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The Discourse(s) of Promoting Islamic Schooling on YouTube in the American Context
Abstract
Private Islamic schooling has become part of the wider U.S. education system as their numbers have started to increase within the last two decades. Currently there are about 300 full time K-12 Islamic schools across 39 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Contrary to their preferred inconspicuous image in the past (Kearney, “To Ease Fears,”, 2017), these institutions are now outspoken about who they are, what they do, and why they exist. Most of them produce social media content by exhibiting their daily activities and success stories for promotional purposes on various platforms such as YouTube. At first glance, those videos may seem to have been produced with the intention of attracting new students/parents. However, they also consist of a unique narrative exemplifying “what matters to Muslim Americans” (e.g. safety, identity, socio-academic success, marginalization) so that their perpetuation in the wider American society can be assured as an overarching component. Examining such a narrative is the main focus of this study. Accordingly, I ask how discourse in action (visuals, images, etc.) and discourse as action (spoken language) is constructed to promote Islamic schools of the U.S. on YouTube. I use the following sub-questions to help explicate this: How do they incorporate religion into their educational discourse? What key issues dominate their rhetoric to advertise Islamic education in the wider American educational context? What are the visual elements of their mediated discourse that represent who they are? The research data consists of a 2-phased-transcription of the spoken language and of the mediated visual content shown of about 130 promotional YouTube videos that have been produced since 2010 (over 13 hours in length). By applying Critical Discourse Analysis, I use this data to analyze the nexus of their educational practice in the form of self-representation through understanding of the complexity of interrelationships between the speakers, their positionality, visuals shown, institutional structures presented, the intended audience, and the use of the selected vocabulary. Despite being a work in progress, my findings so far indicate that the narrative in these videos are constructed to serve two main purposes; to increase their enrollment and to present Islamic Schools as a safe environment where young Muslim Americans can feel included as they learn how to respond to the socio-cultural challenges of being a religious minority in the U.S. in the long term through construction of a religiously secure self.
Discipline
Education
Geographic Area
North America
Sub Area
Education