Islamofobi, kritisk reflektion och religionsundervisning

Research output

Complete citation

Poljarević, Emin, Susanne Olsson, Ulrika Svalfors, and Malin Löfstedt. “Islamofobi, kritisk reflektion och religionsundervisning.” In Didaktisk dialog i högre utbildning, edited by Magnus Levinsson, Lill Langelotz, and Malin Löfstedt, 65–84. Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2021.

Status

Published (2021)

Publication type

Scholarly book chapter in higher-education didactics

Overview

This Swedish-language chapter examines how university teaching about religion can address Islamophobia while sustaining critical reflection and academically responsible dialogue. It considers the pedagogical difficulty of discussing contested representations of Islam when students enter the classroom with unequal experiences, established assumptions, and different relationships to the subject. The chapter connects critical reflection with concrete teaching practices that make implicit norms, stereotypes, and power relations available for examination without suspending scholarly standards. It treats the classroom as a space in which knowledge about religion is produced through encounters between course material, teachers, and students. Its contribution is a collaborative didactic framework for addressing Islamophobia as both an object of study and a condition that can shape classroom interaction, interpretation, and participation.

Research question or central concern

How can higher-education teaching about Islam and religion confront Islamophobia while fostering critical reflection, scholarly rigour, and constructive classroom dialogue?

Main argument, approach, and contribution

The chapter combines critical analysis with reflective teaching practice. It argues that Islamophobia must be addressed not only as external subject matter but also as a set of assumptions and power relations that can enter the classroom. Its contribution is a dialogical approach that makes these conditions examinable while protecting analytical complexity.

Keywords

Islamophobia; religious education; higher education; critical reflection; didactics; classroom dialogue; Islam