CHAPTER 13: “That’s Not what I Want for My Children”: Islamic Schools as a Parental Response To Childhood Experiences of Mainstream British Schooling

This chapter builds on Ahmed (2012) where I presented findings from a small-scale qualitative study that looked at home-schooling Muslim mothers who have developed an alternative education approach to mainstream British schooling called Shakhsiyah Education. Their work has led to the establishment of two small schools and Islamic teacher education courses to generate culturally coherent provision for Muslim children. Their motivation is in part a response to their own experiences as immigrant or second-generation Muslim children who attended mainstream British schools during the 1980s and 1990s. I present their concerns and motivations in some depth and go on to present their discussions on their hopes and ambitions for their own children and the challenges they have identified to generating culturally coherent education for their children in the British context. Through presenting the insider voices of these women, this chapter will contribute to the discourse by providing both adult and children’s perspectives as a group of Muslim women engage in reflexive discussion about their experiences as children, as parents and as teachers.