In our last workshop on faith, religion and belief, and through conversations with peers, I came to realise how institutional norms continue to shape – and often restrict – how belief and identity are recognised in education. Our discussions around positionality made me reflect more critically on how technical teaching, too, is embedded within these structures. It is not neutral. In adapting to students’ needs, I now recognise my adaptability not only as a teaching strategy but as a political act, one that challenges normative expectations and seeks to centre difference as a pedagogical resource.
This realisation is also reflected in Ramadan’s (2021) article, where they explore how hijab-wearing Muslim women academics are subject to gendered Islamophobia, with their beliefs pathologised and rendered incompatible with institutional norms. Similarly, McKeown and Dunn (2021) argue that ethical vegans must often prove the seriousness of their convictions in legal settings – a process that delegitimises belief systems that fall outside dominant worldviews. Both readings speak to bell hooks’ concept of marginality as a site of resistance, as discussed in Fitts (2011), which challenges us to embrace discomfort as a site of possibility, not failure.
Our conversations also touched on institutional data, with questions about who is included, how information is gathered, and how flawed data can misrepresent lived experience. As one peer put it, institutions can be transformed by one student—but only if systems are built to listen. Kozleski (2016) reminds us that social justice education is not just about changing people; it’s about challenging the systems that reify inequality. This also relates with the call by Joseph-Salisbury and Connelly (2021) for education to go beyond awareness and actively inspire students to be part of change. Jawad (2022) offers a practical application of this in sport, urging institutional reform to create spaces where visibly Muslim women are welcomed, not merely accommodated.
These reflections are also prompting me to think more critically about faith and religion. Having grown up in a religious-oriented education that led me to distance myself from organised belief, I’ve tended to hold religion at arm’s length. Yet, as an educator, I’m beginning to recognise the importance of stepping beyond that discomfort.
Embracing belief in educational spaces enables the fostering of inclusive and daring learning spaces. It invites a shift: to hold space where faith, religion, and belief are not just tolerated, but recognised as vital dimensions through which transformation can begin. A crucial part of existing collaboratively and co-creating spaces of justice, where discomfort, belief, and identity are not viewed as obstacles, but as entry points for meaningful change.
References:
Fitts, S. (2011) ‘Theorizing transformative and revolutionary praxis through the lens of bell hooks’, Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education, 11(2), pp. 71–88.
Jawad, H. (2022) ‘Islam, Women and Sport: The Case of Visible Muslim Women’, LSE Religion and Global Society, 22 September. Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2022/09/islam-women-and-sport-the-case-of-visible-muslim-women/.
Joseph-Salisbury, R. and Connelly, L. (2021) Anti-Racist Scholar-Activism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 150–155.
Kozleski, E.B. (2016) ‘Reifying categories: Measurement in search of understanding’, DisCrit: Critical Conversations across Race, Class, & Dis/ability’, Teachers College Press, pp. 101-115. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308787505_Reifying_categories_Measurement_in_search_of_understanding
McKeown, P. and Dunn, R.A. (2021) ‘A ‘Life-Style Choice’ or a Philosophical Belief?: The Argument for Veganism and Vegetarianism to be a Protected Philosophical Belief and the Position in England and Wales’, Liverpool Law Review, 42(2), pp. 207–240.
Ramadan, I. (2021) ‘When Faith Intersects with Gender: The Challenges and Successes in the Experiences of Muslim Women Academics’, Gender and Education, 34(1), pp. 34–36.
Additional readings:
https://tns-gssi.newschool.org/2022/02/23/how-to-radically-transform-society-with-bell-hooks