EDU2205 Book Review: Suma Din's Muslim Mothers and Schooling

This report provides a critical review of Suma Din's book, "Muslim Mothers and Their Children's Schooling," focusing on the experiences of Muslim women from diverse backgrounds in the UK and their interactions with the education system. The review examines the book's central themes, including the challenges faced by Muslim mothers related to language barriers, cultural differences, and societal prejudices, particularly concerning issues like sex and relationship education (SRE) and the Prevent strategy. The review analyzes the book's strengths, such as its inclusion of a wide range of voices and its in-depth exploration of the mothers' perspectives on their children's education. It also highlights the book's weaknesses, such as limitations in data collection and potential biases. The review concludes that the book effectively sheds light on the struggles of Muslim women and their fight for equal treatment, addressing issues of Islamophobia and xenophobia, and providing valuable insights into the experiences of minority communities within the education system. The reviewer also references the assignment brief, mentioning that the review builds upon the group presentation, deepening the analysis and incorporating key themes from the module, EDU2205: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

Running head: EDUCATION STUDIES
Education Studies
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author’s Note

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Muslim Mothers and their Children’s schooling by Suma Din
Introduction
Muslim Mothers and their Children’s schooling is a book written by Suma Din where
around 50 Islamic women were interviewed who stated their opinion about various factors
pertaining to them including choice of schools, hijab, religious festivals, the curriculum, sex and
relationship education and many more. This is an important book which focusses on various
issues especially that of the parent child relationship of Muslim women who have African, Arab
and Asian backgrounds (Din 2017). This review will shed light on the various nitty-gritties of the
book and its contribution towards literature.
Thesis
The novel revolves around the story of Muslim women who have difficulty in expressing
their problems due to language barriers, ethnicity and religion. This particular community has
experienced several prejudices and discrimination all over the world, which resulted in providing
them with a different societal status that ultimately have an effect on their perspective towards
life (Din 2017). The main points covered in this book are the discrimination of the schools on the
basis of gender, race and ethnic backgrounds, and the legal laws pertaining to it. It also explores
the outlook of the media and the portraying of the Muslim minority women in the public
imagination. The other part covered by the book is the interview of 53 women from different
backgrounds who shared their experiences with their children and their decision to send them
while sending them to schools.
The mothers, in their interview, spoke about the struggles and their various experiences
they faced being the members of Islamic community. They also shared how they face

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complications which arise from language barriers, SRE and the PVE policy. Along with that, the
book also aims to explore the unanswered questions and closing questions done by the mothers
during the interviews.
It is also important to mention that the research conducted in the book is of 5 different
location around the UK like Yorkshire, West London, East London, South East of England, and
East Midlands at various places like schools, community centers, study groups and coffee
mornings (Din 2017). It helped the women feel comfortable and speak out their experience while
feeling relaxed. The participants’ lifestyle and priorities were mainly family, childcare and
employment which helped in the research process to be more inclusive (Jamal Al-deen and
Windle 2017). Moreover, it provided the opportunity to the researcher to have an insight into the
households of common Muslim women and the struggles faced by them.
Body
In my opinion, the book has successfully portrayed the struggles of the Muslim women
community and their fight in bringing up their kids in schools and academic institutions. In this
analysis, a critical evaluation on the strength and weakness of the book will be done. The strong
point of the book comprises the wide range of participants involved in the interview. It includes
mothers of different ages and relationship status who were able to shed light into the matter from
different perspectives (Jamal Al-deen and Windle 2017). The researcher also took the additional
step to conduct the interview at home setting when the participants were unable to attend it in
any community area. It allowed the entire interview process to happen at the convenience of the
women community without any judgment which could have made them uncomfortable. Also,
during the interview process, they were given clear instructions in the form of leaflets and ethical
considerations. It cleared their barrier of communication. Moreover, the interview was also

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conducted with great understanding of religious commitment which helped the Muslim
community women to speak out. It was an essential step as it enabled them to open up without
the fear of judgment.
Apart from the strengths, there are some loopholes attached to the research. For instance,
some of the interviewees were less in three to four location which veiled the data collection. The
time taken by the researcher was also more as they faced many challenges pertaining to the areas
they live. The women also could not have an open ended discussion with the interviewers due to
the background difference of the researchers and the searchers. They also might have felt
intimidated on labelling themselves as “Muslim Mothers”.
By reading the entire story, it can be said that there are certain prejudices and
discrimination done towards Muslim community. Their opinion regarding matters like sex and
relationship education was quite conservative in approach as they felt uncomfortable discussing
it with their children. 24 mothers expressed their difficulty in teaching their children about SRE.
One of them also pointed out that the school authorities did not communicate with them before
starting to impart them education regarding SRE (Jamal Al-deen and Windle 2017). Alongside, a
few mothers were also in the affirmative of sex education and the appreciated the efforts of
schools.
Regarding the PVE or preventing violent extremism strategy, the mothers explain their
concern as it is a preventive method of the UK schools against terrorism. They are intimidated
due to the fact that the portrayal of their culture by the media is often negative, which might
affect their children at school. They are also concerned about their children getting exposed to
these negative beliefs and information flow in the social media which might change their
perspective about certain things (Din 2017). Moreover, the mothers expressed their concerns for

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the educational development of the children as they were the minority communities of the place.
This book also successfully captures the opinions of the mothers about motherhood and their
perspective from their religion. It helps the readers to understand their struggles of living as the
minority community in a country. The opinions of these mothers also served as an important
doorway to certain questions as they are away from the public discourses. Their voices also need
to be heard, and their fears should also be acknowledged for the sake of minority human rights
(Din 2017). Their opinions about child care and educational development were also taken into
consideration where they shared their concerns. Most importantly, it reflected the problems they
face while communicating with the teacher. This also hindered them to communicate with the
teachers often. All the problems have been acknowledged in the book which aims to improve
their situations.
Conclusion
In reference to the above analysis, it can be concluded that the book Muslim Mothers and
their Children’s schooling by Suma Din has essentially showed one of the important social
aspects which needs to be heard. The struggles of the Muslim community women were often
ignored and the problems were denied. This particular work aims to educate the people about the
struggles and pains of the Muslim community. The author also tried to be the voices of these
women where they face discrimination and racial prejudices. Therefore, this book, in my
opinion, has shed light into an important perspective, and addressed issues like Islamophobia and
Xenophobia. They have the right to get equal treatment irrespective of race, culture and religion.
All these issues have been successfully portrayed by the author which would give the other
researchers to explore more on the subject. It is an important book which provides important
information from an immigrants’ perspective on the society and culture.

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References
Din, S., 2017. Muslim Mothers and Their Children's Schooling. Trentham Books.
Jamal Al-deen, T. and Windle, J., 2017. ‘I feel sometimes I am a bad mother’: The affective
dimension of immigrant mothers’ involvement in their children’s schooling. Journal of
Sociology, 53(1), pp.110-126.