MuslimSchools,CommunitiesandCriticalRaceTheory · Breen107 Muslim Schools, Communities and Critical Race Theory: Faith Schooling in an Islamophobic Britain? Damian Breen Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, 216 pages. The ability of governments to present cases where Muslim schools have successfully secured state funding serves as a smokescreen to obscure the difficulties and challenges faced by Muslim communities looking to enter into partnerships with the state through denominational Islamic schooling. (p. 171) Muslim Schools, Communities and Critical Race Theory, by Damian Breen, is full of necessary insight into how the British state’s relationship with Muslim communities was manipulated by New Labour and subsequent governments. Framing this analysis in the context of Critical Race theory (henceforth CRT) helps to bring these issues to light for those who are interested in British Islam and in race more generally. The necessity that these issues are appreciated if the experience of British Islam is to be understood is fortunate, as the allegiance to CRT is labored through the first chapters. However, while this aspect of the book is labored, it is a useful contribution in the context of recent attempts by politicians from the Conservative party of the UK to denounce CRT. Breen wasn’t to know it when his book was published in 2018, but his somewhat tortured elaboration of the importance of CRT over many pages shines a light on the absurdity of its recent denunciation in the UK Parliament (Nelson, 2020) and the British press (Fox et al., 2020). While the first two chapters are hard work—not least as those familiar with CRT will wonder why there is a need for such tangential detail for a book that is essentially an empirical study—it must be recognized that the world would be a better place if anyone misled by the recent posturing of Conservative politicians against CRT was to read Muslim Schools, Communities and Critical Race Theory. Emerging into chapter 3, Breen finds his stride as he seeks to problematize “race” and the racialization of British Muslims, before engaging with the now infamous Prevent Strategy—one of the elements of the British government’s counter-terrorism strategy—and the Fundamental British Values (FBV) that are promoted by Prevent. While this is a valuable exploration of Prevent and FBV, those seeking further explanation of FBV ought to also engage with Crawford (2017). We are then taken on an expansive tour of how trends in educational policy that were set in motion by New Labour have impacted Muslim schools, summarized by, 108 JournalofEducationinMuslimSocieties · Vol. 2, No. 2 New Labour appears to be progressive, able to commend themselves on offering the first state-funded Muslim schools, whilst ensuring that the criteria for doing so effectively prevents widespread enfranchisement for British Muslims. (p. 49) Breen then enters into a theorization of the “passivity” of the “uber-neoliberal foundations which underpin free schools” as a political act. This provides valuable understanding of how the apparent offer of state funding for Muslim schools has in fact restricted their autonomy. The suffocation of the education system by neoliberal reforms has been extensively discussed elsewhere, but Breen’s exploration of this impact on British Muslims is a very valuable contribution. It is a relief to find Breen discussing his positionality as “a white Irish British-born male” researcher in chapter 4. However, given his explicit focus on Muslims, it might have made for a more comfortable read had this been discussed earlier. To have done so might also have strengthened the author’s voice, something that is often lost in Breen’s commitment to the third person voice of “the researcher.” Slipping into the first person for the final section of chapter 4 immediately humanizes Breen and draws one into what he seeks to achieve. He continues in the first person in the fifth chapter as the book takes off—one just hopes that the reader gets beyond the dense earlier chapters to this point. The fine-grained detail of the schools being studied is a welcome break from the all too often sensationalist terms that Islamic faith schools are often presented in. As such, in chapter 6, Breen begins to present the counter narrative, as is his stated aim for the...
Read full abstract
Jan 13, 2024
Antti Saari + 1
Open Access
