Making European Muslims: Religious Socialization Among Young Muslims in Scandinavia and Western Europe

309 Pages·2015·1.912 MB·English

by  Mark Sedgwick

Making European Muslims
Making European Muslims provides an in-depth examination of what it
means to be a young Muslim in Europe today, where the assumptions, val-
ues and behavior of the family and those of the majority society do not
always coincide. Focusing on the religious socialization of Muslim children
at home, in semi-private Islamic spaces such as mosques and Quran schools,
and in public schools, the original contributions to this volume focus largely
on countries in northern Europe, with a special emphasis on the Nordic
region, primarily Denmark. Case-studies demonstrate the ways that family
life, public education and government policy intersect in the lives of young
Muslims and inform their developing religious beliefs and practices. Mark
Sedgwick’s introduction provides a framework for theorizing Muslimness in
the European context, arguing that Muslim children must navigate differ-
ent and sometimes contradictory expectations and demands on their way to
negotiating a European Muslim identity.
Mark Sedgwick is Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus Univer-
sity, Denmark. He is by training a historian, and works in several fi elds,
including the encounter between Islam and modernity. His most recent
book is a biography of the great Egyptian modernist theologian, Muham-
mad Abduh (2009), and his recent articles include “Something Varied in
the State of Denmark: Neo-Nationalism, Anti-Islamic Activism, and Street-
Level Thuggery” (2013).
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Making European Muslims
Religious Socialization among
Young Muslims in Scandinavia
and Western Europe
Edited by Mark Sedgwick
First published 2015
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Making European Muslims : religious socialization among young Muslims
in Scandinavia and Western Europe / edited by Mark Sedgwick.
pages cm — (Routledge studies in religion ; 40)
1. Muslim children—Religious life—Scandinavia. 2. Muslim
children—Religious life—Europe, Western. 3. Muslim children—
Education—Scandinavia. 4. Muslim children—Education—Europe,
Western. 5. Muslim families—Scandinavia. 6. Muslim families—
Europe, Western. 7. Socialization—Scandinavia. 8. Socialization —
Europe, Western. 9. Islam—Social aspects—Scandinavia. 10. Islam—
Social aspects—Europe, Western. I. Sedgwick, Mark J.
BP188.3.C5M35 2015
297.083ʹ094—dc23
2014013977
ISBN: 978-1-138-78950-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-76489-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
1 Introduction: Families, Governments, Schools, Alternative
Spaces and the Making of European Muslims 1
MARK SEDGWICK
PART 1
Islamic Religious Socialization
2 Islam in the Family: The Religious Socialization of
Children in a Danish Provincial Town 21
MARIANNE HOLM PEDERSEN
3 “Freedom Has Destroyed the Somali Family:” Somali
Parents’ Experiences of Epistemic Injustice and its
Influence on their Raising of Swedish Muslims 39
RANNVEIG HAGA
4 Dilemmas of Educating Muslim Children in the Dutch
Immigration Context 56
TREES PELS
PART 2
Government Policies
5 Religion and Citizenship in France and Germany: Models
of Integration and the Presence of Islam in Public Schools 77
MARGRETE SØVIK
viii Contents
6 Negotiating Identity, Difference and Citizenship in
Finnish Islamic Religious Education: Building a
Foundation for the Emergence of “Finnish Islam”? 105
INKERI RISSANEN
7 Religious Diversity and Muslim Claims-Making: Conflicts
over the Danish Folkeskole 123
LENE KÜHLE
8 Islam in Christianity: Religious Education in the
Danish Folkeskole 146
MARK SEDGWICK
PART 3
Public Schools
9 Being a Good, Relaxed or Exaggerated Muslim: Religiosity
and Masculinity in the Social Worlds of Danish Schools 165
LAURA GILLIAM
10 Muslimness and Prayer: The Performance of Religiosity in
Everyday Life in and outside School in Denmark 187
IRAM KHAWAJA
11 Likable Children, Uneasy Children: Growing Up Muslim
in Small-Town Danish Schools 205
SALLY ANDERSON
PART 4
Alternative Spaces
12 Islamic Private Schooling in Austria: A Case-Study of
Muslim Parents’ Expectations 229
ELIF MEDENI AND BARBARA BREEN-WENNINGER
13 Brainwashed at School? Deprogramming the Secular among
Young Neo-Orthodox Muslims in Denmark 249
CHRISTIAN SUHR
Contributors 269
References 273
Index 291
Figures
7.1 Percentage of newspaper articles with Folkeskole and
Islam/Muslim. 128
8.1 Subject coverage of questions in L ife and Religion
(by grade level) 156