“Gender Issues in Islamic Schools” was a hot topic for discussion at the International Institute of Islamic Thought. Dr. Hilda Yacoub of Brigham Young University gave a presentation outlining her findings in a case study of two Islamic schools in the US.
On March 2, 2007, Dr. Hilda Yacoub of Brigham Young University gave a presentation outlining her findings in a case study of two Islamic schools in the US. Some research indicated that female students face classroom discrimination and have some problems with male-female interaction, that gender affects education, and the possible existence of a hidden curriculum. Her study sought to explore and explain how boys, girls, teachers, and principals “do gender” in American Islamic schools and how this affects girls’ education. She sought plausible explanations of how boys and girls interact formally and informally during the day, how they create differences, and how they interact with teachers and principals. This descriptive study utilized a case study design.
Dr. Yacoub studied two schools, School A and School B, and controlled for geography so that the schools would have the same culture, traditions, socioeconomic background, and so on. It was hard to find them, for there were not many schools from which to choose.
Her study used both qualitative and quantitative approaches to analyze the data. This descriptive study utilized a case study design to study two different small Islamic private schools, for this is the best approach (according to Dr. Yacoub) when dealing with a complex setting involving gender, cultural, and religious issues. She utilized separate focus groups of students as well as classroom observations and interviews with teachers and principals. The quantitative approach answered the research question on the students’ academic achievement. She obtained their grades, explored and explained the differences between boys’ and girls’ academic achievement, and related the findings to “doing gender” in the school.
Interviews were transcribed, and the NVivo software program facilitated her analysis of the qualitative data by identifying various themes and establishing connections and relationships among them. Quantitatively, she used descriptive statistics to compare academic achievement between girls and boys in the same school and between boys and girls in the two schools. The statistical package of SPSS was used to serve this purpose.
Two main factors were important to Dr. Hilda’s findings: 1.Equal treatment: defined as equal access to facilities, equal treatment for boys and girls inside the classroom, and equal treatment for boys and girls outside the classroom. 2.Academic achievement: defined as both boys’ and girls’ academic achievement in general, academic achievement due to individual student effort, and differences between boys’ and girls’ academic achievement.
Both boys and girls have equal access to school facilities in both schools. There is no clear pattern of equal or unequal treatment toward girls either inside or outside the classroom. Institutionally, all students in both schools seemed to be receiving the same education from the same teachers, using the same curriculum. In addition, there is no pattern across the two schools, or across all respondents.
As regards their academic achievement, her cross-case analysis concludes that there is a pattern of good academic achievement for girls in both schools. In fact, they are doing better than the boys. The cross-case pattern results also confirm that academic achievement is due to individual effort. Teachers, boys, and girls all confirmed that boys and girls differ in their academic achievement. The cross-case pattern also confirms this finding.
Quantitative Findings
Boys and girls belonging to a certain school had a higher level of good academic achievement (School B is doing better than School A). Gender has no effect, but it appears that difference in achievement by gender are due to differential treatment.
One important finding was that both students and teachers assume gender affects the students’ academic performance, strategies, and efforts. Thus, the quantitative findings of actual academic performance based on GPA do not agree with the qualitative findings, which reflect the perceptions of the informants regarding academic performance.
Some questions and thoughts that Dr. Yacoub had before and during her research are given below:
Question 1: What gender distinctions operate in the curriculum in Islamic schools in the United States?
Curriculum in the two Islamic schools is almost the same for both boys and girls. Both schools use the state curriculum taught in public schools, with certain modifications, and the addition of Islamic studies (e.g., learning the Qur’an and Arabic).
Question 2: How does the advising or career counseling provided to boys and girls in Islamic schools in the United States reinforce gender difference?
Teachers, principals, boys, and girls in both schools confirmed that boys and girls are advised equally in most cases. The two schools lack the resources to provide a professional advisor or counselor. Instead, boys and girls seek informal counseling and advice from their teachers and principals.
Question 3: To what extent are certain teachers’ different instructional styles related to students’ genders in the two Islamic schools in the United States?
The qualitative analysis of the interviews and focus groups revealed that all school rules are written and that all teachers, principals, and students abide by them.
Question 4: To what extent do teachers reinforce gender in classrooms in Islamic schools?
This study revealed biases and favoritism from some female teachers toward boys, and from male teachers toward girls. Teachers and students all addressed and confirmed this issue. This reinforcement of gender differences and discrimination ranged from praising, punishing, advising, rewarding, encouraging, trusting, and counseling each gender in a different manner.
Question 5: How do girls and boys perform academically in Islamic schools in the United States?
Her finding contradicts other studies that support girls being underachievers. It reveals a perception of greater academic achievement by girls. As a group, girls were perceived as excelling while boys are perceived as performing more poorly.
At the end, Dr. Yacoub concluded that gender does seem to play a role in these two gender-segregated schools. Girls are perceived as excelling, which is partly attributed to personal motivation. This might relate to different expectations of success. However, individual differences in treatment by gender and occasional incidences of gender discrimination did not reveal any pattern that suggesting systematic gender discrimination in terms of equal treatment. Gender differences are divided into two levels: institutional and individual levels. The practice of gender-segregation, a main characteristic of Islamic schools, comes from applying Islamic law, which requires gender separation in such situations.
Her recommendations included the following:
1. Single-gender schooling for Muslim boys and girls. Most teachers and the two principals expressed their positive feelings toward this suggestion.
2. The two principals should provide workshops and training sessions for their teachers related to teaching methods, gender roles, and other differences.
3. Give the students some freedom outside the classroom and lessen the amount of continuous supervision. This will support their self esteem and encourage them to love school more and be more productive.
4. Boys and girls need more formal advising and counseling sessions. The two principals should make employing an appropriate advisor/counselor from both genders a priority.
5. The two principals as well as the teachers should arrange more extracurricular activities for their students with other schools.
At the end of the presentation, the attendees were able to raise several questions and comments.
Q: The schools chosen are too different as regards the students’ racial background, socioeconomic status, and other factors.
A: I was controlling for geography.
Q: Boys catch up to girls in high school. After 9/11, boys supposedly became alienated and radicalized. The result has been intergenerational tension. Did the schools use 9/11 as an excuse?
A: Yes, mainly in the Arab school. Almost every boy said that he did not want a higher degree.
Q: There are 300-400 full-time Islamic schools here. This continuous movement has been going on for quite a while. The curriculum is now more America-based than ever as regards cultural literacy. Teachers are far more culturally acclimated. We want culturally literate teachers, and thus need more American Muslim teachers, as opposed to those coming from overseas. The two schools presented might not be representative. For my students, 5th-7th grade girl students – the teachers say that the boys “did it,” because they cannot believe that girls would do it (double standard); boys can build something; girls have to watch. Boys think that the girls cannot do anything (in other words, they understand stereotyping). Teachers must be trained on how to deal with certain issues vis-à-vis mentoring. They cannot ignore “sensitive” issues occurring around us and so on. They have to be conscientious, not “accidental,” teachers.
A: I agree with your points. Gender is socially constructed.
Q: I am concerned mainly with methodology. There is a lot of nonscientific motivation for “scientific” studies today. What does it mean to be an “Islamic” school? There are similar problems in all American schools. What reflects “Islamic” and “general society”? Boys’ achievement was going down in American schools even before 9/11. This may be a worldwide phenomenon. There are many other distractions for them to pursue. Muslim girls in many non-Islamic schools are succeeding in the “hard” sciences. There is no “Islamic” reason for separating schools according to gender, because the Prophet never did this. This solution represents a failure to create a “healthy atmosphere” in our schools so that boys and girls can live and learn together. This represents more of a “running away” from the problem. There are also financial problems: the inability to hire qualified teachers, which results in Muslim teachers not being “uneducated” because they are Muslim, but because they are not well trained and qualified. This is shown in the case that you mentioned of the female teacher who praised boys as “future providers” and told girls not to worry too much about their career or future because they were most likely to become “future wives.” There is also the problem of immigrant parents. This is a “cultural,” not an “Islamic,” phenomenon.
Q: How many students/staff were there in each school?
A: One school had about 300 students, most of whom were in the elementary school. The other school had approximately 210 students. Most parents of both groups of students are highly educated. There are at least 20,000 Muslims in that area.
Q: Is the cultural background and other personal factors of the teachers relevant here?
A: Yes. There is a difference between foreign-born and American-born teachers. Muslims need to adapt to meet the new generation’s needs. The teachers need more training. Maybe there should be summer sessions for recent immigrant teachers. There is also a need to provide some per diems to recognize the teachers’ extra curricular activities. In other words, their job does not end at 5:00 pm.
Q: What is the implication of this research on American Islamic schools?
A. I have only been in this country for five years, so I am not so familiar with what is going on here. I made several recommendations in my dissertation. For example, both sexes feel freer in gender-segregated classes. Coeducational education is alien to the Middle East. Coeducation is not a bad idea if we do it correctly. The schools should adopt the state curriculum (Comment from one of the attendees: “Not all of them do. This is necessary only if they want to be accredited”.) They need a religious/language component in the Islamic school.
Q: Aren’t you restricting “Islamic” education too much? You should seek to Islamize the curriculum.
A: I agree with this. In my dissertation, I only report what I saw.
Q: Your findings contradict many findings in the literature.
A: I agree.
Q: Perhaps you should replace “Islamic law” with “Islamic tradition.”
A: I use the term “Shari`ah.”
Comment: You need to familiarize yourself with the history of Islamic schools in this country. The goal is to produce good Muslim-American citizens. This is what is wrong with immigrant students. Some Islamic schools are making them Arabs, etc… not Americans. Keep this in mind.
Q: Why are girls ahead of boys? Are there more distractions for boys? Are girls more challenged? So why are men everywhere in society, far more so than women?
A: New literature in the field is talking about a bias against boys due to feminism. Society is shifting.
Q: What does “doing gender” mean?
A: It is the name of a paradigm. It means applying gender bias.
Comment: On the issue of charter school (raised earlier in the session), you have to meet federal regulations. It also depends upon your school’s mission. Basically, you have three types of mission: holistic, home-schooling, and piecemeal.
Comment: Gender segregation has no foundation in Islam. This question has not yet been settled in America. In Europe, the trend seems to be more toward single-gender schools. Some talk about it in America (in the literature). Some problems are due to the teacher’s culture/background.
Q: You said that there were no clear patterns vis-à-vis gender bias. How did you form your focus groups?
A: A clear pattern is defined as at least 50 percent of participants agreeing. Certain students would provide anecdotes about discrimination and other things, but there was never more than a 50 percent agreement on the interpretation. So, I could not say that there was a pattern. I contacted the schools two weeks before I went there. I did a random stratified sample. For the gender-segregated focus groups, I got a letter of consent and took only those who agreed to participate. Because I wear hijab, the girls opened up immediately. It took the boys a while longer to do so. All of our discussions were confidential.
Q: What weight did you give to the individual interviews and the focus groups.
A: I talked to those who agreed to participate. The questions were practically the same. Using focus groups is better for this kind of research, because the participants can remind others of events that had happened.
Q: Many different things are being mixed together under this term “gender.” From grades 1-5, coeducational settings are all right. But with sixth grade and the onset of puberty, “sex” enters the picture. Segregation would be great. But you have to face it in college and the university, not to mention the larger society. You have to prepare the kids for this reality. Separation is important during the formative years.
A: I find this attitude of coeducation strange. We do not have it in Palestine. “Gender” is different in different cultures.