This article explores my teaching experiences that informed my distinction between religious literacy and critical religious literacy, ultimately leading to the creation of the Challenge Islamophobia Project. I highlight the impacts of post-9/11 criminalization and dehumanization of Muslims, which have significantly shaped public perceptions of…

In this paper, I insert the importance of teaching race through Middle Eastern America and Muslim America. By bringing in critical analysis of Middle Eastern America and Muslim America, I offer theoretical insights and pedagogical strategies in the education curriculum to teach race that will deconstruct, destabilize, and interrogate the dominant…

Nearly 20 years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York, Washington D.C., and Shanksville, PA there is a yearly ritual in a majority of US Schools. On the anniversary each year, teachers and students across the US learn about the attacks and memorialize the events. In many classrooms this is done through witnessing the events…

This article is drawn from a set of qualitative interviews and observations with practicing social studies teachers at three school sites, one public, one Catholic, and one Islamic, in a major metropolitan area of the United States of America, as they grapple with what it means to teach about religion in their social studies classrooms given the…

This article investigates how 12 upper-elementary school teachers dealt with the occurrence of a terrorist attack in their city during school hours and in the immediate aftermath. All teachers were interviewed shortly after the terrorist attack about their goals, dilemmas, and pedagogical strategies employed in the classroom. We found that during…

The counter-radicalisation efforts that have swept through much of the world seem to have placed schools and universities at the forefront of global counterterrorism. In this article, we review research to explore the impacts and implications of preventing radicalisation and violent extremism through education. We synthesised themes from the…

A research study in West Virginia in which a series of lessons were created to address the issues of Islamophobia, American exceptionalism, and nativism within a seventh-grade Ancient Civilizations classroom. The lessons spotlighted the Middle East, and students were presented with a more realistic view of Islamic cultures and were able to…

The UK Government's PREVENT strategy to counter radicalisation and extremism has been the subject of criticism. Concerns arise over clarity of purpose, clarity of terminology used and potential human rights impacts. Where the policy engages with schools, one human right potentially engaged is the right of parents to transfer their religious…

In places where Islamic State (ISIS) took hold in Syria and Iraq between 2014 and 2017, its domination was followed by an elaborate educational system. As such, the terrorist organization's 'state program' is a unique case in recent history. Indeed, not only did it overturn the existing education system in Syria and Iraq, resulting in a hiatus in…

Within British schools over the last few decades, we have witnessed a policy move from multi-culturalism to counter-radicalization. In response, this article examines an ethnographic project that illustrates both the relative autonomy of methodology from broader theoretical and substantive questions, as well as the internal creative logic of…

Existing GCSE and A-level syllabuses include modules on religion and the media, but these have not been widely or well studied for a variety of reasons. The modules may be considered difficult to teach well, and teachers have few good resources to use in comparison with more popular topics such as medical or environmental ethics. The newly…

Student translators at the College of Language Sciences take a Media and Political Translation course in which they translate the latest news stories, media and political texts and terminology. This study proposes a model for integrating Gaza-Israeli war terminology and texts in translation instruction to familiarize the students with terminology…

Purpose: The Samuel Paty murder has generated a great response from the professional community and the world of education and schools in Europe and worldwide. In a unique way, civic educators expressed horror, sorrow, and solidarity with the family and with their French colleagues. The article is dedicated to Samuel Paty and the question of…

In this article, the author submits that the push for moderation and social cohesion through deradicalization is an inadequate response to violence inspired by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) because it elides the political disaffections to which the group speaks. In advancing this argument, the author suggests that the rhetoric of ISIS…

School responses to the Prevent agenda have tended to focus primarily on 'safeguarding' approaches, which essentially perceive some young people as being 'at risk' and potentially as presenting a risk to others. In this article, we consider evidence from secondary school students who experienced a curriculum project on terrorism, extremism and…