Language: English

ISSN: 0449-3486

Abstract/Notes: As prototypes for new forms of education, public and private alternative schools have much to offer regular schools in the way of new ideas. This paper provides an overview of alternative schools and the options available. Alternative schools are characterized by a more selected student body, a smaller and less bureaucratic structure, values derived from within the school community, holistic student work, and a recognition of the school-survival issue. The basic educational frameworks within the array of public alternative school options are identified: (1) the traditional approach; (2) the nontraditional and nongraded approach; (3) schools that focus on the development of student abilities; (4) schools that emphasize techniques for delivering education (rather than philosophy); (5) schools with community-based organizing principles; (6) the self-directed, Montessori-like environment; (7) schools that are intentionally structured for particular student groups; and (8) subcontracted arrangements. In conclusion, alternative schools are flexible and able to respond to students' various needs. (LMI)

Language: English

Published: Houston, Texas: University Council for Educational Administration, Oct 1993

Pages: 19 p.

Language: English

ISSN: 1941-0646

Abstract/Notes: This dissertation accounts for debates around correct American Muslim mothering in the 21st century. It centers around the following underlying questions: What advice do Muslim modernists and Sunni ʿulamāʾ offer to mothers for raising Muslims in the limited, privatized spaces of their nurseries, homes, and mosque communities? How do Muslim mothers who desire to rear children communally, in harmony with their fiṭra (innate nature) and according to traditional notions of tarbiya (development, education) accomplish this as religious minorities in a hyper capitalist, secular modern context? What are the different ways that mothers negotiate the ideas of Muslim advice-givers, which sometimes clash both internally and with the diverse opinions of American pediatricians, psychologists, and neuroscientists? This study considers the nuanced impact secular modernity, feminism, and the expanding authority of the medical and psy disciplines have had on American Muslim child-rearing practices, reconfigurations of gender roles in Muslim families and the intergenerational transmission of American Islam. To gauge this impact, this dissertation narrowly focuses on two highly contested decisions mothers make in early childhood: how to feed infants after birth and whether to corporally punish young children. The data for this project was collected from in-depth fieldwork interviews with a diverse sample of Muslim mothers conducted in 2017 in the city of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. This data was analyzed by situating the types of religious and parenting education mothers had both received and sought out and by surveying the Islamic scriptural and jurisprudential texts, contemporary childrearing manuals, and social media sources that informed their child-rearing practices. This dissertation found that most mothers were much more likely to formula feed or breastfeed their infants themselves than allow other mothers to nurse their children. None of my interlocutors engaged wet nurses or used donated human milk for infant feeding. Additionally, most mothers disapproved of using corporal punishment for children’s discipline, either by themselves or others in loco parentis. Corporal punishment of children was increasingly viewed not as one method among many to cultivate children’s embodiment of ritual practices, but as child abuse. However, a minority of mothers demonstrated an openness to sharing milk and employing constrained forms of physical discipline in specific circumstances. In investigating the ever-shifting child-rearing advice from religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ), non-Muslim scientific experts, and a hybridized class of Muslim parent educators, this dissertation offers another avenue for understanding the fragmented nature of religious authority in American Muslim communities. It contributes to the growing body of scholarship that tracks the rising popularity of Sunnī rationalism and traditionalism by noting the way it attracts mothers who long for styles of parenting that are more shared and communal and less demanding and intensive. Finally, this dissertation affords insights into ongoing contestation over what constitutes correct, ethical tarbiya and how best to integrate and transmit American Islam

Language: English

Published: Chicago, Illinois, 2023

Language: Italian

Language: Italian

Published: Milano: Dante Alighieri, 1932

Language: English

Language: English

Language: English

Published: New York, New York: American Montessori Society, 1972

Language: English

Published: New York, New York: American Montessori Society, 1980