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

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

MA

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

2 October 2023

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 your academic formation and your personal and professional development.

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 open to mainstream education practitioners who wish to deepen their knowledge and understanding of Islam, facilitate critical Islam literacy and be able to respond effectively to the educational 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 pedagogy which facilitates student engagement through strategies of self-organised 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 such as educational reform, gender gap in educational leadership within national educational systems of global Muslim societies
• 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

For full-time students, all of our modules are delivered in-person at our well-equipped university campus. Part-time students are able to complete a percentage of their modules as asynchronous distance-learning modules.

Most modules include weekly teaching sessions, giving you the opportunity to join with your colleagues to discuss and debate the topics being explored. These sessions are delivered in a range of formats that suit the module (these may include lectures, seminars, group work and practical workshops, for example). In addition, you will be given various pre- and post- session tasks and readings to support your learning.

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

Our module reading lists are 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 pageLink opens in a new window.

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 Islamic Education programme.

• Band B
• IELTS score to 7 overall, no more than two components at 6.0/6.5 & rest 7.0+

There are no additional entry requirements for this course.

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.

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 (alternative online module available for part-time students if required)

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.

Dissertation

The dissertation is an opportunity to explore, in depth, an area of academic and/or professional interest related to your degree. Building on the knowledge and skills developed during the Research Methods module, and your other modules, you will conduct an independent research project, developing a deeper understanding of your chosen topic. From your research project, you will produce a dissertation, with guidance from a supervisor who will be allocated to you. Through the dissertation, you will demonstrate the ability to analyse and synthesise relevant literature, produce coherent arguments supported by relevant evidence and logical discussion, and acknowledge sources of ideas and information.

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.Link opens in a new window

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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