Islamitisch basisonderwijs in Nederland
Abstract
Al sinds de oprichting in 1988 is het islamitisch basisonderwijs in Nederland een bron van discussie. De ontwikkeling ervan heeft de afgelopen dertig jaar niet stilgestaan en geeft aanleiding tot nieuwe inzichten. Toch worden in de discussie al jarenlang dezelfde argumenten gebruikt.
Hoe geven de verschillende islamitische basisscholen vandaag de dag vorm aan hun identiteit? En hoe wegen zij de verschillende maatschappelijke
debatten over de islam daarin af?
Dit boek laat – met een focus op de identiteitsvorming – de leerkrachten en directieleden zelf aan het woord en probeert de verschillen in waarden, normen en gewoonten van binnenuit te duiden.
Islamitische basisscholen blijken steeds meer aandacht te hebben voor de maatschappelijke context. Ook wordt inzichtelijk dat islamitische basisscholen zich van andere basisscholen onderscheiden vanwege hun interne diversiteit en de continue dialoog met die maatschappelijke context.
Dit boek is een pleidooi voor genuanceerder denken over en handelen rond het islamitisch basisonderwijs in Nederland.
... Research has been conducted about Islamic schools in relation to integration (Budak 2021;Beemsterboer 2018), but how Islamic schools address citizenship in their classrooms has not yet been addressed. We argue that the only viable way to explore this is through ethnographic classroom research. ...
... Confessional schools are monitored and audited by the educational authorities using the same criteria as for public schools. As to the design and content of education, Islamic schools are not subject to any religious precept by religious authorities; there are religious lessons and there is only limited scope for greater emphasis on an "Islamic interpretation" in the curriculum (Shadid and Van Koningsveld 1992;Teunissen 1990;Driessen and Bezemer 1999;Beemsterboer 2018). ...
... The challenge for Islamic schools is to come to terms with these conditions and prerequisites. Not very surprisingly, Islamic school boards comply with these conditions, just as any other school board would (see Beemsterboer 2018). However, the question of how this translates into educational programs can only be answered by looking at concrete classroom settings. ...
... Coming back to the aforementioned critical concerns about IRE, these appear to be largely unfounded by previous empirical studies on the aims and outcomes of Islamic education in The Netherlands: Dutch Islamic schools generally foster social integration and participation with a growing emphasis on the societal context (Merry and Driessen 2016;Dronkers 2016;Beemsterboer 2018Beemsterboer , 2019Driessen 2021). Historical developments also show that Islamic school identities are not dogmatically fixed, but multiple, fluid, and evolving (Budak 2021). ...
... Almost all previous studies in The Netherlands have mainly focused on Islamic schools as a whole (Beemsterboer 2018;Budak 2021;Driessen 2021), and not specifically on the subject of IRE. The only exception is a dated study which is more theoretical than empirical (Karagül 1994). ...
... Our final sample consisted of fifteen participants, all with a Muslim background. The participants had different ethnic backgrounds and genders and represented a variety of Islamic schools labelled in previous research as having an 'open', 'pragmatic', or 'closed' school identity (Beemsterboer 2018). This gave us confidence that our sample was a good representation of the entire field of Islamic primary education in The Netherlands. ...
This article discusses how practitioners of Islamic Religious Education (IRE) in Dutch primary schools look at the relationship between IRE and citizenship education (CE). To what extent do they believe it is possible and desirable for IRE to contribute to CE? What would an integration of IRE and CE look like, and where do they see potential tensions between IRE and CE? In two extensive focus group discussions, with identity coordinators and experienced IRE teachers, the relationships between IRE and four citizenship dimensions, namely, identity, legal status, participation, and rights, were discussed. Qualitative content analysis of these discussions reveals that the integration of IRE with CE is desirable and possible, but in varying degrees based on the level of different citizenship dimensions. The extent of integration of IRE and CE also depends on the interpretations of Islamic key concepts. IRE and CE were also found to face similar challenges in seeking to achieve integration: both struggle with exclusive interpretations of Islam and citizenship.
... The law respects " . . . the freedom of confessional/denominational schools to choose their own teaching aids and to appoint teachers as they see fit, according to the freedom of education in The Netherlands (Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties [Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations] 2022). This fundamental right gives every faith community the right to establish a school based on its religious convictions and to teach its beliefs (Beemsterboer 2018;Onderwijsraad [Education Council] 2020). ...
The Netherlands is known for its progressive attitude towards dealing with sexuality. Sex education has a permanent place in the educational system. Dutch legislation provides schools with the opportunity to teach the subject in their own way, in line with the school’s ethos/identity. In this article I answer the question: What are the views and attitudes of RE teachers regarding sexuality in the teaching practice of Islamic primary schools? Qualitative research among six teachers of religious education (RE), a school principal, and a counsellor of religion at the Islamic school foundation SIMON, shows that respondents experience a gap between Islamic principles regarding sexuality and views common in Dutch society. Topics that lead to discussion include talking openly about sex, sexual diversity and the use of photos and images. The question emerges what role shame plays in Islamic sex education. One experiences a paradox as to the call to shame that emanates from religious sources, which seems to contradict the openness found in the same sources. Islamic sex education at SIMON schools seems to prefer open, informative, and modest communication about (almost) all subjects related to sexuality. Islamic views and an attitude of respect are encouraged with positive and loving terminology.
... When her book was published, the conflicting aspects were widely covered by the national media (Haaft 2006). Most board members have a different way of operating than Brinkman's example, and most non-Muslim teachers are open to participating in the development of identity of the school (Beemsterboer 2018;Budak 2021). ...
In 2021, more than one million Muslims lived in the Netherlands, corresponding to approximately 5% of the total population. From the start of the first Islamic schools in the Netherlands in 1988, Islamic schools employed mostly non-Muslim teachers. How the identity of an Islamic school should be put into practice in the plural Dutch context is a regularly recurring topic of discussion. Many researchers and board members assume that the ideal identity of the Islamic school cannot be formed with non-Muslim teachers. They suppose that the ideal identity can only be shaped with Muslim staff. This article describes, on the basis of qualitative research among three non-Muslim teachers, how they can contribute to the development of the ideal identity of Islamic primary schools. This research shows that the contribution that non-Muslim teachers make to the ideal identity of the Islamic school can be very important. The presence of the non-Muslim teacher gives the pupils the opportunity to learn about religious diversity. The school becomes a training ground for dialogue and respectful interaction with each other. The results of this research are not only relevant for Islamic schools, but also, schools of other denominations can revise their view of the ideal identity and staff with a different worldview than the board of the school.
... A continuous tension between knowledge about Islam, introduction into Islam and learning from Islam is experienced by teachers-by Muslim and non-Muslim teachers alike. In this Special Issue, this diversity is explored for formal education (Beemsterboer 2018, in this volume), non-formal education (Yar, Gurlesin, in this volume) and informal education (Aantjes, in this volume). ...
This article provides information on the current Dutch educational system, paying special attention to the position of Islam in formal, non-formal and informal education. It briefly sketches the history of the so-called “pillarised educational system”, a system in which the 19th century Dutch Christian education system evolved into a compartmentalised system with the pillars of Catholic, Protestant and humanistic education. At the end of the 20th century, a fourth pillar of Islamic education was founded by Dutch Muslim parents. Convinced that religious upbringing in the family and participation in mosque youth clubs constituted only the beginning of the process of becoming a good Muslim, Moroccan and Turkish parents supported the foundation of formal Islamic education in Dutch Islamic schools. This article describes developments in formal, non-formal and informal Islamic education in the light of children’s rights to religious education and parents’ rights to religious upbringing. Religious identity development, including religious literacy training, is presented as an important aspect of educating children to be(come) good Muslims—a process in which parents at home, imams and volunteers at the mosque, as well as teachers at school, play an important role.
... 6 In 2018, there were 52 Islamic primary schools and two Islamic secondary schools (the Avicenna College in Rotterdam and the Cornelius Haga Lyceum in Amsterdam) 7 -a number that has increased substantially over the past decades. Notwithstanding this increase, only a small percentage of Muslim children is enrolled in Islamic schools because the number of these schools is lower than the number of children with a Muslim background, and many Muslim parents do not prefer an Islamic (primary) school for their children (Ter Avest et al., 2013;Ter Avest et al. 2015;Beemsterboer, 2018) (Tables 11.1 and 11.2). Governmental and non-governmental schools differ from one another with respect to three basic liberties: freedom of establishment/ foundation, freedom of religious conviction/orientation, and freedom of organisation (cf. ...
One of the most critical challenges facing the Muslim family and the Islamic school in the Netherlands is the formation of the identity of the child according to an equation that harmoniously combines his belonging to Islam and belonging to the multicultural Dutch society. The curricula of Islamic religious education are considered one of the essential tools in facing this challenge. This study aims to research fourteen values maid to help the child in the harmonious form of his Dutch Islamic identity in its three dimensions: collective, relational, and personal, by diagnosing the extent of these values in Islamic religious education curricula. This study relied on the descriptive approach, according to a comprehensive survey method, and using a questionnaire sent to the research community consisting of all religious education teachers in Islamic primary schools in the province of South Holland. In analyzing the data, the study relied on descriptive analysis methods. The study revealed that the general orientation of the research community is neutrality regarding the presence of four of these values, which are: human brotherhood, citizenship, at-tazkiyah (cleaning and development) and al-omran (being constructive), and also neutrality regarding the curricula's observance of cultural pluralism in the family and school environments of the child in presenting the values of the relational dimension. The study made recommendations related to the content of Islamic religious education curricula to raise their ability to contribute to the desired formation of the child's identity within the pluralistic Dutch social context and recommend benefiting from the experience of this research in similar social settings contexts.
In this chapter, I ask whether (some) religious schools may have a role to play in the promotion of educational justice. While there are many complaints levied against religious schools, I principally concern myself with a charge most often brought against them, viz., that they are guilty of indoctrinatory harm. Without minimizing the harms of indoctrination, I nevertheless postulate that there are other harms for many individuals that are more severe outside the religious school. Accordingly, the full scope of harm should be taken into account when evaluating the indoctrinatory harm that some religious schools do. Once we do that, I suggest, justice not only may require that we choose the lesser harm, but that we come to appreciate the justice-promoting role that many religious schools can play. To simplify matters, I focus my attention on the situation for Muslims in Western societies and examine the case of the Islamic school.
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