-muslim teacher and her learning about Islam. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 1255e1264. AlSayyad, N. (2002). Muslim Europe or Euro-Islam: on the discourses of identity and culture. In N. AlSayyad, & M.Castells. (Eds.), Muslim Europe or Euro-Islam (pp. 9e29). Lanham: Lexington Books. Bakker, C., & Heimbrock, H. (2007). Religion education teachers: reflective practitioners and researchers. In C. Bakker, & H. Heimbrock (Eds.), Researching RE teachers. RE teachers as researchers (pp. 7e14). Münster: Waxmann. Barnes, P. (2007). Developing a new post-liberal paradigm for British religious education. Journal of Beliefs and Values, 28(1), 17e32. Buchardt, M. (2007). Teachers e and knowledge and identity technologies around “religion”. Discursive and other social practices in the religious education classroom. In C. Bakker, & H. Heimbrock (Eds.), Researching RE teachers, RE teachers as researchers (pp. 17e36). Münster: Waxmann. Buijs, F., & Rath, J. (2002). Muslims in Europe: The state of research. New York City, USA: Essay prepared for the Russell Sage Foundation. Collet, B. A. (2007). Islam, national identity and public secondary education: perspectives from the Somali diaspora in Toronto, Canada. Race Ethnicity and Education, 10(2), 131e153. Fancourt, N. (2007). The “dialogical teacher”: should teachers express their commitments in the classroom? In C. Bakker, & H. Heimbrock (Eds.), Researching RE teachers, RE teachers as researchers (pp. 17e36) Münster: Waxmann.

Felderhof, M. C. (2000). Religious education, indoctrination and freedom. In N. G. Holm (Ed.), Islam and Christianity in school religious education. Turku: Åbo Akademis tryckeri. Finnish National Board of Education. (2004). National core curriculum for basic education. Helsinki: Author. Finnish National Board of Education. (2006a). Framework for comprehensive curriculum for other religions. Helsinki: Author. Finnish National Board of Education. (2006b). Framework for upper secondary curriculum for other religions. Helsinki: Author. Foley, D., & Valenzuela, A. (2005). Critical ethnography: the politics of collaboration. In N. K. Denzin, & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (pp. 217e234). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Gearon, L. (2006). Human rights and religious education: some postcolonial perspectives. In M. de Souza, G. Durka, K. Engebretson, R. Jackson, & A. McGrady (Eds.), International handbook of the religious, moral and spiritual dimensions in education (pp. 375e385). Dordrecht: Springer. Gordon, T., Holland, J., & Lahelma, E. (2007). Ethnographic research in educational settings. In P. Atkinson, A. Coffey, S. Delamont, J. Lofland, & L. Lofland (Eds.), Handbook of ethnography (pp. 188e203). London: Sage. Haakedal, E. (2007). Situated practice among religious education teachers. A discussion of school rituals, cultural contexts and professional ethics. In C. Bakker, & H. Heimbrock (Eds.), Researching RE teachers, RE teachers as researchers (pp. 37e52). Münster: Waxmann. Hargreaves, A. (2000). Four ages of professionalism and professional learning. Teachers & Teaching: Theory and Practice, 6(2), 151e182. Hargreaves, A. (2003). Teaching in the knowledge society: Education in the age of insecurity. Buckingham: Open University. Heimbrock, H. (2007). Self-taught professionality. Muslim teachers engaged in teaching Islamic issues between curriculum and lifeworld in German public schools. In C. Bakker, & H. Heimbrock (Eds.), Researching RE teachers, RE teachers as researchers (pp. 175e192). Münster: Waxmann. Hull, J. M. (2006). Religion, violence and religious education. In M. de Souza, G. Durka, K. Engebretson, R. Jackson, & A. McGrady (Eds.), International handbook of the religious, moral and spiritual dimensions in education (pp. 591e605). Dordrecht: Springer. Hökkä, P., Eteläpelto, A., & Rasku-Puttonen, H. (2010). Recent tensions and challenges in teacher education as manifested in curriculum discourse. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, 845e853. Jensen, T. (2010). Context, focus and new perspectives in the study of Muslim religiosity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34(7), 1152e1167. Joppke, C. (2008). Immigration and the identity of citizenship: the paradox of universalism. Citizenship Studies, 12(6), 533e546. Kansanen, P., Tirri, K., Jyrhämä, R., Husu, J., Meri, M., & Krokfors, L. (2000). Teachers’ pedagogical thinking: Theoretical landscapes, practical challenges. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Lempinen, H. (2002). “Pitäis olla taikuri”: Islamin opettajien käsitykset islamin uskonnon opetuksesta peruskoulussa. [“One should be a magician”. The views of teachers of Islam on the education of Islam in comprehensive school] (Unpublished Master’s thesis). Helsinki: University of Helsinki. Martikainen, T. (2009). Finland. In J. S. Nielsen, S. Akgönül, A. Alibasíc, B. Maréchal, & C. Moe (Eds.), Yearbook of Muslims in Europe (pp. 117e126). Leiden: Brill. Mason, M. (2000). Teachers as critical mediators of knowledge. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 34(2), 343e352. Modood, T. (2003). Muslims and the politics of difference. The Political Quarterly, 74(1), 100e115. Moran, G. (2006). Religious education and the nation state. In M. de Souza, G. Durka, K. Engerbretson, R. Jackson, & A. McGrady (Eds.), International handbook of the religious, moral and spiritual dimensions in education (pp. 41e50). Dordrecht: Springer. Nipkow, K. E. (2006). Religious education in Europe: comparative approach, institutions, theories, research. In M. de Souza, G. Durka, K. Engebretson, R. Jackson, & A. McGrady (Eds.), International handbook of the religious, moral and spiritual dimensions in education (pp. 577e605). Dordrecht: Springer. Niyozov, S., & Pluim, G. (2009). Teachers’ perspectives on the education of Muslim students: a missing voice in Muslim education research. Curriculum Inquiry, 39(5), 637e677. Niyozov, S. (2010). Teachers and teaching Islam and Muslims in pluralistic societies: claims, misunderstandings, and responses. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 11(1), 23e40. Osler, A. (1994). Education for democracy and equality: the experiences, values and attitudes of ethnic minority student teachers. Intercultural Education, 5(1), 23e37. Popkewitz, T. (1997). The production of reason and power: curriculum history and intellectual traditions. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 29(2), 131e164. Popkewitz, T. (2009). Curriculum study, curriculum history and curriculum theory: the reason of reason. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 41(3), 301e319. Rissanen, I. Developing religious identities of Muslim Students in the classroom: A case study from Finland. British Journal of Religious Education, in press. Rissanen, I. Developing the students’ willingness to encounter difference: Teachers’ practices in Islamic education. In T. van der Zee & T. Lovat (Eds.), New Perspectives on Religious and Spiritual Education. Munster: Waxmann Publishers, in press. Roy, O. (2010). Holy ignorance: When religion and culture part ways. London: Hurst & Company. Sachs, J. (2000). The activist professional. Journal of Educational Change, 1(1), 77e95.

I. Rissanen / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 740e749 Sakaranaho, T. (2006). Religious freedom, multiculturalism, Islam: Cross-reading Finland and Ireland. Leiden: Brill. Skeie, G. (2006). Plurality and pluralism in religious education. In M. de Souza, G. Durka, K. Engebretson, R. Jackson, & A. McGrady (Eds.), International handbook of the religious, moral and spiritual dimensions in education (pp. 308e319). Dordrecht: Springer. Talbani, A. (1996). Pedagogy, power, and discourse: transformation of Islamic education. Comparative Education Review, 40(1), 66e82. Tibi, B. (2002). Muslim migrants in Europe: between Euro-Islam and Ghettoization. In N. AlSayyad, & M.Castells. (Eds.), Muslim Europe or Euro-Islam (pp. 31e52). Lanham: Lexington Books.

749

Uskonnonvapauslaki. (2003). [The freedom of religion act 2003] 453/2003. Finnish Parliament. Waardenburg, J. (2007). Islam in a world of diverse faiths e a historian’s view. In P. Schmidt-Leukel, & L. Ridgeon (Eds.), Islam and inter-faith relations (pp. 17e32). London: SCM Press. Wardekker, W., & Miedema, S. (2001). Identity, cultural change and religious education. British Journal of Religious Education, 23(2), 76e87. White, K. (2009). Connecting religion and teacher identity: the unexplored relationship between teachers and religion in public schools. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25, 857e866. Wright, A. (2004). Religion, education, and post-modernity. London: Routledge Falmer.