Schooling, religion, youth and everyday life

Abstract

This article investigates the ways in which different and complex learning processes take place in an independent Muslim school in Sweden. In particular it focuses on how a group of young women interprets, discusses and relates to school and everyday life. The empirical material consists of interviews with teachers and repeated focus group interviews with eight to ten 15–year–old Muslim women. Methodologically, the focus is on how these subjects relate to central questions of gender relations, ‘religious rules’, the school curriculum and various aspects of everyday life. The results indicate that even though there is a considerable degree of freedom in the interpretations of what it means to be a good Muslim, the different formal and informal learning processes also involve and define particular ways of looking at gender, lifestyle and society. In certain aspects this leads to a cleavage between what is regarded as a Swedish lifestyle, on the one hand, and a Muslim lifestyle, on the other. The processes that take place within and outside school must therefore be understood in relation to segregation, identity politics and youth culture.