Educating Muslims in an East African US charter high school

Letitia Basford, Sarah Hick, & Martha Bigelow
University of Minnesota, USA

Abstract
This article presents a case study of a U.S. charter high school that was created by an East African community seeking a learning environment for immigrant adolescents committed to an Islamic lifestyle. It describes how such schools are a reaction to concerns from Muslim immigrant parents and community leaders that youth are experiencing rapid assimilation at school and are replacing their ethnic and religious identity with an other-imposed racialized identity. Through an analysis of teacher interviews, this article explores how the school accommodates Muslim immigrant youth while tenuously adhering to the Establishment Clause of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibiting government sponsored religion. It also uncovers some of the challenges presented by having a teaching staff with a range of teaching philosophies, background experiences and cultures. This study reveals the problematic differences between the cultural and educational norms and expectations of the white teachers and the East African leadership.


The full report can be downloaded from the National Center for the Study of the Privatization of Education. (Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.)