Teaching about Islam in South West England: Nurturing Dialogue in The Age of Terrorism'

This study focuses on two aspects of teaching about Islam in Secondary schools in South West England: teaching about Islam post 9/11, and teaching Religious Education (RE) in an area with a small minority ethnic population. The aim of the study was to gather Religious Education teachers' recollections of, and reflections on, their experience, and to construct from these, a better understanding of what is happening in RE classes that concentrate on Islam. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 teachers from Secondary schools. They were digitally recorded and then transcribed. This data was then categorised using the N6 software package for qualitative data. The analysis followed a grounded theory approach whereby emergent themes formed the basis for discussion and hypothesis. Five broad themes were closely examined. The key findings were that: Pupils had a mixed response to learning about Islam. Teaching about Islam in a region with a small minority ethnic population raised a number of key issues such as the need to deal with misconceptions and handle debate carefully. A positive school ethos and a whole school approach to discipline and maintaining values underpinned classroom practice. Both long and short term strategies, such as creating a safe environment and using discussion as a learning tool, were necessary to enhance teaching about Islam. Finally it was recommended that initial teacher training should address the impact of the ethnic make-up of different regions on the teaching of Islam, and that the use of dialogue should be at the heart of the training programme.Faculty of Educatio