Citizenship is a contested term and its meanings and implications vary according to the socio-political and historical context in which it originated and continues to be practiced. This research explores the conceptualisation of citizenship among different groups within the Palestinian education system. The research utilises qualitative research…

This study analyses discourses of Pakistan's national curriculum textbooks for grades 9-12 in the context of developing students' national belonging vis-à-vis inclusive education and global interdependence. Drawing on teachers' interviews and students' focus groups and participatory tools, it also problematises teachers' classroom practices and…

Using ethnographic data collected with Muslim women teachers from rural and low-income communities in Pakistan, this article shows how empowerment for these educated women meant access to different forms of power within families and communities. The focus on the issue of choice in marriage reveals how the participants conceptualised empowerment as…

This paper examines the complex relationship between the state, civil society and education through comparative research with young people in France and the UK. Survey data derived from two cohorts of school students in South Wales and Lyon reveal strong differences in their levels of civic and political participation. While our Welsh students…

This paper explores the way education and conflict have become entangled during the post-9/11 "war on terror" response to "radical Islam" at home and abroad. The paper charts the complex ways that education has been deployed to serve Western military and security objectives in multiple locations in the global south and how…

This paper describes research on how curriculum reform provides novel conditions for influencing teacher professionalism. It draws on Bernstein's theories of the 'classification and framing' of curriculum and theories of teacher professionalism to investigate the impact of curriculum reform on teacher professionalism. The research was conducted in…

The European Convention on Human Rights has been signed by both the UK and Sweden as well as other European states, providing legal justification for accommodating the educational needs of religious minorities. This legal entitlement is explored in the paper, with particular reference to parental choice for schools based on an Islamic ethos. How…

This paper examines how education in Indonesia can help create tolerant and multicultural citizens through the analysis of policies and practices. After the political shift in 1998, Indonesia issued education law No. 20 in 2003 which contains, though vague, a couple of articles that can underpin the development and implementation of multicultural…

Drawing on world culture and local culture explanations of educational change, this article aims to understand the dynamics of educational reform in Turkey in 1997 that expanded compulsory primary education from five to eight years. To do so, speeches given by opponents and proponents of the reform in the Turkish parliament were analysed.…

The Islamic religious education curriculum of the twenty-first century is a cornerstone in a hot debate about necessary educational reforms in the Islamic World. This study aimed at investigating the depth of agreement/disagreement between Arab and Western educational views about challenges of this curriculum through reviewing academic…

This article aims to report a single case study of how an Islamic boarding school ("pesantren") in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, prepared students for a multicultural Indonesia. Despite negative portrayal by the Western media about increasing Islamic radicalism in some "pesantren", many "pesantren" are in fact transforming…

This article explores how in the contexts of exile and statelessness and in the absence of Palestinian institutions, such as schools, Palestinian youth in south Lebanon construct their identities through nationalist narratives of shared history, kinship, culture and religion. Although these narratives help to construct shared notions of…

Drawing upon Islamic epistemology to confront the challenges of a postcolonial world, some European Muslims are rejecting existing educational provision, seeking to formulate culturally-coherent pedagogy. This paper contributes to the debate on Islamic schools in Britain through the findings of a qualitative study of a British Muslim community…

This article considers the status of indigenous knowledges as forms of knowledge in the multicultural context of Sudan, through exploration of Sudanese adult education teachers' perceptions of culture, language and knowledge in education. Drawing on critical and poststructural theoretical concepts, cultural discourses in education are shown to…

The main focus of this article is on the multilingual literacy practices and values of English-educated university students (aged 14-20) in Brunei Darussalam, Southeast Asia. Multilingual literacy is used as a lens to examine the impact of globalization on the communicative practices of these young people and to investigate the specific ways in…