. Pedagogical strategies in multicultural classrooms
3.1. Islam in the Swedish classroom
Through the arrival of refugees, one important change is that Islam today is the second largest religion in Sweden. There are about one billion Muslims in the world. Islam is a religion which extends over large geographical areas with numerous nations and cultures (Hjärpe, 1992). Therefore, considerable differences are recognized between Muslims regarding class, gender and language. There are also different directions and interpretations of Islam. Therefore, one cannot talk about Muslims and Islam as something fixed and stable. What exists, argues Hjärpe, are individuals, hundreds of millions, who each claims to be a Muslim, but their interpretation of what this means differs from one to another.
The differences within and between Muslim communities indicate that Muslims are not to be generalized as a homogeneous group in general and a religious group in particular. Some are believers and some are agnostics. But since humans tend to grasp for signs of continuity when changes in life, like exile, overwhelm them, many look for external markers to confirm their identity. Religious deeds and behaviors can, according to Gerle (1999), be used to mark religious or ethnic identity. The life in exile can strengthen the needs to express and practice Muslim traditions.
The cultural life of Muslims is based on a set of public practices endorsed by the Qur'an. Five prayer-times each day, associated views on sexuality, nudity and gender segregation, and special demands on cleanliness and diet, are ways in which Muslim and non-Muslim communities may differ. In the school, encounter between the Swedish secular culture and the Muslim culture, different values are challenged. New experiences and knowledge have been gained, and pedagogical models have been questioned. This has problematized the Swedish classroom.
Each culture apprehend its values as natural and reasonable. They are only questioned in meetings with other cultures. Visible cultural markers, such as how to dress, to greet each other and furnish the home are relatively easy to change. When it comes to differences concerning profound values, such as child fostering, education, family patterns, sexuality and gender roles, reconciliation becomes more difficult (Sjögren, 1992).
Before I continue, I will emphasize that there are knowledge and experiences among teachers in schools with a long tradition of multicultural classes, who have developed intercultural education from their daily practices. What is of interest in this text, is tendencies of how culture meetings are handled in school in general.
3.2. Masking differences
Several Swedish studies in multicultural schools find education arranged around a monocultural perspective (for example Lahdenperä, 1997; Runfors, 1995). In my class room study, based on fieldwork with two classes (respectively, 9 and 10 years old), only names and appearance indicated that at least 30% of the children in both classes had immigrant background, some with Muslim affiliation (Norberg, 1998). The only classroom symbols from another cultural context were Walt Disney posters.
This lack of cultural recognition was positive according to the teachers. Their arguments were that children want to be as `normal’ as possible. This `normality’ could help them to feel secure and `melt in to the group'. Highlighting cultural differences would risk revealing students’ feelings of difference, which the teachers wanted to avoid, a tendency also noticed by Lahdenperä (1998). This lack of cultural recognition was also normative, leaving students to be categorized as Swedes or immigrants.
The same tendencies were found in a German study of intercultural fostering and education where cultural differences were defused (Willman, 1995). Despite the presence of children with immigrant background, the minority cultures were made invisible in the German schools since the teachers did not want to recognize cultural differences. This homogenization can, according to Willman, be caused by institutional mechanisms such as teacher's working conditions, but also it may reflect an insecurity of how to handle cultural differences.
This insecurity has its roots in various explanations, argues Willman. It may be due to the lack of experience of how to respond to people from different cultural backgrounds. It may also be due to a fear of highlighting origins, since concepts such as national identity and national character are often associated with conservatism and right-winged ideologies, and of racism, exotism and Eurocentrism. Ethnic conflicts around the world reinforce a reluctance to engage with cultural differences.
To meet and educate children as if they are alike can be seen as a way to handle the cultural multiplicity. In my study, I found school-strategies which sought to mask differences by treating them as psychological rather than social and cultural variations.