Faith Part 3: Case study

In the Stimulus Paper ‘Religion in Higher Education’, Modood and Calhoun identify some of the changes to religion in public life the UK over recent decades. One of the features of this which both authors agree on is the increase in visibility of Islam in society since 9/11 due mainly to politicians, the media and faith groups and charities raising awareness about Islam.[1] Some of the implications of this have been very complex and are mentioned in the Stimulus paper as: increasing importance of Muslim faith among young people; Islam becoming prominent in public affairs; fear of extremism a “major and distorting issue” in which “Muslims are disproportionately targeted”[2] Islam an object of public anxiety. I read the Shades of Noir (SoN) case study in this context, having just read the Stimulus paper previously.

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The SoN case study on faith highlights a situation in which a female, Muslim student of Iranian origin was left feeling “under attack” by her peers in an educational setting. A discussion about artwork which depicted her wearing a hijab spiralled into a situation where prejudiced views, for example, that she must have been forced to wear a hijab and stereotypes of Islamic women as sexually oppressed, were allowed to escalate with the subject of terrorism becoming part of the conversation as well.

There are a range of problems in the case that arose: firstly, a tutor who, in the very first week of term, had declared to her students that she was an atheist without creating an opportunity for her students to discuss or share their own faith beliefs or ideas about religion. For students, lecturers are privileged authority figures who also represent the face of the university for students. From the description of the case, it appears that the tutor declared her view that religions were ‘manmade constructs’ in a hierarchical manner from a position of power enabling her to have ‘the final word’. To make matters worse, this was the first week of term and likely one of the first, if not the first, encounters with this member of staff that her students will have experienced. I would imagine that the student concerned will have found this an intimidating and excluding meeting. In the first week of term most students would probably have been feeling nervous, especially when first meeting their tutor. The statement of the tutor’s atheism, and the manner in which it was delivered to her students, will have set the tone for subsequent discussions.

The situation in the case study further reveals a problem in the handling of the discussion: it failed to interrogate or challenge prejudice and stereotyping when the direction of the discussion was becoming apparent. At this point there was a missed opportunity for a genuine learning experience where media and visual stereotypes could have been explored. If the situation had been handled more skilfully by the tutor, I think an art college environment would be a very good opportunity to do this. Furthermore, a sensitive and adept handling of the discussion could have supported the student in talking about her artwork and the responses of the group and ‘demystify’ their perceptions or unconscious bias. However, the encounter the tutor had with students in the first week of term makes such an approach unlikely, if not impossible, as a very different style of pedagogy was evident in the phrase “left no room for discussion”. Hence the student seems to have been ‘abandoned’ in the discussion by a member of staff who had made her views clear in the very first week. To what extent did this create an atmosphere, or style of teaching, in which the rest of the students felt that it was permissible to talk like this?

The case study includes the information that the discussion “turned very quickly”. It’s possible, in a bustling college setting, that more than one person could have started speaking at once, as well as at speed. The casual informality of studio environments, as opposed to a lecture theatre or seminar room, could have also contributed to laissez faire attitudes on the part of the students as well as the tutor. However, this could have been avoided by the tutor adopting a different style of pedagogy from the outset but also by setting some ‘ground rules’ for meetings such as this, and if this were agreed from the beginning, it could have stopped the situation turning very quickly. I believe there is no harm in a pause during discussion in which everyone has a few moments to think or reflect before speaking. 

In other words, my immediate thoughts when reading the case were that a ‘safe space’ had not been created. The resources offered by SoN about how to create a safe space are very useful. Inclusion of a diverse range of artists in a curriculum with the names offered by SoN would help too. My final thoughts on reading the case were: did the tutor ever even know, or come to realise, that the student had been left distressed in this way? Did the student stay on the course? The case, therefore, raises the more general issue of the importance of creating a welcoming environment in which each and every student can feel that they belong.

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The case study also raises serious implications for the college or university institution given that the 2010 Equality Act made religion a protected characteristic as the student in the case study is Muslim. Moreover, there are other intersectional features of the student’s identity: she is also both female and Iranian which add other dimensions to this which also both fall under the categories of a protected characteristics. In the Stimulus paper by Modood and Calhoun, I learnt that in recent years the intertwining of “racial and religious stereotyping in the perception of others” has become a growing issue and is seen “most notably in the phenomenon of Islamophobia”.[3] Or put another way, that Muslims have been “racialised…as if they were a racial group”[4] The paper implicates the media and public discourse in this.

Furthermore, the case study raises the issue of Islamophobia. In a talk late last year, Tariq Modood addressed precisely how Islamophobia might be identified.[5]

Tariq Modood’s 5 tests for determining Islamophobia

Does it stereotype Muslims by assuming they all think the same?

Is it about Muslims or a dialogue with Muslims, which they would wish to join in?

Is mutual learning possible?

Is the language civil and contextually appropriate?

Insincere criticism for ulterior motives?

The subject of Modood’s talk was to distinguish reasonable criticism from Islamophobia and he acknowledges that it is not a litmus test, and that discourse can have a mixed character. Following his 5 tests for the case study I would conclude that this was Islamophobia.

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[1] Calhoun, C. & Modood, T. ‘Religion, the public sphere and higher education’ in Religion in Britain: Challenges for Higher Education, 2015, London: Leadership Foundation for Higher Education

[2] Ibid, p. 16

[3] Ibid, p. 11

[4] Ibid. p. 12

[5] Modood, T. Distinguishing Islamophobia from Reasonable Criticism, 19 November 2020 for MEND (Muslim Engagement & Development) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZd-wSUNGnw