Abstract
All parents want the best accessible, available and affordable school for their children. Yet, the literature highlights that school choice for middle-class parents in the cultural West is a deliberate decision and a reflection of their salient identities. For racialised middle-class Western parents, school choice is an instrumental investment to secure social upward mobility and minimise the harms of racism for their children. Research focusing on Western middle-class Muslim parents highlights that accommodation of Muslim identities and ethno-religious values is pivotal in parental school choice. This is expected due to the rise of Islamophobia in the cultural West since 9/11. The semi-structured interviews with faith-inspired middle-class Muslim parents in Australia bring a new dimension to the parental school choice literature. Regardless of carrying more or less similar concerns for their children in an Islamophobic climate, middle-class Muslim parents’ school choices vary based on their childhood schooling experiences in the Australian context, diverse parenting styles and mentalities and their children’s varying personalities demanding a particular type of school setting. This article demonstrates there is no one size fits all Muslim parent in terms of deciding which school is the best for their children in an Islamophobic climate.
Highlights
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Ghazala (2013) grouping of Canadian Muslim parents in three groups according to their school choice and the reasoning resonates with the common parental tendencies disclosed in the literature
Focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews were conducted with Australian Muslim parents with the consent to use de-identified data for analysis and publication purposes, which was obtained in accordance with Charles Sturt University ethics protocols (Protocol: H19197) and the University of Western Australia ethics protocols (Protocol: RA/4/1/1651)
Summary
All parents have more or less similar expectations from schools, such as academic success, discipline and adherence to globally accepted moral values and social norms. Race seems to be a minor dimension in parental attitude, Vincent et al (2013) study on middle-class Black parents disclose that experiences of racism bring an additional motivation to Black parents’ childbearing experiences They strive against the effects of racial inequality in both the education system and the labour market by instilling their children with good quality education, valuable life skills and cultural resources (Vincent et al 2013). Educated middle-class Muslim parents in the cultural West go through similar processes in school choice Both quantitative and qualitative studies in the literature disclose more or less similar parental reasons for choosing public or Islamic schools. Ghazala (2013) grouping of Canadian Muslim parents in three groups according to their school choice and the reasoning resonates with the common parental tendencies disclosed in the literature Those parents sending their children to Islamic schools instead of public schools expressed three main reasons: (a) school environment, (b) school language and (c) subject content and its pedagogy. While revealing some associations between school choices and parenting style, this study explores nuanced approaches to parenting styles among the faith-inspired Muslim community in Australia
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