Peer-reviewed article
Social justice and care for the world – adopting a critical view in religious education
Mogra I ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This is a curriculum analysis paper examining how three religious education programmes in Britain teach Muslim children about social justice. The study uses documentary analysis to understand the structural features, aims and content of maktab (Islamic) education curricula. The research finds that these curricula promote prosocial values at both individual and broader societal levels.
Key points
- The study addresses a research gap by providing systematic examination of primary maktab education curricula in the British context
- Analysis focuses on how concepts of justice and injustice are taught to Muslim children
- The curricula examined instil prosocial values at micro (individual) and macro (societal) levels
- Study uses documentary thematic and descriptive analysis of curriculum materials
Limitations
This is a curriculum analysis document that describes what is taught rather than evaluating actual child outcomes or the effectiveness of instruction. It does not measure whether children actually adopt these values or how the teaching impacts their behaviour or well-being.
Abstract
Maktab education serves many purposes. It provides the substantive knowledge thought to be compulsory for Muslim pupils. Its functional role is to enable them, through varied learning processes, to embody elements of their faith and live as Muslims. Hitherto, systematic attention to curricula in primary maktab education has been rare. This ground-breaking research makes an original contribution to this under-researched area. It examines three curricula operative in the British context. In part, it presents findings on the structural and organizational features, aims and objectives of learning, pedagogical snippets and the taught content. However, the focus is on discerning matters related to the conception of social justice by addressing questions such as what Muslim children are taught about justice and injustice from a vertical and horizontal plane. Documentary thematic and descriptive analysis will be applied to simplify the content, identify patterns, determine contexts, and gain a better understanding of these teachings. The findings suggest that these curricula instil prosocial values ostensibly at the micro-level and, to some degree, at the macro level.