I was a full-time high school teacher, teaching English, Philosophy, and Social Sciences in an Islamic school in Toronto, when I observed how Arab/Muslim students led a life of conformity at school, which was meant to be an extension of their lifestyle at home, but did not necessarily define who they really are. As most of these Islamic schools demand a code of Islamic conformity, some of the students behaved differently outside school and home as they sought social acceptance; therefore, they would âdevelop a double personality; with one side tailored to the social/cultural demands of home and family, the other to the demands of the outside worldâ (Zine, 2008, p. 4). In the school in which I was teaching, some students raised questions about the relevance of their culture or traditions to literature. Some of them were clearly sceptical of what their parents and teachers expected them to take for granted. They were equally unsure if the literary texts they were studying could be interpreted based on their ethical values and how they see themselves in the world. The gap between the studentsâ cultural background and the school curriculum was immense. I thus became interested in the possibilities of Muslim Canadian student responses to literary texts that are relevant to their personal experiences and ethnic identity. I wanted to explore how the Duboisian notion of double consciousness informs their responses and helps to conceptualize curriculum as cultural practice.
Purpose: Double Consciousness and Curriculum Practices
Drawing on Du Boisâs notion of double consciousness, and on postcolonial studies and reader response theory, this book explores how Arab-Canadian high school students negotiate living between two worlds when they encounter Anglophone Arab literature that addresses controversial issues. The study contributes to the scholarly literature that questions the dominant use of the European literary canon in contemporary secondary school curricula (Dimitriadis & McCarthy, 2001; Johnston, 2003). I use the term double consciousness to examine the encounter between one ethnic identity with another culture as it âsignifies the encounter, conflict, and/or blending of two ethnic or cultural categories which, while by no means pure and distinct in nature, tend to be understood and experienced as meaningful identity labels by members of these categoriesâ (Lo, 2002, p. 199). This book, therefore, uses the term as a designation for the ability to survive a life within non-complementary paradigms and to communicate this seeming incompatibility within the curricular landscape:
Ultimately, this study advocates culturally responsive teaching by infusing the notion of double consciousness into the curricular landscape and educational contexts, creating a âcontextual spaceâ or what Pratt (1991) calls âcontact zones,â examples of âsocial spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each otherâ (p. 34). In effect, this book explores curriculum possibilities as informed by this interaction between text and reader through culturally relevant praxis.A way to achieve this could be to focus on praxis â the ways in which we engage in cultural ways of being that represent a new and hybrid way of acting. A praxis that both breaks with the old and at the same time is a merger of the old; a contextual space that is filled with creative ways of being and acting that at the same time points forward and yet retains some of its old parts. (Sandset, 2011)
Since this book explores how the Arab diasporic condition resonates with the diasporic notion of African double consciousness, Gilroyâs The Black Atlantic (1993) is an important source text as it uses the same notion to explore encounters of one ethnic subject with another culture. The culture of the Arab diaspora, like that of the Black Atlantic, is the product of continuous historical and cultural processes, such as the colonizing powers moving eastward and the volatile postcolonial era. This project serves as an extension of the concept of double consciousness, rather than a departure from Du Boisâs interpretation. Viewed as such, this study offers insights into how Arab-Canadian consciousness resonates with the matrix of double consciousness.
Significance: The Cross-Cultural Educational Dimension
Arab immigrants have received relatively less academic attention than other minority groups in Canada. According to Statistics Canada (2007), âThe number of people in Canada of Arab origin is growing considerably faster than the overall population. Between 1996 and 2001, for example, the number of people who reported Arab origin rose by 27%, while the overall population grew by only 4%.â In terms of education, again according to Statistics Canada, âCanadians of Arab origin are twice as likely as other Canadians to have a university degree [and] are also more than twice as likely as their counterparts in the overall population to have a post-graduate degreeâ (Statistics Canada, n.d.). Moreover, Canadaâs 2011 Census âshows that the Canadian Arab community has increased in number from 563,315 in 2006 to 750, 925 in 2011 ⊠an increase of ⊠33.25% â and more than doubled the 368,530 Canadian Arab population of 2001â (Dajani, 2014). Most studies of Arab learners in Canada focus either on their language difficulties as English language learners or on their adjustment problems as they struggle to become part of the mainstream school community. Very few studies have been directed towards second-generation Arab studentsâ1 responses to literature and the problems they encounter in making meaning. For instance, in his dissertation Educational and Cultural Adjustment of Ten Arab Muslim Students in Canadian University Classrooms, Abukhattala (2004) agreed that âArab Canadians are a heterogeneous and frequently misunderstood group whose educational background and cultural heritage have received little attention in the scholarly literatureâ (p. ii) and thus examined âthe cross cultural and educational experiences of ten Arab undergraduate students in two English-language universities in Montrealâ (p. ii). Moreover, in Canadian Islamic Schools: Unravelling the Politics of Faith, Knowledge, and Identity, Zine (2008) identified tensions inherent in religiously based schools in Canada. Zineâs study contributed to explorations of the sociological and ideological alternatives to public schooling by pointing out that Islamic schools protect students from unfavourable social influences by providing them with an appropriate Islamic path that represents a âreproduction of Islamic identity and lifestyleâ (2008, p. 95).
This book contributes to a better understanding of these studentsâ cross-cultural identity and educational experiences and how that understanding helps us envision pedagogical practices and an inclusive curriculum. It also helps to introduce a set of emerging Anglophone Arab writers whose literary works are relevant to the English Language Arts curriculum in an increasingly growing multicultural society, especially in Canada. I interviewed Arab students, asking them questions about short stories written by Anglophone Arab authors, which the students selected from a list that I provided for them. This empirical aspect of the study is part of my examination of how double consciousness resonates with the insights, predicaments, or misconceptions that determine the diasporic condition of Arab-Muslims, which may ultimately generate radical views and antagonize their sense of belonging.
I asked the students questions about living between two worlds based on how reading culturally centred literature resonates with their personal experience. The interviewees were Arab-Muslim high school students in grades 9â12. Five of the eight students interviewed were female and three were male. I would like to note that I did not question the participants about the theoretical notion of doubleness; rather, we talked about issues of duality, radical views of or against Islam, and being caught between two worlds, without any specific recourse to the Duboisian theoretical notion of double consciousness.
The concept of double consciousness in the negotiation of identity is crucial to the nature of this study, especially in its capacity to converse with culture and language and inform reader-response pedagogy: âThis multi-dimensional nature of identity, and its mutations across disciplinary boundaries and theoretical paradigms, makes it difficult to account for its meaningâ (Suleiman, 2003, p. 5). I share Suleimanâs concern about excessively engaging in the wide sea of identity rhetoric and politics: âIt is therefore not my intention to contrive a concept of identity which can be applied uniformly throughout the present study. This is not possible; and, at any rate, such a task is beyond my competenceâ (p. 5). I have thus been consciously aware of how to use the data I have coll...