Hi Anna
I've just had a quick run through a paper on the founding of Muslim Schools
in Sweden and thought I'd give you a short summary of it. However, first I
thought I'd give you a Swedish answer to your question about:

Is there anybody from a field other
than Anthropology in this list?

Most of the education-ethnographers on the Swedish list are from education
research deparetments with some from sociology and cultural  studies
departments rather than anthropology departments. The anthropologists (and
ethnologists) who know about us tend to see us as only being concerned with
issues of applied anthropology and only then peripheral to the diciplinse
of anthropology and ethnography. The bigger list on mail base also carries
alot of names of people from education research. Both list owners are from
education research departments. I am also from an education research
department. So my guess is that most people on the list are not from
departments of anthropology.


Is multiculturalism an issue at all?
Here's the summary I mentioned. Guadalupe Francia, 1998: Can the Islamic
private schools be an instrument to reach the claim of equal education?
/Islamiska skolor: En väg till likvärdig utbildning?/.

The paper addresses Islamic private schools recently approved by the
National Agency of Education in Sweden and the possible the conflicts
within the claim of equality and the claim of freedom in the 1994s reform
of the Swedish school, the conflicts of values between the Islamic schools
themselves and between the schools and the National Agency of Education,
the local education authorities (who often oppose the schools) and the
National Curriculum.

The schools often indicated issues like to preserve, promote and reinforce
the Islamic and Arabic culture heritage/identity and the Arabic language as
the needs and motivation for establishing the school, and knowledge of the
Arabic language was stated by all the schools as a necessary condition to
understand, preserve and promote the Islamic cultural heritage.However,
eleven schools gave "to integrate Muslim children in to the Swedish
society" as a reason or similarly "to build the pupils double identity as
Swedish and Muslim". Nine schools stated the will to promote the pupils
bilinguism. These things indicate the ways in which perhaps the "normal
school" (i.e. Swedish grundskolan) is seen to be failing the Islamic
Community by community members.

Municipalities have generally oopsed the foundation of Muslim Schools. This
may be for economic and or policital reasons. However, the National Agency
for Schools has granted the grounding of 22 Muslim schools in the last five
years. The author of the aritcle (Guadalupe Francia) feels the conflict
between the National Agency of Education and the municipalities can be
interpreted in terms of the support for free choice discourse being
stronger at the central level of educational authorities (National Agency
of Education) than at the municipal level. This seems to be something
common at the moment in Swedish Education where the discourse of freedom of
choice is more important that the discourse of equality where there are
real worries about consequences of segregation of these schools.

A lengthier summary of the article can be found in Pedagogisk Forskning i
Sverige, Vol 3, No 3, pp 192-210. Stockholm ISSN 1401-6788

>From a sunny Monday morning in Gbg. Sweden:
Best regards: Dennis




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