Explore our Islamic Education: Theory and Practice, taught Master's degree.

TEQA-X3V7; TEQA-X3V9 (2 years); TEQA-X35S (3 years)

MA

1 year full-time; 2 or 2-3 years part-time

3 October 2022

Education Studies

University of Warwick

Islamic Education: Theory and Practice MA facilitates a critical dialogue between Western and Islamic approaches to education and enables teachers and Muslim educators to become research-based reflective practitioners. Join Warwick's flexible MA and engage with a transformative teaching and learning experience that nurtures academic, personal and professional formation.

The programme is designed for opening up professional development pathways for diverse groups of educational practitioners, Muslim educators and faith leaders who work within the context of formal and informal Islamic and general educational settings. The programme is also open to religious education practitioners who wish to deepen their knowledge and understanding of Islam and be able to respond effectively to the educational and spiritual needs of Muslim children and young people under their care.

Islamic Education is a new exciting interdisciplinary field of scholarly study, empirical research professional development. It has growing national and international interest among Muslim and wider education practitioners.

The programme enables students to develop critical academic competence in theory and practice of Islamic Education facilitating reflective practice among a specialist community of educational practitioners and researchers. Students will explore diverse perceptions of education and pedagogic practice in historical and contemporary Muslim societies, engage with modern educational theories, pedagogic models and develop essential research skills necessary to be able to identify personal areas of further research in the field. The course adopts an integrative approach to teaching leaning which facilitates student engagement through strategies of self-organised learning and blended learning i.e. combining online resources, platforms as well as face to face workshops, seminars and lectures.

The emphasis on the course will be on the importance of contemporary educational research into Islamic Education, especially research springing from the Social Sciences directed towards pedagogy and curriculum development. The course will enable students to develop the competence to ‘think educationally’ about Islam and critically examine the theory and practice of Islamic Education in the modern Muslim world and across the Muslim communities in the West.

Students will have the opportunity of critically examining the existing Islamic Education textbooks, curriculum and the syllabuses. Furthermore, they will discuss the educational challenges facing Muslim communities in the Western Diaspora with special reference to exploring the educational needs of Muslim youth. The course will critically examine how best to develop appropriate educational strategies to tackle religious extremism and address issues concerning the faith development of Muslim young people in Britain.

The course attracts a wider range of practitioners within the field of faith-based and religion-related practitioner education by explicitly identifying and responding to the professional development needs of practitioners engaged in Islamic Education. As such the programme, in a distinctive way, opens professional development pathways for diverse groups of Muslim educators, faith leaders and those who wish to engage with Islamic Education as an area of further academic development.

This programme will also be of interest to RE practitioners and teachers who are interested in improving their understanding of Islam and the educational needs of Muslim children and young people under their care.

Skills from this degree

• Critically analyse and explain the origins and sources of Muslim Educational thought and practice as well as evaluate critically current theory, literature, research, advanced scholarship and methodologies in Islamic Education, Islamic Pedagogy and Education Studies
• Identify and critically analyse the contemporary educational issues and challenges facing diverse Muslim communities in contemporary Muslim majority and minority communities
• Application of research skills in developing and evaluating scholarly and empirical research in Islamic Education
• Develop competence to identify areas of research and structure personal research interests and projects in the field
• Deal with complex issues both systematically and creatively, make sound judgements in the absence of complete data, and communicate their conclusions clearly to specialist and non-specialist audiences
• By adopting a learner-centred, inquiry-based delivery strategy, students will develop competence for reflective practice
• Demonstrate self-direction and originality in tackling and solving problems, and act autonomously in planning and implementing tasks at a professional or equivalent level

Depending on which term modules run, you will attend one or two 3-hour seminars each week during the Autumn and Spring Terms of modules plus research methods training lectures and seminars throughout all three terms.

If you are a part-time student the number of modules you take each term will depend on the length of your course. You will have one optional module to select in total. Depending on the modules you select, sessions consist of presentations, group discussions, case studies and self-study. Some modules are available online. Seminar group numbers vary depending on the modules that are selected.

Class Size

You will attend one or two 3-hour seminars each week during the Autumn and Spring Terms of modules plus research methods training lectures and seminars throughout all three terms.

Assessment types vary depending on modules selected but may be a mixture of assignments and oral presentations. You will also complete a dissertation based on an individual research project, with support from a member of academic staff.

Additional course costs

You may wish to undertake some research with children or young people that may require a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check or a Certificate of Good Conduct for students from outside of the UK. A DBS check costs around £70 and a Certificate of Good Conduct can vary in price.

Find out more about our additional course costs.

Reading lists

Most departments have reading lists available through Warwick Library. If you would like to view reading lists for the current cohort of students you can visit our Warwick Library web page.

Your timetable

Your personalised timetable will be complete when you are registered for all modules, compulsory and optional, and you have been allocated to your lectures, seminars and other small group classes. Your compulsory modules will be registered for you and you will be able to choose your optional modules when you join us.

2:ii undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in a related subject or successful completion of the Islamic Education PGA.

Minimum 3 years of teaching experience within formal and informal Muslim education settings. These institutions include Islamic faith-based schools, supplementary Mosque schools (Madrassahs), Islamic higher education institutions/Islamic study circles, chaplaincy and couching related youth work and community development centres. The candidates need obtain references from these institutions substantiating their formal and informal teaching and work experience relevant to the MA Is Ed programme.

• Band B
• IELTS score to 7 overall, two at 6.0/6.5 and rest 7.0+

There are no additional entry requirements for this course.

New Perspectives in Islamic Pedagogy

This module aims to enable students to engage critically with the concept of Islamic pedagogy through exploring historical formation of Islamic traditions of learning and teaching and assessing their contemporary applications in diverse educational settings. Students will be taught the principles of historical, cultural and pedagogic analysis in relation to selected texts, context(s) and topics in particular research projects in the inter-disciplinary field of Islamic Education.

Foundation Research Methods in Education (available online for part time study)

This module encourages students in understanding, designing and implementing research in the field of education. It will introduce you to a range of established research strategies and techniques, including data collection and analysis. These skills will enable you to design and carry out a dissertation research project, as well as to disseminate its findings. As part of this module, you will present your research design and have the opportunity to receive feedback ahead of completing your dissertation.

Foundations in Islamic Education

This module helps you to explore philosophical, historical and theological foundations of Islamic Education through engaging with modern educational theories and pedagogic models. You will develop knowledge, understanding and critical insights into the fundamentals of Islamic educational thought, practice and values and begin to form your own philosophy of education by critically engaging with both the Islamic and Western traditions of education thought and practice.

Dissertation

Optional modules

This programme has a number of optional modules to choose from. Our optional module lists are subject to change each year to keep the student learning experience current and up-to-date.

Find the most up-to-date optional module list on the Education Studies website.

This programme has a number of optional modules to choose from. Our optional module lists are subject to change each year to keep the student learning experience current and up-to-date.  

Find the most up-to-date optional module list on the Education Studies website.

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