CONFIDENCE AND DOUBT JUVENILE MUSLIM LIFE-WORLDS, RELIGIOUS ORIENTATION, ISLAMIC THEOLOGY AND EDUCATION IN GERMANY

Harry Harun Behr

doi:10.18784/analisa.v3i02.682

Abstract

The article is based on first findings of interdisciplinary research that is still in progress. It has to be understood as the science-based counter-speech against increasing anti-Muslim racism. Young Muslims are under surveillance of public and media attention in Germany. Islam is being debated in terms of regal and security politics and less within the signature of religion in terms of spirituality, aesthetics, life-world orientation, ethics, morale and religious life-styles. Hence, they are being transformed into a kind of ethnic tribe that needs special treatment. This comes along with the impending deployment of religious freedom as it is guaranteed by the German constitution. Especially right-wing nationalist and folkish consent has it that Muslims serve as a reason for redesigning religious politics in Germany that drifts away from the standards of human rights. The research findings presented here focus on juvenile Muslims as humans, pupils and citizens instead. It aims at a better understanding of their psychological and social framing. This plays an important role with regard to schooling in general and Islamic religious education in special. The findings are based upon the qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews. This contribution also takes theological and anthropological aspects into account. In the end preliminary recommendations for changes in the educational setting are given.

Highlights

Looking at religious education in German public schools, a significant amount of concepts, researches and publications seems to be at hand
Confidence and Doubt Juvenile Muslim Life-Worlds, Religious Orientation, Islamic Theology and Aducation in Germany Harry Harun Behr touches the classroom discussion which rotates around tenuous topics
The parental inquiry that is addressed to experts in Islamic religious education in Germany aims at issues of concern which are typical of the postmigrational situation: the anomy of modern life in a secular society, the loss of normality in the face of everyday islamophobic racism, the ambivalence between chaining and unchaining their children, letting them find their own way and the bivalence of cultural transmission and emancipation

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Looking at religious education in German public schools, a significant amount of concepts, researches and publications seems to be at hand. The situation in the German class rooms demands from them a higher awareness towards questions of religion that unfavorably pairs with a widespread lack in proficiency in terms of a functional approach towards religion as a social pattern, let alone an academic issue. Confidence and Doubt Juvenile Muslim Life-Worlds, Religious Orientation, Islamic Theology and Aducation in Germany Harry Harun Behr touches the classroom discussion which rotates around tenuous topics. They bear the potential to charge with common emotions and religious bias. The topic strongly correlates with the implications of trans-cultural and interreligious learning (Behr, 2017a)

RESEARCH METHOD

AND DISCUSSION

See Heike Klovert in Spiegel Online

CONCLUSION