Social-Cultural and Educational Challenges Encountered By the Newcomers Libyan Students in English Schools

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW1

Introduction1

Socio-Cultural Challenges faced by the Students3

Coping with being an Immigrant3

British Schools and Muslim Students5

Migrant Students8

Educational Challenges9

Role of the Teacher11

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY15

Research Design15

Data Collection Methods17

Participant Observations17

Semi-structured Interviews18

Data analysis18

REFERENCES20

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

To begin this chapter, it is important to briefly note the background that highlights the Muslim population of the UK and the circumstances that led to increased Muslim immigrants from the Arab nations to the UK, and how the young children of these immigrants are now facing different challenges in their new schools in Britain. Gallis (2005) notes that the United Kingdom is home to over 1.6 million Muslims out of the total population of 60 million, as mentioned in the country's 2001 population census. The majority of the UK Muslim population belongs to the former British colonies of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. It was in the 1950's and 60's reform of the governments immigration and labour policies that attracted many Muslim workers from these countries, as well as from other states around the world, making them the largest religious minority in the UK. As per the 2001 consensus, over forty-six percent of the Muslims living in Great Britain today are British born. Similarly, according to some experts if the number of illegal immigrants and undocumented asylum seekers are too included in the figures then the total population of Muslims can cross over two million in number. Despite being one of the largest religious minorities in the UK, Muslims are faced with problems and concerns governing religious extremism and the consequent acts of discrimination and prejudice by the authorities and the public.

According to Ansari (2002), the misrepresentation and the discrimination faced by Muslims in the UK go far before the September 2001 attacks in New York, an event after which Muslims all over the world were termed largely as extremists and terrorists by the western media and politicians. Where on one hand Islam has proven itself as being dynamic and adapting efficiently to the changing socio-cultural and economic factors leading to great diversity, similarly, the western mindset and religious views have stigmatized Islam in such a manner; such as being fanatical, irrational and violent, that the resultant perception stands of no true value in ordinary Muslim lives. The situation become so worse that Muslims of different ages and backgrounds were targeted to acts of violence and torture, of which many instances and cases were not reported out of fear of reprisal. Conversely, Reed (2005) notes that the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, seeing the rising hateful sentiments against Muslims noted that the September 11 attacks is not related to Islam or Muslims, and hence they should not be targeted in such a way. However, the mainstream media continued to highlight Muslims as fanatics and propagated for the bombings of such radical Islamic fundamentalists. Moreover, increasingly different stereotypes also stemmed up through the media's portrayal of the Muslims, which put their lives and social standing in ...