Islam, national identity and public secondary education: perspectives from the Somali diaspora in Toronto, Canada

Abstract

Public schools have historically been key sites where children learn of and adopt a common national identity. In states where multiculturalism plays a central role in the articulation of a national identity, schools actively recognize and support the diverse cultures of their students in fulfilling this function. Canada is a state where, via federal policy, multiculturalism has been identified as a fundamental element of the national ethos. Formal education has been a key area in which the government has implemented this policy. However, public education in Canada is also committed to secularism, and this has been a cause for resistance by diverse immigrant groups. This paper examines resistance among traditional Muslim groups to Toronto school policies and practices that reflect an avowedly secular orientation. It focuses on the experiences of one Muslim group in particular, Somali immigrants, and their encounters with school policies and practices that both supported and challenged their identities. In doing so, the paper exposes the schools as sites of countervailing policies and practices within which students must nonetheless forge new and meaningful identities.

Notes

1. Midaynta Community Services had previously operated under the name Midaynta Association of Somali Service Agencies. The organization changed its name in 2005.

2. A note regarding the specific school boards in operation during the period that the interviewees attended high school (1995–2005). In January 1998, the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training moved to amalgamate Ontario's then 129 school boards into 60 new English‐language boards and 12 new French‐language boards. The amalgamation was part of a fundamental realignment of taxation and spending between the province of Ontario and its municipal governments brought on by the 1995‐elected Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. This realignment also saw the amalgamation of the five cities and one borough that had constituted the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, and subsequently the merging of the six previous boards into the single Toronto District School Board (Basu, 2004). As these changes pertain to the article, four of the respondents attended high schools that merged into the larger board after they had already graduated.

3. Public schooling in Ontario is divided into elementary (Junior Kindergarten to Grade 8) and secondary (Grades 9–12) levels. To earn an Ontario Secondary School Diploma, high‐school students must earn a minimum of 30 credits (18 compulsory and 12 optional). They must also complete 40 hours of community involvement activities. Finally, they must pass a provincial secondary school literacy test (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2005).

4. It should be noted that not all groups were believed to be capable of assimilating, leading to segregated schools for such populations as African‐Canadians as well as Asian immigrants.

5. Regarding the Canadian context, see Bissoondath (1994). Also, see D'Souza (1992), Ravitch (1992) and Schlesinger (1991, 1992).

6. It is important to note that Azmi's (2001) study specifically covers the resistance of the Sunni and Ithna‐Ashari Shiite communities in Toronto, and does not therefore speak for all Muslim groups. By extension, the article should not be interpreted as applying to all Somali Muslims.

7. Sanjakdar (2004) notes that discussion, teaching and learning about sex, sexuality and sexual health are not opposed in Islam. Rather, she asserts that from a Muslim point of view, such instruction must be done within a greater framework of Islamic teachings and principles.

8. With regard to the provision of space for Muslim prayers in the Toronto public schools, Zine (2000) has documented the struggles that many Muslim students have had with school administrative staff to make such provisions actually possible.

9. Also see Scott (2001).

10. Hijra means to migrate, withdraw or abandon. In Islam, the hijra refers to the exodus of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in AD 622, which dates the beginning of the Islamic calendar.

11. It is of interest to note that, historically, the country of Somalia has not been home to Islamic fundamentalism and Somalis (nearly all Sunni Muslims) have not in the past been particularly strict with regard to their application of Islamic laws (Menkhaus, 2002).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bruce A. Collet

Bruce Collet will be joining the College of Education and Human Development at Bowling Green State University in August 2007.