Materials for Learning

Common recurring narratives in curricula in the United States, mostly told through textbooks, often occlude as much as they reveal. Broad categories used to frame learning assume monolithic simplicities rather than complex heterogeneous, multi-ethnic and multi-religious realities both in the subjects and objects of learning. While categories may serve as organizing tools they also generate and reinforce fixed notions that may inappropriately 'Other' communities of color. For example, this oversimplification often results in the conflation of the Middle East with the history of Islam.

Curricula and learning resources that better accounts for the diversity of people, traditions, and religious expressions of the Muslim World, would assist students and teachers alike in understanding both how the formation of those categories reflects subjective viewpoints and traditions as well as provide them with a more nuanced understanding of the linguistic, economic and historical realities of a large and diverse part of the world.