ISLAMIC HISTORY THROUGH A WESTERN LENS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF KEY INTRODUCTORY WORKS (2010-2025)

Concerns from scholars about the exclusion of People of Color in children’s literature began in the early 20th century and continues today. The lack of children’s literature about People of Color is even more alarming in the contemporary moment, when Children of Color comprise a significant proportion of urban schools throughout the U.S. Only since the 1990’s have scholars begun to critically examine the portrayals of People of Color in children’s books. More recent research offers frameworks and methodologies for critical analyses of children’s books, namely a Critical Content Analysis that offers strategies for the examination of discursive power in literature for youth. This conceptual article theorizes how Critical Race Theory (CRT) in Education can be utilized with a Critical Content Analysis to provide a new framework for the examination of race, class, gender, (and other intersectionalities) in children’s books about People of Color— A Critical Race Content Analysis. We provide guiding principles of a Critical Race Content Analysis and analytical questions as tools for researchers and educators interested in conducting their own critical analyses of books about People of Color. Finally, we illustrate how this analysis is conducted with an example of a children’s book about immigration. This article makes important contributions to the literature on urban education that call for providing educators with tools to develop “racial literacies”.

Content analysis is a conceptual approach to understanding what a text is about, considering content from a theoretical perspective. What makes a study "critical" is not the methodology but the selection of a critical theory as the framework used to think within, through, and beyond the text. Critical content analysis focuses on the significance of thinking with theory about data, not just using theory to interpret or discuss the data but to frame the entire study and analysis. Critical content analysis involves selecting a research purpose and set of texts and deciding on a critical theory frame that fits that purpose to identify the major theoretical tenets that will be used to frame a close analysis of the texts. The analysis itself involves a constant movement between theory and data that is complex and generative. This chapter discusses the significance of thinking with theory and why critical content analysis is important, along with a discussion of visual culture and the need to engage critically with the visual images in literature. This discussion is followed by a careful description of the processes, procedures, and analytical tools for critical content analysis of visual images. Examples from the research studies in the chapters are woven throughout this discussion of procedures, so that readers can see where each study fits within that description and what each highlights to gain a more complete understanding of critical content analysis of visual images in picturebooks and graphic novels. The chapter ends with an overview of the organization of the chapters in the book.

Didier T. Jaén in his 1980 essay, “Mysticism, Esoterism, and Fantastic Literature” argues that fantasy is uniquely suited to reveal the “inexpressible real” (Bechtel, 2019), the background reality that elides language and yet is expressed in words (Le Guin, 1989). For the multilingual reader, there is dissonance when the “inexpressible real” is only expressed in monolingual language; the implicit argument made by monolingual fantasy is that the multilingual experience is not real, or cannot be real, even when anything might be possible (e.g. magic systems, advanced technology, folkloric legend). Sayatani DasGupta (2018), author of the Bengali folklore and string-theory inspired Kiranmala series, writes: “fantasy stories allow room to…imagine more just futures in which characters from marginalized identities do not just survive, but thrive”. This study is a critical content analysis (Johnson et al., 2017) of middle grade fantasy novels that use human languages other than English, published and marketed by the American publishing industry from 2012-2020. In Chapter One, I provide a review of the scholarly literature in multilingualism and children’s and young adult literature. In Chapter Two, I discuss my process for this study, beginning with critical content analysis and then exploring Critical Multicultural Analysis (Botelho & Rudman, 2009), New Materialist Theory, and Postcolonial Criticism. In Chapter Three, I apply Agatha Beins’ (2018) theory of the publishing assemblage to the children’s publishing industry. In Chapter Four, I analyze language use in the six core texts of the study using Critical Multicultural Analysis informed by New Materialist theories of the object and the non-human. In Chapter Five, I apply semantic field analysis grounded in Postcolonial Criticism to the six texts, exploring how language, resistance, and magic are in conversation with one another. I conclude with a review of my findings and suggestions for further research.

A critical content analysis is employed to scrutinize the second-grade materials within EL education’s English language arts curriculum. Applying critical race theory, this study confronts the pervasive anti-Black narrative embedded in standardized curriculum used in the United States. The study unveils the presence of this narrative in the materials while advocating strategies for teachers obligated to use these resources. The aim is to empower educators to foster critical engagement among students, encouraging them to craft their counternarrative while actively advocating for an antiracist curriculum. The elementary literacy curricula widely employed across the United States tend to propagate a White-centric agenda. Despite attempts to veil biases and racism, these curricula subtly reinforce White privilege through practices such as colorblindness, context-neutral settings, and the perpetuation of the myth of meritocracy. To counter this, a community-centered approach to education is proposed. This approach challenges the entrenched power structures of White supremacy by supplementing mandated scripted curriculum with additional resources and diverse perspectives that authentically incorporate the lived experiences of Black students, families, and experts. This study underscores the urgent need to address the inherent biases in educational materials, advocating for a pedagogical shift toward inclusivity and actively challenging the perpetuation of systemic racism in curriculum frameworks.

Purpose This paper aims to share four problematic patterns found in adoption-themed picturebooks: celebrations that oversimplify adoption’s complexity, narrow representations of family, prevalent whitewashing and minimal attention to structural inequities. By examining these shortcomings, the study challenges dominant adoption narratives perpetuated in children’s literature and advocates for more nuanced representations that honor the complexities of adoption as a lifelong experience rather than reinforcing limited or potentially harmful narratives. Design/methodology/approach Researchers used critical content analysis to investigate adoption representation across 60 picturebooks. The research design was anchored in critical adoption studies theoretical frameworks. Using this lens, researchers systematically analyzed texts and illustrations to identify recurring themes, narratives and patterns in how adoption stories are told. The analysis specifically focused on examining storylines, imagery, language choices and implicit messaging about adoption experiences, moving beyond surface-level content examination to interrogate deeper ideological assumptions embedded within adoption narratives targeted at young readers. Findings The analysis revealed four key problematic patterns. First, many books featured celebratory narratives that oversimplified adoption’s emotional complexity and lifelong impact. Second, the research identified limited and narrow representations of what constitutes a “family” in adoption contexts. Third, the study uncovered pervasive whitewashing across the picturebooks, with racial and cultural identities being minimized or erased. Fourth, the analysis showed consistent lack of attention to social inequities and power dynamics inherent in adoption processes. These patterns collectively contribute to simplified metanarratives about adoption that fail to reflect diverse, nuanced experiences of adoptees and their families. Originality/value This study makes a distinctive contribution by utilizing a Critical Adoption Studies lens in critical content analysis of adoption-themed picturebooks – an understudied area within children’s literature research. Unlike previous research focusing on individual adoption narratives, this study identifies systemic patterns across 60 books, providing comprehensive evidence of problematic representations. The research creates valuable groundwork for reimagining adoption literature that honors complexity, acknowledges inequities and authentically represents diverse adoption experiences, ultimately benefiting adoptees, families, educators and publishers.

Being a working mother during the Covid-19 pandemic has not been easy. Various tweets and posts on social media display the multiple roles that mothers have been expected to play. The dynamics of motherhood during the pandemic were incisively portrayed in Komik Bunda, a comic published on one of the leading parenting sites in Indonesia, haibunda.com. This qualitative study explores how working mothers negotiate their identities to adapt, persist, and innovate amidst the ups and downs of the pandemic situation in Indonesia. Critical content analysis is performed on 30 comic strips with the theme of motherhood during a pandemic, and the findings are analysed from the perspective of feminist standpoint theory, identity, and representation. This study indicates that women experience an excessive workload resulting from their multiple identities as mothers, teachers, and workers during the pandemic. Negotiation efforts, such as identity segmentation and conceptualising partners as secondary parents, emerged as ways to manage the tensions between identities. The discussion in this study shows that the tension between identities will continue as long as women are confined by the myths of “good” mothers and “ideal” workers promoted by the ideologies of neoliberalism and capitalism. This study concludes that identity negotiation is not only about the identity mothers choose to hold but also about the authenticity and balance displayed by working mothers during and after the pandemic. Keywords: Working mother, identity, feminist standpoint theory, representation, critical content analysis.

This qualitative research study, a critical content analysis, explores Canadian media reporting of childhood in Canada during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Popular media plays an important role in representing and perpetuating the dominant social discourse in highly literate societies. In Canadian media, the effects of the pandemic on children and adolescents’ health and wellbeing are overshadowed by discussions of the potential risk they pose to adults. The results of this empirical research highlight how young people in Canada have been uniquely impacted by the COVID-19 global pandemic. Two dominant narratives emerged from the data: children were presented “as a risk” to vulnerable persons and older adults and “at risk” of adverse health outcomes from contracting COVID-19 and from pandemic lockdown restrictions. This reflects how childhood was constructed in Canadian society during the pandemic, particularly how children’s experiences are described in relation to adults. Throughout the pandemic, media reports emphasized the role of young people’s compliance with public health measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and save the lives of older persons.

<p dir="ltr">This dissertation examines the cultural differences amongst and experiences of LGBTQ+ athletes in soccer and how exclusionary attitudes existing in the sport impact policy on LGBTQ+ athletes. The study compares and contrasts the cultural experiences of LGBTQ+ soccer players from a macro (global) and micro (local) lens, with a specific focus on soccer cultures in Italy, England, Canada, and the United States. The different levels of soccer (amateur, semiprofessional, and professional) in these four locales, and the impact that policies have on LGBTQ+ inclusion, are analyzed. Queer theory, intersectionality, Gramsci’s theory of ideology and cultural hegemony, and Butler’s concept of gender performativity provide the framework for the examination of the lived realities of queer athletes across different sporting environments. Through an in-depth analysis of literature on queer athleticism, the dissertation considers the associated relationships between masculinity, homophobia, transphobia, intersectionality, cultural, social, and political views, media representation of LGBTQ+ athletes, athlete voices, and social change. A mixed methods explanatory sequential design was employed to analyze 19 policy documents, conduct seven informal phone calls about anti-discrimination and trans eligibility policies, administer 40 surveys with athletes who have played soccer around the world, and conduct 11 semi-structured interviews with soccer players at the amateur or semiprofessional level in Ontario and the United States. A critical content analysis was then engaged to explore meaning and patterns that emerged from the different sets of data. Results suggest that education and policy reform are necessary to create an inclusive soccer environment. To uphold inclusive policy, sport governing bodies need to be held accountable and consider diverse and intersectional perspectives during the policy creation and development phase. Overall, this analysis is beneficial to soccer culture because it provides critically needed scholarly research that informs how soccer organizations, athletes, and leaders in the sport can remedy practices that hinder LGBTQ+ participation in soccer.</p>

<p dir="ltr">This dissertation examines the cultural differences amongst and experiences of LGBTQ+ athletes in soccer and how exclusionary attitudes existing in the sport impact policy on LGBTQ+ athletes. The study compares and contrasts the cultural experiences of LGBTQ+ soccer players from a macro (global) and micro (local) lens, with a specific focus on soccer cultures in Italy, England, Canada, and the United States. The different levels of soccer (amateur, semiprofessional, and professional) in these four locales, and the impact that policies have on LGBTQ+ inclusion, are analyzed. Queer theory, intersectionality, Gramsci’s theory of ideology and cultural hegemony, and Butler’s concept of gender performativity provide the framework for the examination of the lived realities of queer athletes across different sporting environments. Through an in-depth analysis of literature on queer athleticism, the dissertation considers the associated relationships between masculinity, homophobia, transphobia, intersectionality, cultural, social, and political views, media representation of LGBTQ+ athletes, athlete voices, and social change. A mixed methods explanatory sequential design was employed to analyze 19 policy documents, conduct seven informal phone calls about anti-discrimination and trans eligibility policies, administer 40 surveys with athletes who have played soccer around the world, and conduct 11 semi-structured interviews with soccer players at the amateur or semiprofessional level in Ontario and the United States. A critical content analysis was then engaged to explore meaning and patterns that emerged from the different sets of data. Results suggest that education and policy reform are necessary to create an inclusive soccer environment. To uphold inclusive policy, sport governing bodies need to be held accountable and consider diverse and intersectional perspectives during the policy creation and development phase. Overall, this analysis is beneficial to soccer culture because it provides critically needed scholarly research that informs how soccer organizations, athletes, and leaders in the sport can remedy practices that hinder LGBTQ+ participation in soccer.</p>

The educational institutions of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina have a long tradition of training in Islam that emerged and developed in different frameworks of public law and different cultural contexts. In the course of intensive discussions on the presence of Muslims in Europe and debates on solving the Muslim issue, and on models of educating imams and Muslim authorities, educational institutions of the Islamic Community have the opportunity to offer their own concept of Islamic education based on synthetic and contextual studies in Islam.
 The synthesis of the entire Islamic intellectual tradition will re-discover the authentic potential of the Islamic message in Islamic sources and tradition, a potential which may be an equal and credible partner in the contemporary Bosnian and European context. On the other hand, if it aspires to be relevant, to work in the European context Islamic education must inevitably focus on studying crucial issues of the European environment and offer satisfactory answers. The text of the Qur’an makes it known that context provokes even God’s direct response and intervention. Tafsir exegesis science includes chapters on the motives for publicizing certain Qur’an ayahs chapters and surahs sentences.
 The Divine Revelation does not ignore context; rather, it shows its great importance. Besides, Muslim intellectual tradition inherited the practice of applying religion in context. The Muslim educational system has long felt a pressing need to educate and profile the context-‘ulamā’ (scholar), experts who have both religious knowledge and the authoritative knowledge of context. In this respect, educational institutions of the Islamic Community should offer their own model based on their experience and authentic understanding of Islam and Islamic intellectual tradition, since such a model cannot be offered by Europe. This paper argues for the development of a concept which will be a proactive result of Bosnian Muslim intellectual self-awareness and universal responsibility for mankind, rather than being a passive adjustment of Islamic thinking and Islam to Europe, waiting for European instructions. In the shift from the present paradigm of adjustment to a new stage, the paradigm of promotion and recognition is necessary.

The relationship between custom and Islamic law has been one of the most contested issues in modern scholarship on the Islamic legal tradition. This subject has been closely connected with two major debates that have largely shaped the modern field of Islamic studies in Western academia, namely, the debates on the origins and nature of Islamic law. It is not the goal of this chapter to give a full account of these two debates,1 but rather to illustrate how this issue influenced the development of major positions on the continuums of these debates. Moreover, the subject of custom arises in many disciplines, such as history, law, sociology, and anthropology, though each field has its own methodologies and research strategies. Studies on Islamic law within all these disciplines, however, were heavily influenced by Orientalist scholarship2 and its reconstruction of Islamic legal history, particularly from the late nineteenth to the first half of the twentieth century.3 Generally speaking, modern Orientalist studies on the place, status, and role of custom in Islamic law fall into two main categories. The first includes philological or text-based studies, and the second includes ethnographic or field studies. While the former seeks to determine the impact of customs on the formal construction of Islamic law as documented in its written sources, the latter attempts to determine the degree of agreement or disagreement between customs and Islamic law on the one hand and Islamic law and particular social practices on the other.4 To these, another category may be added, which includes normative juristic studies by Muslim scholars who approach the issue from within the Islamic tradition, building on successive generations of Muslim jurists since the formative period. Admittedly, this classification is neither precise nor exhaustive, but it should help identify and account for most of the studies that have shaped the different discourses on this subject. Moreover, this classification does not suggest that these approaches have been completely separate or independent from each other. This chapter demonstrates that the distinctions are sometimes blurred, or at least are less clear than they initially appear.

Background: Commercial data brokers have amassed large collections of primary care patient data in proprietary databases. Our study objective was to critically analyze how entities involved in the collection and use of these records construct the value of these proprietary databases. We also discuss the implications of the collection and use of these databases.Methods: We conducted a critical qualitative content analysis using publicly available documents describing the creation and use of proprietary databases containing Canadian primary care patient data. We identified relevant commercial data brokers, as well as entities involved in collecting data or in using data from these databases. We sampled documents associated with these entities that described any aspect of the collection, processing, and use of the proprietary databases. We extracted data from each document using a structured data tool. We conducted an interpretive thematic content analysis by inductively coding documents and the extracted data.Results: We analyzed 25 documents produced between 2013 and 2021. These documents were largely directed at the pharmaceutical industry, as well as shareholders, academics, and governments. The documents constructed the value of the proprietary databases by describing extensive, intimate, detailed patient-level data holdings. They provided examples of how the databases could be used by pharmaceutical companies for regulatory approval, marketing and understanding physician behaviour. The documents constructed the value of these data more broadly by claiming to improve health for patients, while also addressing risks to privacy. Some documents referred to the trade-offs between patient privacy and data utility, which suggests these considerations may be in tension.Conclusion: Documents in our analysis positioned the proprietary databases as socially legitimate and valuable, particularly to pharmaceutical companies. The databases, however, may pose risks to patient privacy and contribute to problematic drug promotion. Solutions include expanding public data repositories with appropriate governance and external regulatory oversight.

Educators have a responsibility to critically evaluate the ways groups of people are represented in children’s books. This study’s purpose was to analyze portrayals of Indian American immigrant families in 28 children’s books set in the United States. While research about diverse groups of people in literature has grown recently, representations of Indian Americans in children’s books remain unexamined. This study, a critical content analysis, applies tenets of postcolonialism to deconstruct the ways child protagonists in books about Indian American immigrant families are portrayed. While several books in the sample call attention to realistic social issues Indian American families may face, this study finds that othering of Indian Americans, or constructing them as different from the “mainstream,” is a prominent theme. Indian American characters are targets of negative attitudes, victims of discrimination and hate crimes, and positioned as outsiders because of their identities as Indian Americans and immigrants. This study concludes that educators must ensure the books they recommend to readers show diverse perspectives of Indian Americans to avoid perpetuating long-held stereotypes and problematic narratives.

Closing the loop in the construction industry: A systematic literature review on the development of circular economy

Through critical race theory (CRT) in education, this critical content analysis examines three textbooks used in an early childhood teacher education programme. Findings illustrate how the textbooks propagated notions of white superiority and the normalcy of mainstream white, middle-class values through six distinct, yet intersectional forms of racial and cultural biases – presumption of deficit, selective xenophobia, assumption of privilege, coded language/invisible words, statistical violence, and cultural shaming. In discussion, the authors encourage teacher educators to 1) engage in critical reflection towards unlearning whiteness; 2) offer diverse perspectives in their instructional material; and 3) empower teacher candidates to critique the curricular material provided towards dismantling white supremacy in teacher preparation.